OEDIPUS. You die if I must question you again.
THEBAN. Then, ‘twas a child of one in Laius’ house.
OEDIPUS. You mean a slave? Or someone of his kin?
THEBAN. God! I am on the verge of saying it.
OEDIPUS. And I of hearing it, but hear I must.
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THEBAN. His own, or so they said. But she within
Could tell you best—your wife—the truth of it.
OEDIPUS. What, did she give you it?
THEBAN. She did, my lord.
OEDIPUS. With what intention?
THEBAN. That I should destroy it.
OEDIPUS. Her own?—How could she?
THEBAN. Frightened by oracles.
OEDIPUS. What oracles?
THEBAN. That it would kill its parents.*
OEDIPUS. Why did you let it go to this man here?
THEBAN. I pitied it, my lord. I thought to send
The child abroad, whence this man came. And he
Saved it, for utter doom. For if you are
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The man he says, then you were born for ruin.
OEDIPUS. Ah God! Ah God!* This is the truth, at last!
O Sun,* let me behold thee this once more,
I who am proved accursed in my conception,
And in my marriage, and in him I slew.
[Exeunt severally OEDIPUS, CORINTHIAN, THEBAN
Strophe 1
CHORUS [sings]. Alas! you generations of men!
Even while you live you are next to nothing!
Has any man won for himself
More than the shadow of happiness,
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A shadow that swiftly fades away?
Oedipus, now as I look on you,
See your ruin, how can I say that
Mortal man can be happy?
Antistrophe 1
For who won greater prosperity?
Sovereignty and wealth beyond all desiring?*
The crooked-clawed, riddling Sphinx,
Maiden and bird, you overcame;
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You stood like a tower of strength to Thebes.
So you received our crown, received the
Highest honours that we could give—
King in our mighty city.
Strophe 2
Who more wretched, more afflicted now,
With cruel misery, with fell disaster,
Your life in dust and ashes?
O noble Oedipus!
How could it be? to come again
A bridegroom of her who gave you birth!
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How could such a monstrous thing
Endure so long, unknown?
Antistrophe 2
Time sees all, and Time, in your despite,
Disclosed and punished your unnatural marriage—
A child, and then a husband.
O son of Laius,
Would I had never looked on you!
I mourn you as one who mourns the dead.
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First you gave me back my life,
And now, that life is death.
Enter, from the palace, a MESSENGER
MESSENGER. My Lords, most honoured citizens of
Thebes,
What deeds am I to tell of, you to see!
What heavy grief to bear, if still remains
Your native loyalty to our line of kings.
For not the Ister,* no, nor Phasis’ flood*
Could purify this house, such things it hides,
Such others will it soon display to all,
Evils self-sought.* Of all our sufferings
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Those hurt the most that we ourselves inflict.
CHORUS. Sorrow enough—too much—in what was
known
Already. What new sorrow do you bring?
MESSENGER. Quickest for me to say and you to hear:
It is the Queen, Iocasta—she is dead.
CHORUS. Iocasta, dead? But how? What was the cause?
MESSENGER. By her own hand. Of what has passed, the worst
Cannot be yours: that was, to see it.
But you shall hear, so far as memory serves,
The cruel story.—In her agony
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She ran across the courtyard, snatching at
Her hair with both her hands. She made her way
Straight to her chamber; she barred fast the doors
And called on Laius, these long years dead,
Remembering their by-gone procreation.
‘Through this did you meet death yourself, and leave
To me, the mother, child-bearing accursed
To my own child.’* She cried aloud upon
The bed where she had borne a double brood,
Husband from husband, children from a child.
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And thereupon she died, I know not how;
For, groaning, Oedipus burst in, and we,
For watching him, saw not her agony
And how it ended. He, ranging through the palace,
Came up to each man calling for a sword,
Calling for her whom he had called his wife,
Asking where was she who had borne them all,
Himself and his own children. So he raved.
And then some deity* showed him the way,
For it was none of us that stood around;
He cried aloud, as if to someone who
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Was leading him; he leapt upon the doors,
Burst from their sockets the yielding bars, and fell
Into the room; and there, hanged by the neck,
We saw his wife, held in a swinging cord.
He, when he saw it, groaned in misery
And loosed her body from the rope. When now
She lay upon the ground, awful to see
Was that which followed: from her dress he tore
The golden brooches that she had been wearing,
Raised them, and with their points struck his own eyes,
Crying aloud that they should never see
What he had suffered and what he had done,
But in the dark henceforth they should behold
Those whom they ought not; nor should recognize
Those whom he longed to see. To such refrain
He smote his eyeballs with the pins, not once,
Nor twice; and as he smote them, blood ran down
His face, not dripping slowly, but there fell
Showers of black rain and blood-red hail together.
Not on his head alone, but on them both,
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Husband and wife, this common storm has broken.
Their ancient happiness of early days
Was happiness indeed; but now, today,
Death, ruin, lamentation, shame—of all
The ills there are, not one is wanting here.
CHORUS. Now is there intermission in his agony?
MESSENGER. He shouts for someone to unbar the gates,
And to display to Thebes the parricide,
His mother’s—no, I cannot speak the words;
For, by the doom he uttered, he will cast
Himself beyond our borders, nor remain
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To be a curse at home. But he needs strength,
And one to guide him; for these wounds are greater
Than he can bear—as you shall see; for look!
They draw the bolts. A sight you will behold
To move the pity even of an enemy.
The doors open, OEDIPUS slowly advances
CHORUS [chants]. O horrible, dreadful sight. More dreadful far
Than any I have yet seen. What cruel frenzy
Came over you? What spirit* with superhuman leap
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Came to assist your grim destiny?
Ah, most unhappy man!
But no! I cannot bear even to look at you,
Thou
gh there is much that I would ask and see and hear.
But I shudder at the very sight of you.
OEDIPUS [sings]. Alas! alas! and woe for my misery!
Where are my steps taking me?
My random voice is lost in the air.
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O God!* how hast thou crushed me!
CHORUS [speaks]. Too terribly for us to hear or see.
OEDIPUS [sings]. O cloud of darkness abominable,
My enemy unspeakable,
In cruel onset insuperable.
Alas! alas! Assailed at once by pain
Of pin-points and of memory of crimes.
CHORUS [speaks]. In such tormenting pains you well may cry
A double grief and feel a double woe.
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OEDIPUS [sings]. Ah, my friend!
Still at my side? Still steadfast?
Still can you endure me?
Still care for me, a blind man?*
[speaks] For it is you, my friend; I know ‘tis you;
Though all is darkness, yet I know your voice.
CHORUS [speaks]. O, to destroy your sight! How could you bring
Yourself to do it? What god* incited you?
He decreed that I should suffer what I suffer;
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But the hand that struck, alas! was my own,
And not another’s.
For why should I have sight.
When sight of nothing could give me pleasure?
CHORUS [speaks]. It was even as you say.
OEDIPUS [sings]. What have I left, my friends, to see,
To cherish, whom to speak with, or
To listen to, with joy?
Lead me away at once, far from Thebes;
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Lead me away, my friends!
I have destroyed; I am accursed, and, what is more,
Hateful to Heaven, as no other.
CHORUS [speaks]. Unhappy your intention, and unhappy
Your fate. O would that I had never known you!
OEDIPUS [sings]. Curses on him, whoever he was,
Who took the savage fetters from my feet,
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Snatched me from death, and saved me.
No thanks I owe him,
For had I died that day
Less ruin had I brought on me and mine.
CHORUS [speaks]. That wish is my wish too.
OEDIPUS [sings]. I had not then come and slain my father.
Nor then would men have called me
Husband of her that bore me.
Now am I God’s enemy, child of the guilty,
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And she that bore me has borne too my children;
And if there is evil surpassing evil,
That has come to Oedipus.
CHORUS [speaks]. How can I say that you have
counselled well?
Far better to be dead than to be blind.
OEDIPUS [speaks]. That what is done was not done for the best
Seek not to teach me: counsel me no more.
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I know not how I could have gone to Hades
And with these eyes have looked upon my father
Or on my mother;* such things have I done
To them, death* is no worthy punishment.
Or could I look for pleasure in the sight
Of my own children, born as they were born?
Never! No pleasure there, for eyes of mine,
Nor in this city, nor its battlements
Nor sacred images. From these—ah, miserable!—
I, the most nobly born of any Theban
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Am banned for ever by my own decree
That the defiler should be driven forth,
The man accursed of Heaven and Laius’ house.
Was I to find such taint in me, and then
With level eyes to look them* in the face?
Nay more: if for my ears I could have built
Some dam to stay the flood of sound, that I
Might lose both sight and hearing, and seal up