TIRESIAS
You blame your rage on me? When you
don’t see how she embraces you, this fury
you live with? No, so you blame me.
OEDIPUS
Who wouldn’t be enraged? Your refusal
to speak dishonors the city. 410
TIRESIAS
It will happen. My silence can’t stop it.
OEDIPUS
If it must happen, you should tell me now.
TIRESIAS
I’d rather not. Rage at that, if you like,
with all the savage fury in your heart.
OEDIPUS
That’s right. I am angry enough to speak
my mind. I think you helped plot the murder.
Did everything but kill him with your own hands.
Had you eyes, though, I would have said
you alone were the killer.
TIRESIAS
That’s your truth? Now hear mine: 420
honor the curse your own mouth spoke.
From this day on, don’t speak to me
or to your people here. You are the plague.
You poison your own land.
OEDIPUS
So. The appalling charge has been at last
flushed out, into the open. What makes you
think you’ll escape?
TIRESIAS
I have escaped.
I nurture truth, so truth guards me.
OEDIPUS
Who taught you this truth? Not your prophet’s trade.
TIRESIAS
You did. By forcing me to speak. 430
OEDIPUS
Speak what? Repeat it so I understand.
TIRESIAS
You missed what I said the first time?
Are you provoking me to make it worse?
OEDIPUS
I heard you. But you made no sense. Try again.
TIRESIAS
You killed the man whose killer you now hunt.
OEDIPUS
The second time is even more outrageous.
You’ll wish you’d never said a word.
TIRESIAS
Shall I feed your fury with more words?
OEDIPUS
Use any words you like. They’ll be wasted.
TIRESIAS
I say: you have been living unaware 440
in the most hideous intimacy
with your nearest and most loving kin,
immersed in evil that you cannot see.
OEDIPUS
You think you can blithely go on like this?
TIRESIAS
I can, if truth has any strength.
OEDIPUS
Oh, truth has strength, but you have none.
You have blind eyes, blind ears, and a blind brain.
TIRESIAS
And you’re a desperate fool—throwing taunts at me
that these men, very soon, will throw at you.
OEDIPUS
You’re living in the grip of black 450
unbroken night! You can’t harm me
or any man who can see the sunlight.
TIRESIAS
I’m not the one who will bring you down.
Apollo will do that. You’re his concern.
OEDIPUS
Did you make up these lies? Or was it Kreon?
TIRESIAS
Kreon isn’t your enemy. You are.
OEDIPUS
Wealth and a king’s power,
the skill that wins every time—
how much envy, what malice they provoke!
To rob me of power—power I didn’t ask for, 460
but which this city thrust into my hands—
my oldest friend here, loyal Kreon, worked
quietly against me, aching to steal my throne.
He hired for the purpose this fortune-teller—
conniving bogus beggar-priest!—a man
who knows what he wants but cannot seize it,
being but a blind groper in his art.
Tell us now, when or where did you ever
prove you had the power of a seer?
Why—when the Sphinx who barked black songs 470
was hounding us—why didn’t you speak up
and free the city? Her riddle wasn’t the sort
just anyone who happened by could solve:
prophetic skill was needed. But the kind
you learned from birds or gods failed you. It took
Oedipus, the know-nothing, to silence her.
I needed no help from the birds.
I used my wits to find the answer.
I solved it—the same man for whom you plot
disgrace and exile, so you can 480
maneuver close to Kreon’s throne.
But your scheme to rid Thebes of its plague
will destroy both you and the man who planned it.
Were you not so frail, I’d make you
suffer exactly what you planned for me.
LEADER
He spoke in anger, Oedipus—but so
did you, if you’ll hear what we think.
We don’t need angry words. We need insight—
how best to carry out the god’s commands.
TIRESIAS
You may be king, but my right 490
to answer makes me your equal.
In this respect, I am as much
my own master as you are.
You do not own my life.
Apollo does. Nor am I
Kreon’s man. Hear me out.
Since you have thrown my blindness at me
I will tell you what your eyes don’t see:
what evil you are steeped in.
You don’t see
where you live or who shares your house. 500
Do you know your parents?
You are their enemy
in this life and down there with the dead.
And soon their double curse—
your father’s and your mother’s—
will lash you out of Thebes
on terror-stricken feet.
Your eyes, which now see life,
will then see darkness.
Soon your shriek will burrow
in every cave, bellow 510
from every mountain outcrop on Kithairon,
when what your marriage means strikes home,
when it shows you the house
that took you in. You sailed
a fair wind to a most foul harbor.
Evils you cannot guess
will bring you down to what you are.
To what your children are.
Go on, throw muck at Kreon,
and at the warning spoken through my mouth. 520
No man will ever be
ground into wretchedness as you will be.
OEDIPUS
Should I wait for him to attack me more?
May you be damned. Go. Leave my house
now! Turn your back and go.
TIRESIAS
I’m here only because you sent for me.
OEDIPUS
Had I known you would talk nonsense,
I wouldn’t have hurried to bring you here.
TIRESIAS
I seem a fool to you, but the parents
who gave you birth thought I was wise. 530
OEDIPUS
What parents? Hold on. Who was my father?
TIRESIAS
Today you will be born. Into ruin.
OEDIPUS
You’ve always got a murky riddle in your mouth.
TIRESIAS
Don’t you surpass us all at solving riddles?
OEDIPUS
Go ahead, mock what made me great.
TIRESIAS
Your very luck is what destroyed you.
OEDIPUS
If I could save the city, I wouldn’t care.
TIRESIAS
Then I’ll leave you to that. Boy, guide me out.
OEDIPUS
Yes, let him
lead you home. Here, underfoot,
you’re in the way. But when you’re gone, 540
you’ll give us no more grief.
TIRESIAS
I’ll go. But first I must finish
what you brought me to do—
your scowl can’t frighten me.
The man you have been looking for,
the one your curses threaten, the man
you have condemned for Laios’ death:
I say that man is here.
You think he’s an immigrant,
but he will prove himself a Theban native,
though he’ll find no joy in that news. 550
A blind man who still has eyes,
a beggar who’s now rich, he’ll jab
his stick, feeling the road to foreign lands.
OEDIPUS enters the palace.
He’ll soon be shown father and brother
to his own children, son and husband
to the mother who bore him—she took
his father’s seed and his seed,
and he took his own father’s life.
You go inside. Think through
everything I have said. 560
If I have lied, say of me, then—
I have failed as a prophet.
Exit TIRESIAS.
CHORUS
What man provokes
the speaking rock of Delphi?
This crime that sickens speech
is the work of his bloody hands.
Now his feet will need to outrace
a storm of wild horses, for
Apollo is running him down,
armed with bolts of fire. 570
He and the Fates close in,
dread gods who never miss.
From snowfields
high on Parnassos
the word blazes out to us all:
track down the man no one can see.
He takes cover in thick brush.
He charges up the mountain
bull-like to its rocks and caves,
going his bleak, hunted way, 580
struggling to escape the doom
Earth spoke from her sacred mouth.
But that doom buzzes low,
never far from his ear.
Fear is what the man who reads birds
makes us feel, fear we can’t fight.
We can’t accept what he says
but have no power to challenge him.
We thrash in doubt, we can’t see
even the present clearly, 590
much less the future.
And we’ve heard of no feud
embittering the House
of Oedipus in Korinth
against the House of Laios here,
no past trouble and none now,
no proof that would make us blacken
our king’s fame as he seeks
to avenge our royal house
for this murder not yet solved. 600
Zeus and Apollo make no mistakes
when they predict what people do.
But there is no way to tell
whether an earthbound prophet sees
more of the future than we can—
though in knowledge and skill
one person may surpass another.
But never, not till I see the charges
proved against him,
will I give credence 610
to a man who blames Oedipus.
All of us saw his brilliance
prevail when the wingèd virgin
Sphinx came at him: he passed the test
that won the people’s love.
My heart can’t find him guilty.
KREON enters.
KREON
Citizens, I hear that King Oedipus
has made a fearful charge against me.
I’m here to prove it false.
If he thinks anything I’ve said or done 620
has made this crisis worse, or injured him,
then I have no more wish to live.
This is no minor charge.
It’s the most deadly I could suffer,
if my city, my own people—you!—
believe I’m a traitor.
LEADER
He could have spoken in a flash
of ill-considered anger.
KREON
Did he say I persuaded the prophet to lie?
LEADER
That’s what he said. What he meant wasn’t clear. 630
KREON
When he announced my guilt—tell me,
how did his eyes look? Did he seem sane?
LEADER
I can’t say. I don’t question what my rulers do.
Here he comes, now, out of the palace.
OEDIPUS enters.
OEDIPUS
So? You come here? You have the nerve
to face me in my own house? When you’re exposed
as its master’s murderer?
Caught trying to steal my kingship?
In god’s name, what weakness did you see
in me that led you to plot this? 640
Am I a coward or a fool?
Did you suppose I wouldn’t notice
your subtle moves? Or not fight back?
Aren’t you attempting something
downright stupid—to win absolute power
without partisans or even friends?
For that you’ll need money—and a mob.
KREON
Now you listen to me.
You’ve had your say, now hear mine.
Don’t judge until you’ve heard me out. 650
OEDIPUS
You speak shrewdly, but I’m a poor learner
from someone I know is my enemy.
KREON
I’ll prove you are mistaken to think that.
OEDIPUS
How can you prove you’re not a traitor?
KREON
If you think mindless presumption
is a virtue, then you’re not thinking straight.
If you think attacking a kinsman
will bring you no harm, you must be mad.
KREON
I’ll grant that. Now, how have I attacked you?
OEDIPUS
Did you, or did you not, urge me 660
to send for that venerated prophet?
KREON
And I would still give you the same advice.
OEDIPUS
How long ago did King Laios . . .
KREON
Laios? Did what? Why speak of him?
OEDIPUS
. . . die in that murderous attack?
KREON
That was far back in the past.
OEDIPUS
Did this seer practice his craft here then?
KREON
With the same skill and respect he has now.
OEDIPUS
Back then, did he ever mention my name?
KREON
Not in my hearing. 670
OEDIPUS
Didn’t you try to hunt down the killer?
KREON
Of course we did. We found out nothing.
OEDIPUS
Why didn’t your expert seer accuse me then?
KREON
I don’t know. So I’d rather not say.
OEDIPUS
There is one thing you can explain.
KREON
What’s that? I’m holding nothing back.
OEDIPUS
Just this. If that seer hadn’t conspired with you,
he would never have called me Laios’ killer.
KREON
If he said that, you heard him, I didn’t.
I think you owe me some answers. 680
OEDIPUS
Question me. I have no blood on my hands.
KREON
Did you marry my sister?
OEDIPUS
Do you expect me to deny that?
KREON
You both
have equal power in this country?
OEDIPUS
I give her all she asks.
KREON
Do I share power with you both as an equal?
OEDIPUS
You shared our power and betrayed us with it.
KREON
You’re wrong. Think it through rationally, as I have.
Who would prefer the anxiety-filled
life of a king to one that lets him sleep at night— 690
if his share of power still equaled a king’s?
Nothing in my nature hungers for power—
for me it’s enough to enjoy a king’s rights,
enough for any prudent man. All I want,
you give me—and it comes with no fear.
To be king would rob my life of its ease.
How could my share of power be more pleasant
than this painless preeminence, this ready
influence I have? I’m not so misguided
that I would crave honors that are burdens. 700
But as things stand, I’m greeted and wished well
on all sides. Those who want something from you
come to me, their best hope of gaining it.
Should I quit this good life for a worse one?
Treason never corrupts a healthy mind.
I have no love for such exploits.
Nor would I join someone who did.
Test me. Go to Delphi yourself.
Find out whether I brought back
the oracle’s exact words. If you find 710
I plotted with that omen-reader, seize me
and kill me—not on your authority
alone, but on mine, for I’d vote my own death.
But don’t convict me because of a wild thought
you can’t prove, one that only you believe.
There’s no justice in your reckless confusion
of bad men with good men, traitors with friends.
To cast off a true friend is like suicide—
killing what you love as much as your life.
Time will instruct you in these truths, for time 720
alone is the sure test of a just man—
but you can know a bad man in a day.
LEADER
That’s good advice, my lord—
for someone anxious not to fall.
Quick thinkers can stumble.
OEDIPUS
When a conspirator moves
abruptly and in secret against me,
I must outplot him and strike first.
If I pause and do nothing, he