Oedipus Rex

Suppliants of all ages are seated round the altar at the palace doors, at their head a Priest of Zeus. To them enter Oedipus.

Oedipus

My children, latest born to Cadmus old, Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands Branches of olive filleted with wool? What means this reek of incense everywhere, And everywhere laments and litanies? Children, it were not meet that I should learn From others, and am hither come, myself, I Oedipus, your world-renownèd king. Ho! aged sire, whose venerable locks Proclaim thee spokesman of this company, Explain your mood and purport. Is it dread Of ill that moves you or a boon ye crave? My zeal in your behalf ye cannot doubt; Ruthless indeed were I and obdurate If such petitioners as you I spurned.

Priest

Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king, Thou seest how both extremes of age besiege Thy palace altars⁠—fledglings hardly winged, And greybeards bowed with years; priests, as am I Of Zeus, and these the flower of our youth. Meanwhile, the common folk, with wreathèd boughs Crowd our two market-places, or before Both shrines of Pallas congregate, or where Ismenus gives his oracles by fire. For, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State, Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head, Foundered beneath a weltering surge of blood. A blight is on our harvest in the ear, A blight upon the grazing flocks and herds, A blight on wives in travail; and withal Armed with his blazing

Teiresias

Let me go home; prevent me not; ’twere best That thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.

Oedipus

For shame! no true-born Theban patriot Would thus withhold the word of prophecy.

Teiresias

Thy words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I For fear lest I too trip like thee⁠ ⁠…

Oedipus

Oh speak, Withhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know’st, Thy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.

Teiresias

Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice Will ne’er reveal my miseries⁠—or thine.

Oedipus

What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak! Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?

Teiresias

I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask Thus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?

Oedipus

Monster! thy silence would incense a flint. Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee, Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?

Teiresias

Thou blam’st my mood and seest not thine own Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.

Oedipus

And who could stay his choler when he heard How insolently thou dost flout the State?

Teiresias

Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.

Oedipus

Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.

Teiresias

I have no more to say; storm as thou willst, And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.

Oedipus

Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words, But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he, Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too, All save the assassination; and if thou Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.

Teiresias

King as thou art, free speech at least is mine To make reply; in this I am thy peer. I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve And ne’er can stand enrolled as Creon’s man. Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared To twit me with my blindness⁠—thou hast eyes, Yet see’st not in what misery thou art fallen, Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate. Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know’st it not, And all unwitting art a double foe To thine own kin, the living and the dead; Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword, Beyond our borders, and the eyes that now See clear shall henceforward endless night. Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach, What crag in all Cithaeron but shall then Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found With what a hymeneal thou wast borne Home, but to no fair haven, on the gale! Aye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not Shall set thyself and children in one line. Flout then both Creon and my words, for none Of mortals shall be striken worse than thou.

Oedipus

Must I endure this fellow’s insolence? A murrain on thee! Get thee hence! Begone Avaunt! and never cross my threshold more.

Teiresias

I ne’er had come hadst thou not bidden me.

Oedipus

I knew not thou wouldst utter folly, else Long hadst thou waited to be summoned here.

Teiresias

Such am I⁠—as it seems to thee a fool, But to the parents who begat thee, wise.

Jocasta

Then thou mayest ease thy conscience on that score. Listen and I’ll convince thee that no man Hath scot or lot in the prophetic art. Here is the proof in brief. An oracle Once came to Laius (I will not say ’Twas from the Delphic god himself, but from His ministers) declaring he was doomed To perish by the hand of his own son, A child that should be born to him by me. Now Laius⁠—so at least report affirmed⁠— Was murdered on a day by highwaymen, No natives, at a spot where three roads meet. As for the child, it was but three days old, When Laius, its ankles pierced and pinned Together, gave it to be cast away By others on the trackless mountain side. So then Apollo brought it not to pass The child should be his father’s murderer, Or the dread terror find accomplishment, And Laius be slain by his own son. Such was the prophet’s horoscope. O king, Regard it not. Whate’er the god deems fit To search, himself unaided will reveal.

Oedipus

What memories, what wild tumult of the soul Came o’er me, lady, as I heard thee speak!

Jocasta

What mean’st thou? What has shocked and startled thee?

Oedipus

Methought I heard thee say that Laius Was murdered at the meeting of three roads.

Jocasta

So ran the story that is current still.

Oedipus

How baseless, if I am their very son?

Messenger

Since Polybus was naught to thee in blood.

Oedipus

What say’st thou? was not Polybus my sire?

Messenger

As much thy sire as I am, and no more.

Oedipus

My sire no more to me than one who is naught!

Messenger

Since I begat thee not, no more did he.

Oedipus

What reason had he then to call me son?

Messenger

Know that he took thee from my hands, a gift.

Oedipus

Yet, if no child of his, he loved me well.

Messenger

A childless man till then, he warmed to thee.

Oedipus

A foundling or a purchased slave, this child?

Messenger

I found thee in Cithaeron’s wooded glens.

Oedipus

What led thee to explore those upland glades?

Messenger

My business was to tend the mountain flocks.

Oedipus

A vagrant shepherd journeying for hire?

Messenger

True, but thy saviour in that hour, my son.

Oedipus

My saviour? from what harm? what ailed me then?

Messenger

Those ankle joints are evidence enow.

Oedipus

Ah, why remind me of that ancient sore?

Messenger

I loosed the pin that riveted thy feet.

Oedipus

Yes, from my cradle that dread brand I bore.

Messenger

Whence thou deriv’st the name that still is thine.