Oedipus Rex quotes

May I then say what seems next best to me?

Aye, if there be a third best, tell it too.

My liege, if any man sees eye to eye With our lord Phoebus, ’tis our prophet, lord Teiresias; he of all men best might guide A searcher of this matter to the light.

Well, if he knows what fear is, he will quail And flee before the terror of thy curse.

Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds.

But here is one to arraign him. Lo, at length They bring the god-inspirèd seer in whom Above all other men is truth inborn.

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

Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.

Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee, Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?

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

Thou blam’st my mood and seest not thine own

Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.

Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts, And think’st forsooth as seer to go scot free.

Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.

Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art.

Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own?

Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.

O wealth and empiry and skill by skill Outwitted in the battlefield of life, What spite and envy follow in your train!

What sayest thou—“parents”? Who begat me, speak?

This day shall be thy birth-day, and thy grave.

Thou lov’st to speak in riddles and dark words.

Thou lov’st to speak in riddles and dark words.

In reading riddles who so skilled as thou?

Twit me with that wherein my greatness lies.

I go, but first will tell thee why I came.

Thy frown I dread not, for thou canst not harm me.

Hear then: this man whom thou hast sought to arrest With threats and warrants this long while, the wretch Who murdered Laius—that man is here. He passes for an alien in the land But soon shall prove a Theban, native born.

I would as lief a man should cast away The thing he counts most precious, his own life, As spurn a true friend. Thou wilt learn in time The truth, for time alone reveals the just;

A villain is detected in a day.

To one who walketh warily his words Commend themselves; swift counsels are not sure.

I am not so infatuate as to grasp The shadow when I hold the substance fast. Now all men cry me Godspeed! wish me well, And every suitor seeks to gain my ear, If he would hope to win a grace from thee.

Why should I leave the better, choose the worse?

That were sheer madness, and I am not mad. No such ambition ever tempted me, Nor would I have a share in such intrigue. And if thou doubt me, first to Delphi go, There ascertain if my report was true Of the god’s answer;

Now all men cry me Godspeed! wish me well, And every suitor seeks to gain my ear, If he would hope to win a grace from thee. Why should I leave the better, choose the worse?

That were sheer madness, and I am not mad.

No such ambition ever tempted me, Nor would I have a share in such intrigue. And if thou doubt me, first to Delphi go, There ascertain if my report was true Of the god’s answer;

but he’s dead and in his grave And here am I who ne’er unsheathed a sword; Unless the longing for his absent son Killed him and so I slew him in a sense. But, as they stand, the oracles are dead—

Dust, ashes, nothing, dead as Polybus.

Say, did not I foretell this long ago?

Why should a mortal man, the sport of chance, With no assured foreknowledge, be afraid?

Best live a careless life from hand to mouth.

This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou. How oft it chances that in dreams a man Has wed his mother! He who least regards Such brainsick fantasies lives most at ease.

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

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

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

I grow impatient of this best advice.

Ah mayst thou ne’er discover who thou art!

Go, fetch me here the herd, and leave yon woman To glory in her pride of ancestry.

Strophe 1 Races of mortal man Whose life is but a span,

I count ye but the shadow of a shade!

For he who most doth know Of bliss, hath but the show; A moment, and the visions pale and fade. Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall Warns me none born of women blest to call.