PROLOGUE
THE SCENE. Before the palace of Oedipus, King of Thebes. A central door and two lateral doors open onto a platform which runs the length of the facade. On the platform, right and left, are altars; and three steps lead down into the "orchestra," or chorus-ground. At the beginning of the action these steps are crowded by suppliants who have brought branches and chaplets of olive leaves and who lie in various attitudes of despair. OEDIPUS enters.
PROLOGUE
THE SCENE. Before the palace of Oedipus, King of Thebes. A central door and two lateral doors open onto a platform which runs the length of the facade. On the platform, right and left, are altars; and three steps lead down into the "orchestra," or chorus-ground. At the beginning of the action these steps are crowded by suppliants who have brought branches and chaplets of olive leaves and who lie in various attitudes of despair. OEDIPUS enters.
OEDIPUS:
My children, generations of the living
In the line of Kadmos, nursed at his ancient hearth:
Why have you strewn yourselves before these altars
In supplication, with your boughs and garlands?
The breath of incense rises from the city
With a sound of prayer and lamentation.
Children,
I would not have you speak through messengers,
And therefore I have come myself to hear you—
I, Oedipus, who bear the famous name.
[To a PRIEST:
You, there, since you are eldest in the company,
Speak for them all, tell me what preys upon you,
Whether you come in dread, or crave some blessing:
Tell me, and never doubt that I will help you
In every way I can; I should be heartless
Were I not moved to find you suppliant here.
PRIEST:
Great Oedipus. O powerful King of Thebes!
You see how all the ages of our people
Cling to your altar steps: here are boys
Who can barely stand alone, and here are priests
By weight of age, as I am a priest of God,
And young men chosen from those vet unmarried;
As for the others. all that multitude,
They wait with olive chaplets in the squares,
At the two shrines of Pallas, and where Apollo
Speaks in the glowing embers.
Your own eyes
Must tell you, Thebes is tossed on a murdering sea
And can not lift her head from the death surge.
A rust consumes the buds and fruits of the earth;
The herds are sick: children die unborn,
And labor is vain. The god of plague and pyre
Raids like detestable lightning through the city,
And all the house of Kadmos is laid waste,
All emptied, and all darkened: Death alone
Battens upon the misery of Thebes.
You are not one of the immortal gods, we know;
Yet we have come to you to make our prayer
As to the man surest in mortal ways
And wisest in the ways of God. You saved us
From the Sphinx, that flinty singer, and the tribute
We paid to her so long; vet you were never
Better informed than we, nor could we teach you:
It was some god breathed in you to set us free.
Therefore, O mighty King, we turn to you:
Find us our safety, find us a remedy,
Whether by counsel of the gods or men.
A king of wisdom tested in the past
Can act in a time of troubles, and act well.
Noblest of men, restore
Life to your city! Think how all men call you
Liberator for your triumph long ago;
Ah, when your years of kingship are remembered,
Let them not say We rose. but later fell
Keep the State from going down in the storm!
Once, years ago, with happy augury,
You brought us fortune; be the same again!
No man questions your power to rule the land:
But rule over men, not over a dead city!
Ships are only hulls, citadels are nothing,
When no life moves in the empty passageways.
OEDIPUS:
Poor children! You may be sure I know
All that you longed for in your coming here.
I know that you are deathly sick; and yet.
Sick as you are, not one is as sick as 1.
Each of you suffers in himself alone
His anguish, not another's; but my spirit
Groans for the city, for myself, for you.
I was not sleeping, you are not waking me.
No, I have been in tears for a long while
And in my restless thought walked many ways.
In all my search, I found one helpful course,
And that I have taken: I have sent Creon,
Son of Menoikeus, brother of the Queen,
To Delphi, Apollo's place of revelation,
To learn there, if he can,
What act or pledge of mine may save the city.
I have counted the days, and now, this very day,
I am troubled, for he has overstayed his time.
What is he doing? He has been gone too long.
Yet whenever he comes back, I should do ill
To scant whatever duty God reveals.
PRIEST:
It is a timely promise. At this instant
They tell me Creon is here.
OEDIPUS:
O, Lord Apollo!
May his news be fair as his face is radiant!
PRIEST:
It could not be otherwise: he is crowned with bay,
The chaplet is thick with berries.
OEDIPUS:
We shall soon know;
He is near enough to hear us now.
[Enter CREON
O Prince:
Brother: son of Menoikeus:
What answer do you bring us from the god?
CREON:
A strong one. I can tell you, great afflictions
Will turn out well, if they are taken well.
OEDIPUS:
What was the oracle? These vague words
Leave me still hanging between hope and fear.
CREON:
Is it your pleasure to hear me with all these
Gathered around us? I am prepared to speak,
But should we not go in?
OEDIPUS:
Let them all hear it.
It is for them I suffer, more than for myself.
CREON:
Then I will tell you what I heard at Delphi.
In plain words
The god commands us to expel from the land of Thebes
An old defilement we are sheltering.
It is a deathly thing, beyond cure;
We must not let it feed upon us longer.
OEDIPUS:
What defilement? How shall we rid ourselves of it?
CREON:
By exile or death, blood for blood. It was
Murder that brought the plague-wind on the city.
OEDIPUS:
Murder of whom? Surely the god has named him?
CREON:
My lord: long ago Laϊos was our king,
Before you came to govern us.
OEDIPUS:
I know;
I learned of him from others; I never saw him.
CREON:
He was murdered; and Apollo commands us now
To take revenge upon whoever killed him.
OEDIPUS:
Upon whom? Where are they? Where shall we find a clue
To solve that crime, after so many years?
CREON:
Here in this land, he said.
If we make enquiry,
We may touch things that otherwise escape us.
OEDIPUS:
Tell me: Was Laos murdered in his house,
Or in the fields, or in some foreign country?
CREON:
He said he planned to make a pilgrimage.
He did not come home again.
OEDIPUS:
And was there no one,
No witness, no companion, to tell what happened?
CREON:
They were all killed but one, and he got away
So frightened that he could remember one thing only.
OEDIPUS:
What was that one thing? One may be the key
To everything, if we resolve to use it.
CREON:
He said that a band of highwaymen attacked them,
Outnumbered them, and overwhelmed the King.
OEDIPUS:
Strange, that a highwayman should be so daring—
Unless some faction here bribed him to do it.
CREON:
Destroy our enemy, lord of the thunder!
Let him be riven by lightning from heaven!
[ANTISTROPHE 3
Phoibos Apollo, stretch the sun's bowstring,
That golden cord, until it sing for us,
Flashing arrows in heaven!
Artemis, Huntress,
Race with flaring lights upon our mountains!
O scarlet god, O golden-banded brow,
O Theban Bacchos in a storm of Maenads.
[Enter OEDIPUS, C.
Whirl upon Death, that all the Undying hate!
Come with blinding torches, come in joy!
SCENE I
OEDIPUS:
Is this your prayer? It may be answered. Come
Listen to me, act as the crisis demands,
And you shall have relief from all these evils.
Until now I was a stranger to this tale,
As I had been a stranger to the crime.
Could I track down the murderer without a clue?
But now, friends,
As one who became a citizen after the murder,
I make this proclamation to all Thebans:
If any man knows by whose hand Laios, son of Labdakos,
Met his death, I direct that man to tell me everything,
No matter what he fears for having so long withheld it.
Let it stand as promised that no further trouble
Will come to him. but he may leave the land in safety.
Moreover: If anyone knows the murderer to be foreign,
Let him not keep silent he shall have his reward from me.
However, if he does conceal it; if any man
Fearing for his friend or for himself disobeys this edict,
Hear what I propose to do:
I solemnly forbid the people of this country,
Where power and throne are mine, ever to receive that man
Or speak to him, no matter who he is, or let him
Join in sacrifice, lustration, or in prayer.
I decree that he he driven from every house,
Being, as he is, corruption itself to us, the Delphi
Voice of Zeus has pronounced this revelation.
Thus I associate myself with the oracle
And take the side of the murdered king.
As for the criminal, I pray to God
Whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number—
I pray that that man's life be consumed in evil and wretchedness.
And as for me, this curse applies no less
If it should turn out that the culprit is my guest here.
Sharing my hearth.
You have heard the penalty.
I lay it on you now to attend to this
For my sake, for Apollo's, for the sick
Sterile city that heaven has abandoned.
Suppose the oracle had given you no command:
Should this defilement go uncleansed for ever?
You should have found the murderer: your king,
A noble king, had been destroyed!
Now I,
Having the power that he held before me,
Having his bed, begetting children there
Upon his wife, as he would have, had he lived—
Their son would have been my children's brother.
If Laios had had luck in fatherhood!
(But surely ill luck rushed upon his reign)—
I say I take the son's part, just as though
I were his son, to press the fight for him
And see it won! I'll find the hand that brought
Death to Labdakos' and Polydoros' child,
Heir of Kadmos' and Agenor's line.
And as for those who fail me.
May the gods deny them the fruit of' the earth,
Fruit of the womb, and may they rot utterly!
Let them he wretched as we are wretched, and worse!
For you, for loyal Thebans, and for all
Who find my actions right, I pray the favor
Of justice, and of all the immortal gods.
CHORAGOS:
Since I am under oath, my lord, I swear
I did not do the murder, I can not name
The murderer. Might not the oracle
That has ordained the search tell where to find him?
OEDIPUS:
An honest question. But no man in the world
Can make the gods do more than the gods will.
CHORAGOS:
There is one last expedient--
OEDIPUS:
Tell me what it is.
Though it seem slight, you must not hold it back.
CHORAGOS:
A lord clairvoyant to the lord Apollo,
As we all know, is the skilled Teiresias.
One might learn much about this from him,
Oedipus.
OEDIPUS:
I am not wasting time:
Crean spoke of this, and I have sent for him—
Twice, in fact; it is strange that he is not here.
CHORAGOS:
The other matter—that old report—seems useless.
OEDIPUS:
Tell me. I am interested in all reports.
CHORAGOS:
The King was said to have been killed by highwaymen.
OEDIPUS:
I know. But we have no witnesses to that.
CHORAGOS:
If the killer can feel a particle of dread,
Your curse will bring him out of hiding!
OEDIPUS:
No.
The man who dared that act will fear no curse.
[Enter the blind seer TEIRESIAS, led by a PAGE
CHORAGOS:
But there is one man who may detect the criminal.
This is Teiresias, this is the holy prophet
In whom, alone of all men, truth was born.
OEDIPUS:
Teiresias. seer: student of mysteries.
Of all that's taught and all that no man tells,
Secrets of Heaven and secrets of the earth:
Blind though you are, you know the city lies
Sick with plague; and from this plague, my lord,
We find that you alone can guard or save us.
Possibly you did not hear the messengers?
Apollo, when we sent to him,
Sent us back word that this great pestilence
Would lift, but only if we established clearly
The identity of those who murdered Laios.
They must be killed or exiled.
Can you use
Birdfight or any art of divination
To purify yourself, and Thebes, and me
From this contagion? We are in your hands.
There is no fairer duty
Than that of helping others in distress.
TEIRESIAS:
How dreadful knowledge of the truth can he
When there's no help in truth! I knew this well,
But made myself forget. I should not have come.
OEDIPUS:
What is troubling you? Why are your eyes so cold?
TEIRESIAS:
Let me go home. Bear your own fate, and I'll
Bear mine. It is better so: trust what I say.
OEDIPUS: