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

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,

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.

                [Enter the blind seer TEIRESIAS, led by a PAGE

He has bought this decrepit fortune-teller, this
Collector of dirty pennies, this prophet fraud--
Why, he is no more clairvoyant than I am!
                                                               Tell us.
Has your mystic mummery ever approached the truth?
When that hellcat the Sphinx was performing here,
What help were you to these people?
Her magic was not for the first man who came along:

Listen to me. You mock my blindness, do you?
But I say that you, with both your eves, are blind:
You can not see the wretchedness of your life,
Nor in whose house you live no, nor with whom.
Who are your father and mother? Can you tell me?

You do not even know the blind wrongs
That you have done them, on earth and in the world below.

Be angry, then. Curse Croon. Curse my words.
I tell you. no man that walks upon the earth
Shall be rooted out more horribly than you.

Enough. Go think that over.
If later you find error in what I have said,
You may say that I have no skill in prophecy.

                      [Exit TEIRESIAS, led by his PAGE. OEDIPUS goes
                       into the palace.

Holy Parnassos' peak of snow                       [ANTISTROPHE I
Flashes and blinds that secret man,

But now a wilder thing is heard                     [STROPHE 2
From the old man skilled at hearing Pate in the
      wingbeat of a bird.
Bewildered as a blown bird, my soul hovers and
      can not find
Foothold in this debate, or any reason or rest of mind.
But no man ever brought--none can bring
Proof of strife between Thebes' royal house,
Labdakos' line, and the son of Polybos;
And never until now has any man brought word
Of Laios' dark death staining Oedipus the King.

Divine Zeus and Apollo hold                       [ANTISTROPHE 2
Perfect intelligence alone of all tales ever told;
And well though this diviner works, he works in
      his own night;
No man can judge that rough unknown or trust
     in second sight,
For wisdom changes hands among the wise.
Shall I believe my great lord criminal
At a raging word that a blind old man let fall?
I saw him, when the carrion woman faced him of old,
Prove his heroic mind! These evil words are lies.

How could I desire a scepter more
Than what is now mine—untroubled influence:
No, I have not gone mad; I need no honors,
Except those with the perquisites I have now.
I am welcome everywhere; every man salutes me,
And those who want your favor seek my ear,
Since I know how to manage what they ask.
Should I exchange this ease for that anxiety?
Besides, no sober mind is treasonable.
I hate anarchy
And never would deal with any man who likes it.

                                Here is my proof:

An oracle was reported to Laios once
(I will not say iron, Phoibos himself, but from
His appointed ministers, at any rate)
That his doom would be death at the hands of his own son
His son, born of his flesh and of mine!

Now. you remember the story: Laios was killed
By marauding strangers where three highways meet;
But his child had not been three days in this world
Before the King had pierced the baby's ankles
And left him to die on a lonely mountainside.

Thus, Apollo never caused that child
To kill his father, and it was not Laios' fate
To die at the hands of his son, as he had feared.
This is what prophets and prophecies are worth!
Have no dread of them.
                                    It is God himself
Who can show us what he wills, in his own way.

Polybos of Corinth is my father.
My mother is a Dorian: Merope.
I grew up chief among the men of Corinth
Until a strange thing happened--
Not worth my passion, it may be but strange.

At a feast, a drunken man maundering in his cups
Cries out that I am not my father's son!
I contained myself that night, though I felt anger
And a sinking heart. The next day I visited
My father and mother, and questioned them. They stormed,
Calling it all the slanderous rant of a fool;
And this relieved me. Yet the suspicion
Remained always aching in my mind;
I knew there was talk; I could not rest;
And finally, saving nothing to my parents,
I went to the shrine at Delphi.
The god dismissed my question without reply;
He spoke of other things.
                                      Some were clear,
Full of wretchedness, dreadful, unbearable:
As, that I should lie with my own mother, breed
Children from whom all men would turn their eyes;
And that I should be my father's murderer.
I heard all this, and fled. And from that day
Corinth to me was only in the stars
Descending in that quarter of the sky,
As I wandered farther and farther on my way
To a land where I should never see the evil

I will tell you all that happened there, my lady.

There were three highways
Coming together at a place I passed;
And there a herald came towards me, and a chariot
Drawn by horses, with a man such as you describe
Seated in it. The groom leading the horses
Forced me off the road at his lord's command;
But as this charioteer lurched over towards me
I struck him in my rage. The old man saw me
And brought his double goad down upon my head
As I came abreast.
                               He was paid back, and more!
Swinging my club in this right hand I knocked him
Out of his car, and he rolled on the ground.
                                                    I killed him.
I killed them all.
Now if that stranger and Laios were—kin,
Where is a man more miserable than P
More hated by the gods? Citizen and alien alike
Must never shelter me or speak to me
I must be shunned by all.
                                     And I myself
Pronounced this malediction upon myself!

Think of it: I have touched you with these hands,
These hands that killed your husband. What defilement!
Am I all evil, then? It must be so,
Since I must flee from Thebes, yet never again

O holy majesty of heavenly powers!
May I never see that day! Never!
Rather let me vanish from the race of men
Than know the abomination destined me!

No. From now on, where oracles are concerned,
1 would not waste a second thought on any.

Who bears more weight of joy
Than mass of sunlight shifting in images,
Or who shall make his thought stay on
That down time drifts away?

Your splendor is all fallen.

O naked brow of wrath and tears,
O change of Oedipus.
I who saw your days call no man blest—
Your great days like ghosts gone.         

That mind was a strong bow.                             [ANTISTROPHE 1

Deep, how deep you drew it then, hard archer,
At a dim fearful range,
And brought dear glory down!

You overcame the stranger
The virgin with her hooking lion claws—
And though death sang, stood like a tower
To make pale Thebes take heart.

Fortress against our sorrow!

True king, giver of laws.
Majestic Oedipus!
No prince in Thebes had ever such renown,
 

And now of all men ever known                         [STROPHE 2
Most pitiful is this man's story:
His fortunes are most changed, his state
Fallen to a low slave's
Ground under bitter fate.

O Oedipus, most royal one!
The great door that expelled you to the light
Gave at night-- ah, gave night to your glory:
As to the father, to the fathering son.

All understood too late.

How could that queen whom folios won,
The garden that he harrowed at his height,
Be silent when that act was done?

But all eyes fail before time's eye,                    [ANTISTROPHE 2
All actions come to justice there.
Though never willed, though far down the deep past.
Your bed, your dread sirings,
Are brought to book at last.

Child by Laios doomed to die,
Then doomed to lose that fortunate little death,
Would God you never took breath in this air
That with my wailing lips I take to cry:

For I weep the world's outcast.

I was blind, and now I can tell why:
Asleep, for you had given ease of breath
To Thebes, while the false years went by.

                             [The central door is opened; OEDIPUS, blinded, is led in

Oedipus!
What madness came upon you, what daemon
Leaped on your life with heavier
Punishment than a mortal man can bear?
No: I can not even
Look at you, poor ruined one.
And I would speak, question, ponder,

                                                        [Enter CREON

Children, where are you?
Come quickly to my hands: they are your
    brother's--
Hands that have brought your father's once clear eyes
To this way of seeing--
                                   Ah dearest ones,
I had neither sight nor knowledge then, your father
By the woman who was the source of his own life!
And I weep for you—having no strength to see you,
I weep for you when I think of the bitterness
That men will visit upon you all your lives.
What homes, what festivals can you attend
Without being forced to depart again in tears?
And when you come to marriageable age,
Where is the man, my daughters, who would dare
Risk the bane that lies on all my children?
Is there any evil wanting? Your father killed
His father; sowed the womb of her who bore him;
Engendered you at the fount of his own existence.
That is what they will say of you.
                                                 Then, whom
Can you ever marry? There are no bridegrooms for you,

 

O Creon, son of Menoikeus!
You are the only father my daughters have,
Since we, their parents, are both of us gone for ever.
They are your own blood: you will not let them
Fall into beggary and loneliness;
You will keep them from the miseries that are mine!
Take pity on them; see, they are only children,
Friendless except for you. Promise me this,
Great Prince, and give me your hand in token of it.
                                                     [CREON clasps his tight hand
Children.
could say much, if you could understand me.
But as it is, I have only this prayer for you:
Live where you can, be as happy as you can—
Happier, please God, than God has made your father!

                 [Exeunt into the house all but the CHORUS; the
                 CHORAGOS chants directly to the audience:

This is the king who solved the famous riddle