The Tragedies of Sophocles. Sophocles
city?340
Te. The future will come of itself, though I shroud it in silence.
Oe. Then, seeing that it must come, thou on thy part shouldst tell me thereof.
Te. I will speak no further; rage, then, if thou wilt, with the fiercest wrath thy heart doth know.
Oe. Aye, verily, I will not spare—so wroth I am—to speak all my thought. Know that thou seemest to me e'en to have helped in plotting the deed, and to have done it, short of slaying with thy hands. Hadst thou eyesight, I would have said that the doing, also, of this thing was thine alone.
Te. In sooth?—I charge thee that thou abide350 by the decree of thine own mouth, and from this day speak neither to these nor to me: thou art the accursed defiler of this land.
Oe. So brazen with thy blustering taunt? And wherein dost thou trust to escape thy due?
Te. I have escaped: in my truth is my strength.
Oe. Who taught thee this? It was not, at least, thine art.
Te. Thou: for thou didst spur me into speech against my will.
Oe. What speech? Speak again that I may learn it better.
Te. Didst thou not take my sense before?360 Or art thou tempting me in talk?
Oe. No, I took it not so that I can call it known:—speak again.
Te. I say that thou art the slayer of the man whose slayer thou seekest.
Oe. Now thou shalt rue that thou hast twice said words so dire.
Te. Wouldst thou have me say more, that thou mayest be more wroth?
Oe. What thou wilt; it will be said in vain.
Te. I say that thou hast been living in unguessed shame with thy nearest kin, and seest not to what woe thou hast come.
Oe. Dost thou indeed think that thou shalt always speak thus without smarting?
Te. Yes, if there is any strength in truth.
Oe. Nay, there is,—for all save thee;370 for thee that strength is not, since thou art maimed in ear, and in wit, and in eye.
Te. Aye, and thou art a poor wretch to utter taunts which every man here will soon hurl at thee.
Oe. Night, endless night hath thee in her keeping, so that thou canst never hurt me, or any man who sees the sun.
Te. No, thy doom is not to fall by me: Apollo is enough, whose care it is to work that out.
Oe. Are these Creon's devices, or thine?
Te. Nay, Creon is no plague to thee; thou art thine own.
Oe. O wealth, and empire, and skill surpassing skill380 in life's keen rivalries, how great is the envy that cleaves to you, if for the sake, yea, of this power which the city hath put into my hands, a gift unsought, Creon the trusty, Creon mine old friend, hath crept on me by stealth, yearning to thrust me out of it, and hath suborned such a scheming juggler as this, a tricky quack, who hath eyes only for his gains, but in his art is blind!
Come, now, tell me, where hast thou proved thyself390 a seer? Why, when the Watcher was here who wove dark song, didst thou say nothing that could free this folk? Yet the riddle, at least, was not for the first comer to read; there was need of a seer's skill; and none such thou wast found to have, either by help of birds, or as known from any god: no, I came, I, Oedipus the ignorant, and made her mute, when I had seized the answer by my wit, untaught of birds. And it is I whom thou art trying to oust, thinking to stand close to Creon's throne.400 Methinks thou and the plotter of these things will rue your zeal to purge the land. Nay, didst thou not seem to be an old man, thou shouldst have learned to thy cost how bold thou art.
Ch. To our thinking, both this man's words and thine, Oedipus, have been said in anger. Not for such words is our need, but to seek how we shall best discharge the mandates of the god.
Te. King though thou art, the right of reply, at least, must be deemed the same for both; of that I too am lord. Not to thee do I live servant, but to Loxias;410 and so I shall not stand enrolled under Creon for my patron. And I tell thee—since thou hast taunted me even with blindness—that thou hast sight, yet seest not in what misery thou art, nor where thou dwellest, nor with whom. Dost thou know of what stock thou art? And thou hast been an unwitting foe to thine own kin, in the shades, and on the earth above; and the double lash of thy mother's and thy father's curse shall one day drive thee from this land in dreadful haste, with darkness then on the eyes that now see true.
And what place shall not be harbour to thy shriek,420 what of all Cithaeron shall not ring with it soon, when thou hast learnt the meaning of the nuptials in which, within that house, thou didst find a fatal haven, after a voyage so fair? And a throng of other ills thou guessest not, which shall make thee level with thy true self and with thine own brood.
Therefore heap thy scorns on Creon and on my message: for no one among men shall ever be crushed more miserably than thou.
Oe. Are these taunts to be indeed borne from 430him?— Hence, ruin take thee! Hence, this instant! Back!—away!—avaunt thee from these doors!
Te. I had never come, not I, hadst thou not called me.
Oe. I knew not that thou wast about to speak folly, or it had been long ere I had sent for thee to my house.
Te. Such am I,—as thou thinkest, a fool; but for the parents who begat thee, sane.
Oe. What parents? Stay…and who of men is my sire?
Te. This day shall show thy birth and shall bring thy ruin.
Oe. What riddles, what dark words thou always speakest!
Te. Nay, art not thou most skilled to unravel dark speech?440
Oe. Make that my reproach in which thou shalt find me great.
Te. Yet 'twas just that fortune that undid thee.
Oe. Nay, if I delivered this town, I care not.
Te. Then I will go: so do thou, boy, take me hence.
Oe. Aye, let him take thee: while here, thou art a hindrance, thou, a trouble: when thou hast vanished, thou wilt not vex me more.
Te. I will go when I have done mine errand, fearless of thy frown: for thou canst never destroy me. And I tell thee—the man of whom thou hast this long while been in quest, uttering threats,450 and proclaiming a search into the murder of Laïus—that man is here,—in seeming, an alien sojourner, but anon he shall be found a native Theban, and shall not be glad of his fortune. A blind man, he who now hath sight, a beggar, who now is rich, he shall make his way to a strange land, feeling the ground before him with his staff. And he shall be found at once brother and father of the children with whom he consorts; son and husband of the woman who bore him; heir to his father's bed, shedder of his father's blood.
So go thou in and think on that;460 and if thou find that I have been at fault, say thenceforth that I have no wit in prophecy.
[Teiresias is led out by the Boy.—Oedipus enters the palace.
Chorus.
str. 1. Who is he of whom the divine voice from the Delphian rock hath spoken, as having wrought with red hands horrors that no tongue can tell?
It is time that he ply in flight a foot stronger than the feet of storm-swift steeds: for the son of Zeus is springing on him,470 all armed with fiery lightnings, and with him come the dread, unerring Fates.
ant. 1. Yea, newly given from snowy Parnassus, the message hath flashed forth to make all search for the unknown man. Into the wild wood's covert, among caves and rocks he is roaming, fierce as a bull, wretched and forlorn on his joyless path,480 still seeking to put from him the doom spoken at Earth's central shrine: but that doom ever lives,