Oedipus King of Thebes
OEDIPUS.
A slave, or born of Laius' blood?
SHEPHERD.
There comes the word I dread to speak, O God!
OEDIPUS.
And I to hear: yet heard it needs must be.
SHEPHERD.
Know then, they said 'twas Laius' child. But she
Within, thy wife, best knows its fathering.
OEDIPUS.
'Twas she that gave it?
SHEPHERD.
It was she, O King.
OEDIPUS.
And bade you ... what?
SHEPHERD.
Destroy it.
OEDIPUS.
Her own child?...
Cruel!
SHEPHERD.
Dark words of God had made her wild.
OEDIPUS.
What words?
[Sidenote: vv. 1176-1192]
SHEPHERD.
The babe must slay his father; so
'Twas written.
OEDIPUS.
Why didst thou, then, let him go
With this old man?
SHEPHERD.
O King, I pitied him.
I thought the man would save him to some dim
And distant land, beyond all fear.... And he,
To worse than death, did save him!... Verily,
If thou art he whom this man telleth of,
To sore affliction thou art born.
OEDIPUS.
Enough!
All, all, shall be fulfilled.... Oh, on these eyes
Shed light no more, ye everlasting skies
That know my sin! I have sinned in birth and breath.
I have sinned with Woman. I have sinned with Death.
[_He rushes into the Palace. The_ SHEPHERD
_is led away by the thralls._
CHORUS.
[_Strophe._
Nothingness, nothingness,
Ye Children of Man, and less
I count you, waking or dreaming!
And none among mortals, none,
Seeking to live, hath won
More than to seem, and to cease
Again from his seeming.
[Sidenote: vv. 1193-1212]
While ever before mine eyes
One fate, one ensample, lies--
Thine, thine, O Oedipus, sore
Of God oppressed--
What thing that is human more
Dare I call blessed?
[_Antistrophe._
Straight his archery flew
To the heart of living; he knew
Joy and the fulness of power,
O Zeus, when the riddling breath
Was stayed and the Maid of Death
Slain, and we saw him through
The death-cloud, a tower!
For that he was called my king;
Yea, every precious thing
Wherewith men are honoured, down
We cast before him,
And great Thebes brought her crown
And kneeled to adore him.
[_Strophe._
But now, what man's story is such bitterness to speak?
What life hath Delusion so visited, and Pain,
And swiftness of Disaster?
O great King, our master,
How oped the one haven to the slayer and the slain?
And the furrows of thy father, did they turn not nor shriek,
Did they bear so long silent thy casting of the grain?
[Sidenote: vv. 1213-1235]
[_Antistrophe._
'Tis Time, Time, desireless, hath shown thee what thou art;
The long monstrous mating, it is judged and all its race.
O child of him that sleepeth,
Thy land weepeth, weepeth,
Unfathered.... Would God, I had never seen thy face!
From thee in great peril fell peace upon my heart,
In thee mine eye clouded and the dark is come apace.
[_A_ MESSENGER _rushes out from the Palace._
MESSENGER.
O ye above this land in honour old
Exalted, what a tale shall ye be told,
What sights shall see, and tears of horror shed,
If still your hearts be true to them that led
Your sires! There runs no river, well I ween,
Not Phasis nor great Ister, shall wash clean
This house of all within that hideth--nay,
Nor all that creepeth forth to front the day,
Of purposed horror. And in misery
That woundeth most which men have willed to be.
LEADER.
No lack there was in what we knew before
Of food for heaviness. What bring'st thou more?
MESSENGER.
One thing I bring thee first.... 'Tis quickly said.
Jocasta, our anointed queen, is dead.
[Sidenote: vv. 1236-1260]
LEADER.
Unhappy woman! How came death to her?
MESSENGER.
By her own hand.... Oh, of what passed in there
Ye have been spared the worst. Ye cannot see.
Howbeit, with that which still is left in me
Of mind and memory, ye shall hear her fate.
Like one entranced with passion, through the gate
She passed, the white hands flashing o'er her head,
Like blades that tear, and fled, unswerving fled,
Toward her old bridal room, and disappeared
And the doors crashed behind her. But we heard
Her voice within, crying to him of old,
Her Laius, long dead; and things untold
Of the old kiss unforgotten, that should bring
The lover's death and leave the loved a thing
Of horror, yea, a field beneath the plough
For sire and son: then wailing bitter-low
Across that bed of births unreconciled,
Husband from husband born and child from child.
And, after that, I know not how her death
Found her. For sudden, with a roar of wrath,
Burst Oedipus upon us. Then, I ween,
We marked no more what passion held the Queen,
But him, as in the fury of his stride,
"A sword! A sword! And show me here," he cried,
"That wife, no wife, that field of bloodstained earth
Where husband, father, sin on sin, had birth,
Polluted generations!" While he thus
Raged on, some god--for sure 'twas none of us--
Showed where she was; and with a shout away,
As though some hand had pointed to the prey,
[Sidenote: vv. 1261-1286]
He dashed him on the chamber door. The straight
Door-bar of oak, it bent beneath his weight,
Shook from its sockets free, and in he burst
To the dark chamber.
There we saw her first
Hanged, swinging from a noose, like a dead bird.
He fell back when he saw her. Then we heard
A miserable groan, and straight he found
And loosed the strangling knot, and on the ground
Laid her.--Ah, then the sight of horror came!
The pin of gold, broad-beaten like a flame,
He tore from off her breast, and, left and right,
Down on the shuddering orbits of his sight
Dashed it: "Out! Out! Ye never more shall see
Me nor the anguish nor the sins of me.
Ye looked on lives whose like earth never bore,
Ye knew not those my spirit thirsted for:
Therefore be dark for ever!"
Like a song
His voice rose, and again, again, the strong
And stabbing hand fell, and the massacred
And bleeding eyeballs streamed upon his beard,
Wild rain, and gouts of hail amid the rain.
Behold affliction, yea, afflictions twain
From man and woman broken, now made one
In downfall. All the riches yester sun
Saw in this house were rich in verity.
What call ye now our riches? Agony,
Delusion, Death, Shame, all that eye or ear
Hath ever dreamed of misery, is here.
LEADER.
And now how fares he? Doth the storm abate?
[Sidenote: vv. 1287-1308]
MESSENGER.
He shouts for one to open wide the gate
And lead him forth, and to all Thebes display
His father's murderer, his mother's.... Nay,
Such words I will not speak. And his intent
Is set, to cast himself in banishment
Out to the wild, not walk 'mid human breed
Bearing the curse he bears. Yet sore his need
Of strength and of some guiding hand. For sure
He hath more burden now than man may endure.
But see, the gates fall back, and that appears
Which he who loathes shall pity--yea, with tears.
[OEDIPUS _is led in, blinded and bleeding. The
Old Men bow down and hide their faces;
some of them weep._
CHORUS.
Oh, terrible! Oh, sight of all
This life hath crossed, most terrible!
Thou man more wronged than tongue can tell,
What madness took thee? Do there crawl
Live Things of Evil from the deep
To leap on man? Oh, what a leap
Was His that flung thee to thy fall!
LEADER.
O fallen, fallen in ghastly case,
I dare not raise mine eyes to thee;
Fain would I look and ask and see,
But shudder sickened from thy face.
OEDIPUS.
Oh, pain; pain and woe!
Whither? Whither?
[Sidenote: vv. 1308-1328]
They lead me and I go;
And my voice drifts on the air
Far away.
Where, Thing of Evil, where
Endeth thy leaping hither?
LEADER.
In fearful ends, which none may hear nor say.
OEDIPUS.
[_Strophe._
Cloud of the dark, mine own
For ever, horrible,
Stealing, stealing, silent, unconquerable,
Cloud that no wind, no summer can dispel!
Again, again I groan,
As through my heart together crawl the strong
Stabs of this pain and memories of old wrong.
LEADER.
Yea, twofold hosts of torment hast thou there,
The stain to think on and the pain to bear.
OEDIPUS.
[_Antistrophe._
O Friend, thou mine own
Still faithful, minister
Steadfast abiding alone of them that were,
Dost bear with me and give the blind man care?
Ah me! Not all unknown
Nor hid thou art. Deep in this dark a call
Comes and I know thy voice in spite of all.
LEADER.
O fearful sufferer, and could'st thou kill
Thy living orbs? What God made blind thy will?
[Sidenote: vv. 1329-1351]
OEDIPUS.
[_Strophe._
'Tis Apollo; all is Apollo,
O ye that love me, 'tis he long time hath planned
These things upon me evilly, evilly,
Dark things and full of blood.
I knew not; I did but follow
His way; but mine the hand
And mine the anguish. What were mine eyes to me
When naught to be seen was good?
LEADER.
'Tis even so; and Truth doth speak in thee.
OEDIPUS.
To see, to endure, to hear words kindly spoken,
Should I have joy in such?
Out, if ye love your breath,
Cast me swift unto solitude, unbroken
By word or touch.
Am I not charged with death,
Most charged and filled to the brim
With curses? And what man saith
God hath so hated him?
LEADER.
Thy bitter will, thy hard calamity,
Would I had never known nor looked on thee!
OEDIPUS.
[_Antistrophe._
My curse, my curse upon him,
That man whom pity held in the wilderness,
Who saved the feet alive from the blood-fetter
And loosed the barb thereof!
[Sidenote: vv. 1351-1377]
That babe--what grace was done him,
Had he died shelterless,
He had not laid on himself this grief to bear,
And all who gave him love.
LEADER.
I, too, O Friend, I had been happier.
OEDIPUS.
Found not the way to his father's blood, nor shaken
The world's scorn on his mother,
The child and the groom withal;
But now, of murderers born, of God forsaken,
Mine own sons' brother;
All this, and if aught can fall
Upon man more perilous
And elder in sin, lo, all
Is the portion of Oedipus.
LEADER.
How shall I hold this counsel of thy mind
True? Thou wert better dead than living blind.
OEDIPUS.
That this deed is not well and wisely wrought
Thou shalt not show me; therefore school me not.
Think, with what eyes hereafter in the place
Of shadows could I see my father's face,
Or my poor mother's? Both of whom this hand
Hath wronged too deep for man to understand.
Or children--born as mine were born, to see
Their shapes should bring me joy? Great God!
To me
[Sidenote: vv. 1378-1403]
There is no joy in city nor in tower
Nor temple, from all whom, in this mine hour,
I that was chief in Thebes alone, and ate