Thebes,

  What deeds am I to tell of, you to see!

  What heavy grief to bear, if still remains

  Your native loyalty to our line of kings.

  For not the Ister,* no, nor Phasis’ flood*

  Could purify this house, such things it hides,

  Such others will it soon display to all,

  Evils self-sought.* Of all our sufferings

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  Those hurt the most that we ourselves inflict.

  CHORUS. Sorrow enough—too much—in what was

  known

  Already. What new sorrow do you bring?

  MESSENGER. Quickest for me to say and you to hear:

  It is the Queen, Iocasta—she is dead.

  CHORUS. Iocasta, dead? But how? What was the cause?

  MESSENGER. By her own hand. Of what has passed, the worst

  Cannot be yours: that was, to see it.

  But you shall hear, so far as memory serves,

  The cruel story.—In her agony

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  She ran across the courtyard, snatching at

  Her hair with both her hands. She made her way

  Straight to her chamber; she barred fast the doors

  And called on Laius, these long years dead,

  Remembering their by-gone procreation.

  ‘Through this did you meet death yourself, and leave

  To me, the mother, child-bearing accursed

  To my own child.’* She cried aloud upon

  The bed where she had borne a double brood,

  Husband from husband, children from a child.

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  And thereupon she died, I know not how;

  For, groaning, Oedipus burst in, and we,

  For watching him, saw not her agony

  And how it ended. He, ranging through the palace,

  Came up to each man calling for a sword,

  Calling for her whom he had called his wife,

  Asking where was she who had borne them all,

  Himself and his own children. So he raved.

  And then some deity* showed him the way,

  For it was none of us that stood around;

  He cried aloud, as if to someone who

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  Was leading him; he leapt upon the doors,

  Burst from their sockets the yielding bars, and fell

  Into the room; and there, hanged by the neck,

  We saw his wife, held in a swinging cord.

  He, when he saw it, groaned in misery

  And loosed her body from the rope. When now

  She lay upon the ground, awful to see

  Was that which followed: from her dress he tore

  The golden brooches that she had been wearing,

  Raised them, and with their points struck his own eyes,

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  Crying aloud that they should never see

  What he had suffered and what he had done,

  But in the dark henceforth they should behold

  Those whom they ought not; nor should recognize

  Those whom he longed to see. To such refrain

  He smote his eyeballs with the pins, not once,

  Nor twice; and as he smote them, blood ran down

  His face, not dripping slowly, but there fell

  Showers of black rain and blood-red hail together.

  Not on his head alone, but on them both,

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  Husband and wife, this common storm has broken.

  Their ancient happiness of early days

  Was happiness indeed; but now, today,

  Death, ruin, lamentation, shame—of all

  The ills there are, not one is wanting here.

  CHORUS. Now is there intermission in his agony?

  MESSENGER. He shouts for someone to unbar the gates,

  And to display to Thebes the parricide,

  His mother’s—no, I cannot speak the words;

  For, by the doom he uttered, he will cast

  Himself beyond our borders, nor remain

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  To be a curse at home. But he needs strength,

  And one to guide him; for these wounds are greater

  Than he can bear—as you shall see; for look!

  They draw the bolts. A sight you will behold

  To move the pity even of an enemy.

  The doors open, OEDIPUS slowly advances

  CHORUS [chants]. O horrible, dreadful sight. More dreadful far

  Than any I have yet seen. What cruel frenzy

  Came over you? What spirit* with superhuman leap

  1300

  Came to assist your grim destiny?

  Ah, most unhappy man!

  But no! I cannot bear even to look at you,

  Though there is much that I would ask and see and hear.

  But I shudder at the very sight of you.

  OEDIPUS [sings]. Alas! alas! and woe for my misery!

  Where are my steps taking me?

  My random voice is lost in the air.

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  O God!* how hast thou crushed me!

  CHORUS [speaks]. Too terribly for us to hear or see.

  OEDIPUS [sings]. O cloud of darkness abominable,

  My enemy unspeakable,

  In cruel onset insuperable.

  Alas! alas! Assailed at once by pain

  Of pin-points and of memory of crimes.

  CHORUS [speaks]. In such tormenting pains you well may cry

  A double grief and feel a double woe.

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  OEDIPUS [sings]. Ah, my friend!

  Still at my side? Still steadfast?

  Still can you endure me?

  Still care for me, a blind man?*

  [speaks] For it is you, my friend; I know ‘tis you;

  Though all is darkness, yet I know your voice.

  CHORUS [speaks]. O, to destroy your sight! How could you bring

  Yourself to do it? What god* incited you?

  OEDIPUS [sings]. It was Apollo, friends, Apollo.

  He decreed that I should suffer what I suffer;

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  But the hand that struck, alas! was my own,

  And not another’s.

  For why should I have sight.

  When sight of nothing could give me pleasure?

  CHORUS [speaks]. It was even as you say.

  OEDIPUS [sings]. What have I left, my friends, to see,

  To cherish, whom to speak with, or

  To listen to, with joy?

  Lead me away at once, far from Thebes;

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  Lead me away, my friends!

  I have destroyed; I am accursed, and, what is more,

  Hateful to Heaven, as no other.

  CHORUS [speaks]. Unhappy your intention, and unhappy

  Your fate. O would that I had never known you!

  OEDIPUS [sings]. Curses on him, whoever he was,

  Who took the savage fetters from my feet,

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  Snatched me from death, and saved me.

  No thanks I owe him,

  For had I died that day

  Less ruin had I brought on me and mine.

  CHORUS [speaks]. That wish is my wish too.

  OEDIPUS [sings]. I had not then come and slain my father.

  Nor then would men have called me

  Husband of her that bore me.

  Now am I God’s enemy, child of the guilty,

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  And she that bore me has borne too my children;

  And if there is evil surpassing evil,

  That has come to Oedipus.

  CHORUS [speaks]. How can I say that you have

  counselled well?

  Far better to be dead than to be blind.

  OEDIPUS [speaks]. That what is done was not done for the best

  Seek not to teach me: counsel me no more.

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  I know not how I could have gone to Hades

  And with these eyes have looked upon my father

  Or on my mother;* such things have I done

  To them, death* is no worthy punishment.

  Or could I look for pleasure in the sight

  Of my own children, born as they were born?

  Never! No pleasure there, for eyes of mine,

  Nor in this city, nor its battlements

  Nor sacred images. From these—ah, miserable!—

  I, the most nobly born of any Theban

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  Am banned for ever by my own decree

  That the defiler should be driven forth,

  The man accursed of Heaven and Laius’ house.

  Was I to find such taint in me, and then

  With level eyes to look them* in the face?

  Nay more: if for my ears I could have built

  Some dam to stay the flood of sound, that I

  Might lose both sight and hearing, and seal up

  My wretched body—that I would have done.

  How good to dwell beyond the reach of pain!

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  Cithaeron! Why did you accept me? Why

  Did you not take and kill me? Never then

  Should I have come to dwell among the Thebans.*

  O Polybus! Corinth! and that ancient home

  I thought my father’s—what a thing you nurtured!

  How fair, how foul beneath! For I am found

  Foul in myself and in my parentage.

  O you three ways, that in a hidden glen

  Do meet: you narrow branching roads within

  The forest—you, through my own hands, did drink

  1400

  My father’s blood, that was my own.—Ah! do you

  Remember what you saw me do? And what

  I did again in Thebes? You marriages!

  You did beget me: then, having begotten,

  Bore the same crop again, and brought to light

  Commingled blood of fathers, brothers, sons,

  Brides, mothers, wives; all that there can be

  Among the human kind most horrible!

  But that which it is foul to do, it is

  Not fair to speak of. Quick as you can, I beg,

  1410

  Banish me, hide me, slay me! Throw me forth

  Into the sea, where I may sink from view.

  I pray you, deign to touch one so afflicted,

  And do not fear: there is no man alive

  Can bear this load of evil but myself.

  CHORUS. To listen to your prayers, Creon is here,

  For act or guidance opportune; for he,

  In your defection, is our champion.

  Enter CREON

  OEDIPUS. Alas! alas! How can I speak to him?

  What word of credit find? In all my commerce

  1420

  With him aforetime I am proven false.

  CREON. No exultation, Oedipus, and no reproach

  Of injuries inflicted brings me here;

  But if the face of men moves not your shame,

  Then reverence show to that all-nurturing fire,

  The holy Sun, that he be not polluted

  By such accursèd sight, which neither Earth

  Nor rain from Heaven nor sunlight can endure.*

  Take him within, and quickly: it is right

  His kinsmen only should behold and hear

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  Evils that chiefly on his kinsmen fall.

  OEDIPUS. In Heaven’s name—since you cheat my expectation,

  So noble towards my baseness—grant me this:

  It is for you I ask it, not myself.

  CREON. What is this supplication that you make?

  OEDIPUS. Drive me at once beyond your bounds, where I

  Shall be alone, and no one speak to me.

  CREON. I would have done it; but I first desired

  To ask the God what he would have me do.

  OEDIPUS. No, his command was given in full, to slay

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  Me, the polluter and the parricide.

  CREON. Those were his words; but in our present need

  It would be wise to ask what we should do.

  OEDIPUS. You will inquire for such a wretch as I?

  CREON. I will; for now you may believe the god.

  OEDIPUS. Yes; and on you I lay this charge and duty:

  Give burial, as you will, to her who lies

  Within—for she is yours,* and this is proper;

  And, while I live, let not my father’s city