The Tragedies of Seneca / Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index

by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

OEDIPUS

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Oedipus	King of Thebes; the son, as he supposed, of Polybus, king of Corinth, and Merope, his wife, but found to be the son of Laius and Jocasta.
Jocasta	Wife and, as the play develops, found to be also the mother of Oedipus.
Creon	Theban prince, brother of Jocasta.
Tiresias	A celebrated prophet of Thebes, now old and blind.
Manto	His daughter.
Old Man	Sent from Corinth to announce to Oedipus the death of Polybus.
Phorbas	Head-shepherd of the royal flocks of Thebes.
Messenger	Who announces the self-inflicted blindness of Oedipus and the suicide of Jocasta.
Chorus	Of Theban elders.

The scene is laid before the royal palace of Thebes; the play opens in the early morning of the day within which the tragedy is consummated.

An oracle once came to Laius, king of Thebes, that he should perish by his own son's hands. When, therefore, a son was born to him, he gave the infant to his chief of shepherds to expose on Mount Cithaeron. But the tenderhearted rustic gave the babe instead to a wandering herdsman of Polybus, the king of Corinth.

Years later, a reputed son of Polybus, Oedipus by name, fearing an oracle which doomed him to slay his father and wed his mother, fled from Corinth, that so he might escape this dreadful fate. As he fared northward, he met and slew an old man who imperiously disputed the narrow way with him. Upon arriving at the Theban land, he read the riddle of the Sphinx, and so destroyed that monster which Juno had sent to harass the land which she hated; and for this service, Oedipus was made the husband of Jocasta, the widowed queen of Laius (who had recently been slain upon the road), and set upon the vacant throne.

Now other years have passed, and sons and daughters have been born to the royal pair. But now a dreadful pestilence afflicts the state. Oedipus has sent Creon to consult the oracle, to learn the cause and seek the means of deliverance from the scourge. And while he waits his messenger's return, the murky dawn still finds him grieving for his kingdom's wretched plight.

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ACT I

Oedipus: Now night has fled; and with a wavering gleam

Returns the sun; all wrapped in murky clouds

His beams arise, and with their baleful light

Shall soon look forth upon our stricken homes,

And day reveal the havoc of the night. 5

Oh, who in all this realm is glad? O fate,

That seemest good, how many ills lie hid

Behind thy smiling face! As lofty peaks

Most feel the winds' abuse; and as the cliff,

That with its rocky front divides the deep,

The waves of e'en a quiet sea assail; 10

So is the loftiest power the most exposed

To hostile fate's assaults.

'Twas well conceived

That I should flee the kingdom of my sire,

Old Polybus, and from my fears be freed,

A homeless exile, dauntless, wandering.

Be heaven and all the gods my witnesses,

I chanced upon this realm. Yet even now

The dreadful fear remains that by my hand 15

My sire shall die. Thus spoke the Delphic god.

And still another, greater sin he showed.

And can there be a blacker crime than this,

A father slain? Oh, cursed impiety!

'Twere shame to tell the hideous oracle:

For Phoebus warned me of my father's couch, 20

And impious wedlock. 'Twas the fear of this

That drove me headlong from my father's realm,

And for no sin I left my native land.

All self-distrustful did I well secure

Thy sacred laws, O mother Nature; still, 25

When in the heart a mighty dread abides,

Though well assured it cannot be fulfilled,

The fear remains. I fear exceedingly,

Nor can I trust myself unto myself.

And even now the fates are aimed at me.

For what am I to think, when this fell pest,

Although it lays its blighting hand on all, 30

Spares me alone? For what new horror now

Am I reserved? Amidst my city's woes,

'Mid funeral pyres that ever must be wet

With tears of grief afresh, 'mid heaps of slain,

I stand unscathed. And couldst thou hope that thou,

A culprit at the bar of God, shouldst gain 35

For guilt a wholesome kingdom in return?

Nay, rather, I myself infect the air.

For now no breeze with its soft breath relieves

Our spirits suffocating with the heat;

No gentle zephyrs breathe upon the land;

But Titan with the dog-star's scorching fires

Doth parch us, pressing hard upon the back 40

Of Nemea's lion. From their wonted streams

The waters all have fled, and from the herbs

Their accustomed green. Now Dirce's fount is dry;

While to a trickling rill Ismenus' flood

Hath shrunk, and barely laves the naked sands.

Athwart the sky doth Phoebus' sister glide

With paling light, and, 'mid the lowering clouds, 45

The darkling heavens fade. No starlight gleams

Amid the gloomy silence of the night,

But heavy mists brood low upon the earth;

And those bright mansions of the heavenly gods

Are sicklied over with the hues of hell.

The full-grown harvest doth withhold its fruit;

And, though the yellow fields stand thick with corn, 50

Upon the stalk the shriveled grain is dead.

No class is free from this destructive plague,

But every age and sex falls equally;

Where youth with age, and sire with son are joined,

And wife and husband are together burned. 55

Now funerals claim no more their wonted grief;

The magnitude of woe hath dried our eyes;

And tears, the last resource of woeful hearts,

Have perished utterly. The stricken sire

Here bears his son unto the funeral flames; 60

And there the mother lays her dead child down,

And hastes to bring another to the pyre.

Nay, in the midst of grief a new woe springs;

For, while they minister unto the dead,

Themselves need funeral rites. Anon they burn

With others' fires the bodies of their friends.

The fire is stol'n, for in their wretchedness 65

No shame remains. No separate tombs receive

The hallowed bones; mere burning is enough.

How small a covering their ashes need!

And yet the land does not suffice for all;

And now the very woods have failed the pyre.

Nor prayers nor skill avail to serve the sick,

For even they who own the healing art

Are smitten down. The baleful pestilence

Removes the check that would restrain its force. 70

So, prostrate at the altar, do I fall

And, stretching suppliant hands, I pray the gods

To grant a speedy end; that in my death

I may anticipate my falling throne,

Nor be myself the last of all to die,

The sole surviving remnant of my realm.

O gods of heaven, too hard! O heavy fate! 75

Is death to be denied to me alone,

So easy for all else? Come, fly the land

Thy baleful touch has tainted. Leave thou here

The grief, the death, the pestilential air,

Which with thyself thou bring'st. Go speed thy flight

To any land, e'en to thy parents' realm. 80

Jocasta [who has entered in time to hear her husband's last words]: What boots it, husband, to augment thy woes

With lamentations? For I think, indeed,

This very thing is regal, to endure

Adversity, and all the more to stand,

With heart more valiant and with foot more sure,

When the weight of empire totters to its fall. 85

For 'tis not manly to present thy back

To fortunes's darts.

Oedipus: Not mine the guilt of fear;

My valor feels no such ignoble throes.

Should swords be drawn against me, should the power,

The dreadful power of Mars upon me rush, 90

Against the very giants would I stand.

The Sphinx I fled not when she wove her words

In mystic measures, but I bore to look

Upon the bloody jaws of that fell bard,

And on the ground, all white with scattered bones.

But when, from a lofty cliff, with threatening mien, 95

The baleful creature poised her wings to strike,

And, like a savage lion, lashed her tail,[1]

In act to spring; still did I dare my fate

And ask her riddle. Then with horrid sound

Of deadly jaws together crashed, she spake;

The while her claws, impatient of delay,

And eager for my vitals, rent the rock. 100

But the close-wrought words of fate with guile entwined,

And that dark riddle of the wingéd beast

Did I resolve.

Jocasta: What meant'st then thou by these

Thy maddened prayers for death? Thou mightst have died.

But no; the very scepter in thy hand

Is thy reward for that fell Sphinx destroyed. 105

Oedipus: Yea that, the artful monster's cruel shade,

Doth war against me still. Now she alone,

In vengeance for her death, is wasting Thebes.

But now, one only way of safety still is left,

If Phoebus show us not of safety all bereft.

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[Enter the Chorus of Theban elders, deploring the violence of the plague.]

Chorus: How art thou fall'n, O glorious stock 110

Of Cadmus, thou and Thebes in one!

How dost thou see, poor ruined Thebes,

Thy lands laid waste and tenantless.

And thou, O Theban Bacchus, hear:

That hardy soldiery of thine,

Thy comrades to the farthest Ind,

Who dared invade the Eastern plains, 115

And plant thy banners at the gates of dawn—

Behold, destruction feeds on them.

They saw the blessed Arabes,

'Mid spicy groves; and the fleeing steeds

Of the Parthian, deadliest when he flees;

They trod the marge of the ruddy sea, 120

Where Phoebus his rising beams displays,

And the day reveals; where his nearer fires

Darken the naked Indians.

Yea we, that race invincible,

Beneath the hand of greedy fate 125

Are falling fast.

The gloomy retinue of death

In march unceasing hurries on;

The grieving line unending hastes

To the place of death. Space fails the throng.

For, though seven gates stand open wide, 130

Still for the crowding funerals

'Tis not enough; for everywhere

Is carnage seen, and death treads hard

Upon the heels of death.

The sluggish ewes first felt the blight,

For the woolly flock the rich grass cropped

To its own doom. At the victim's neck 135

The priest stood still, in act to strike;

But while his hand still poised the blow,

Behold, the bull, with gilded horns,

Fell heavily; whereat his neck,

Beneath the shock of his huge weight,

Was broken and asunder yawned.

No blood the sacred weapon stained, 140

But from the wound dark gore oozed forth.

The steed a sudden languor feels,

And stumbles in his circling course,

While from his downward-sinking side

His rider falls.

The abandoned flocks lie in the fields; 145

The bull amid his dying herd

Is pining; and the shepherd fails

His scanty flock, for he himself

'Mid his wasting kine is perishing.

The stag no more fears the ravenous wolf;

No longer the lion's roar is heard; 150

The shaggy bear has lost her rage,

And the lurking serpent his deadly sting;

For parched and dying now he lies,

With venom dried.

No more do the woods, with leafage crowned,

Spread out their shade in the mountain glens; 155

No more are fields with verdure clad;

No vines bend low with laden arms;

For the very earth has felt the breath

Of our dire pestilence.

Through the riven bars of Erebus, 160

With torches lit in Tartara,

The raging band of the Furies troop;

Dark Phlegethon has changed his course,

And forced the waters of the Styx

To mingle with our Theban streams.

Grim Death opes wide his greedy jaws, 165

And all his baleful wings outspreads.

And he who plies that swollen stream

In his roomy skiff, though his age is fresh

And hardy, scarce can raise his arms,

O'erwearied with his constant toil

And the passage of the endless throng. 170

'Tis even rumored that the dog

Hath burst the chains of Taenara,

And through our fields is wandering.

Now dreadful prodigies appear:

The earth gives out a rumbling sound,

And ghosts go stealing through the groves,

Larger than mortal forms; and twice 175

The trees of our Cadmean woods

Have trembled sore and shed their snows;

Twice Dirce flowed with streams of blood;

And in the stilly night we heard

The baying of Amphion's hounds.

Oh, cruel, strange new form of death, 180

And worse than death! The sluggish limbs

Are with a weary languor seized;

The sickly cheek with fever burns,

And all the head with loathsome sores

Is blotched. Now heated vapors rise

And scorch with fever's flames the brain

Within the body's citadel,

And the throbbing temples swell with blood. 185

The eyeballs start; the accurséd fire

Devours the limbs; the ears resound,

And from the nostrils dark blood drips

And strains apart the swelling veins. 190

Now quick convulsions rend and tear

The inmost vitals.

Now to their burning hearts they strain

Cold stones to soothe their agony;

And they, whom laxer care permits,

Since they who should control are dead,

The fountains seek, and feed their thirst 195

With copious draughts. The smitten throng

All prostrate at the altars lie

And pray for death; and this alone

The gods, compliant, grant to them.

Men seek the sacred fanes, and pray,

Not that the gods may be appeased,

But glutted with their feast of death. 200

[Creon is seen approaching.]

But who with hasty step the palace seeks?

Is this our Creon, high in birth and deed,

Or does my sickened soul see false for true?

'Tis Creon's self, in answer to our prayer.205

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reading, caudam.

ACT II

[Enter Creon.]

Oedipus: I quake with horror, and I fear to know

The tendency of fate. My trembling soul

Strives 'neath a double load; for joy and grief

Lie mingled still in dark obscurity.

I shrink from knowing what I long to know.

Wherefore, O brother of my consort, speak;210

And if to weary hearts thou bring'st relief,

With quickened utterance thy news proclaim.

Creon: In dark obscurity the answer lies.

Oedipus: Who gives me doubtful succor grants me none.

Creon: It is the custom of the Delphic god

In dark enigmas to conceal the fates.215

Oedipus: Yet speak; however dark the riddle be

'Tis given to Oedipus alone to solve.

Creon: Apollo doth ordain that banishment

Be meted out to him who slew our king,

And so our murdered Laius be avenged;

For only thus shall we again behold

The day's clear light, and drink safe draughts of air.220

Oedipus: Who was the slayer of the noble king?

Tell who is designated by the god,

That he th' allotted punishment may pay.

Creon: May it be granted me to tell the things

To sight and hearing dreadful. At the thought,

Numb horror holds my limbs, my blood runs cold.

When to Apollo's hallowed shrine I came225

With reverent feet, and pious hands upraised,

Parnassus' double-crested, snowy peak

Gave forth a fearful crash, the laurels shook,

And fair Castalia's waters ceased to flow.

The priestess of the son of Lato then230

Began to spread her bristling locks abroad,

And felt the inspiration of the god.

Scarce had she reached the sacred inner shrine,

When with a roar, beyond the voice of man,

There sounded forth this doubtful oracle:

"Kind shall the stars return to the Theban city of Cadmus,

If, O fugitive guest, Ismenian Dirce thou leavest,

Stained with the blood of a king, from infancy known to Apollo. 235

Brief shall be thy joys, the impious joys of slaughter.

With thee war thou bringest, and war to thy children thou leavest,

Foul returned once more to the impious arms of thy mother."

Oedipus: What I at heaven's command now meditate,

Long since should have been rendered to the king,240

That none by craft might violate the throne.

And most doth it become a sceptered king

To guard the life of kings; for none lament

The death of him whose safety breedeth fear.

Creon: Our care for him a greater fear removed.

Oedipus: What fear so great that duty to prevent?245

Creon: The Sphinx and her accurséd riddle's threats.

Oedipus: Then now at heaven's command shall be atoned

That impious deed.

Whoever of the gods

Dost look with kindly eye upon our realm;

And thou, whose hand doth guide the rolling sphere;

And thou, O glory of the smiling sky,250

Who in thy wandering course dost rule the stars,

And with thy flying wheels dost measure out

The slow procession of the centuries;

Thou sister of the sun, night-wanderer,

Who ever dost reflect thy brother's fires;

And thou, great ruler of the boisterous winds,

Who o'er the level deep dost drive thy car;255

And thou, who dost allot the sunless homes:

May he, by whose right hand king Laius fell,

No peaceful home, no trusty lares find;

And may no land in hospitality

Receive his cheerless, exiled wanderings.

O'er shameful marriage may he live to grieve,260

And monstrous progeny. May he his sire

By his own hand destroy; and may he do

(What doom more dreadful can I imprecate?)

The deed which by my flight I did not do.

No room for pardon shall be given him;

By this my regal scepter do I swear,

Both by the sway which I as stranger hold,

And that I left behind; by my household gods,265

And thee, O Neptune, who with shorter waves

And twofold current dost disport thyself

Upon my native Corinth's double shores.

And thou thyself be witness to my words,

Who dost inspire the fate-revealing lips

Of Cirrha's priestess: so may Polybus,270

My royal father, spend a quiet age,

And end his days in peace upon the throne;

And so may Merope, my mother, know

The marriage of her Polybus alone,

As from my grasp no favoring power shall snatch

That guilty one, who basely slew the king.

But tell me, where was that foul murder done?

In open fight, or was he basely snared?275

Creon: In quest of cool Castalia's sacred fount

And leafy woods, along the way he fared,

On either side with tangled thickets hedged.

'Twas where the road, three-forked, spreads to the plain.

One leads through Phocian land, to Bacchus dear,

Where high Parnassus, by a gentle slope280

The lowlands leaving, lifts his double peak

Into the heavens; and one leads off to where

Two oceans bathe the land of Sisyphus;

A third path, passing through Olenian fields,

Along a hollow valley's winding way,

Attains the vagrant waters and divides

The chilling current of the Elean stream.285

'Twas here he journeyed, safe 'mid general peace,

When on a sudden, lo, a robber band

Fell on him with the sword and slew him there.

[Tiresias is seen approaching.]

But in the nick of time, by Phoebus roused,

Tiresias, agéd and with trembling limbs,

Hastes to our presence with what speed he may;

And, as his faithful comrade, Manto comes,290

Her sightless father leading by the hand.

[Enter Tiresias, led by his daughter Manto.]

Oedipus: O priest of heaven, thou next to Phoebus' self,

Explain the oracle which he hath sent,

And tell on whom the penalty is laid.

Tiresias: Because my tongue is slow and seeks delay,

Thou shouldst not wonder, great-souled Oedipus;

Much truth is hidden when the eye is dimmed.295

But when my country, when Apollo calls,

I will obey. Then let me search the fates.

If in my veins still flowed the blood of youth,

I would myself sustain the god and speak.

Now to the altar drive a pure-white bull,

A heifer, too, upon whose tender neck300

The curvéd yoke of toil hath never pressed.

And thou, my child, who guid'st my darkened steps,

Describe the omens which Apollo sends.

[The victims are stationed before the altar as directed.]

Manto: A perfect victim at the altar stands.

Tiresias: With prayer invoke the presence of the gods,

And heap the altar high with frankincense.305

Manto: Lo, on the sacred fire the spice is heaped.

Tiresias: What of the flame? Did it with vigor seize

The generous feast?

Manto: With sudden gleam it leaped

Into the air, and quickly fell again.

Tiresias: And did the sacred fire burn bright and clear,

And point its gleaming summit straight to heaven,310

And, spreading outward, to the breeze unfold;

Or crawl, with course uncertain, near the ground,

And, flickering, die away in gloomy smoke?

Manto: Not one appearance only had the flame.

As when the tempest-bringing Iris spreads

Her varying colors on the vault of heaven,315

And with her painted bow adorns the sky;

So to the sacred fire thou wouldst not tell

What hue is wanting there and what prevails.

Dark blue it flickered first, with yellow spots;

Then bloody red, and then it vanished quite.320

But see! the flame is rent in rival parts,

And the glowing embers of one sacred pile

Are cleft in double heaps and fall apart!

O father, horror fills me as I gaze;

For, as I pour the sacred liquid forth,

It changes straight to blood—Oh, horrible!325

And stifling smoke surrounds the royal head.

And now in denser gloom it settles down

Upon his face, and, with its veiling cloud,

It shuts away from him the fading light.

Oh, speak, and tell us what it doth portend.

Tiresias: How can I speak, who halting stand amazed

Amid conflicting voices of the soul?

What shall I say? Dire ills are here, indeed,

But hidden yet in deepest mystery.330

With signs well known the wrath of heaven is wont

To be made manifest: but what is that

Which now they would disclose, and then, again,

With changing and destructive purpose hide?

Some deed so vile, it shameth heaven to tell.

But quickly set the chosen victims here,

And sprinkle salted meal upon their heads.335

With peaceful face do they endure the rites,

And hands outstretched to smite?

Manto: His lofty head

The bull uplifted to the eastern sky,

Then shunned the light of day, and quickly turned

In terror from the newly risen sun.

Tiresias: With one blow, smitten, do they fall to earth?340

Manto: The heifer threw herself upon the steel,

And with one blow has fallen; but the bull,

Though smitten by a double deadly blow,

Distracted wanders here and there in pain,

And scarce can force his struggling life away.

Tiresias: Driven through a narrow opening spurts the blood,345

Or, sluggish, does it water deeper wounds?

Manto: The blood of one, through that same welcome thrust,

Doth flow in generous streams; but of the bull,

Those yawning wounds are stained with scanty drops,

While, turning backward, through his eyes and mouth

The plenteous current flows.350

Tiresias: These unblest rites

Some dreadful ills portend. But come, describe

The trusty markings of the viscera.

Manto: Oh, what is this? For not, as is their wont,

With gentle motion do the entrails quake,

But, rather, strongly throb beneath the touch,

While from the veins the blood leaps forth anew.355

The sickly heart is shriveled up and lies

Deep hidden in the breast; the veins appear

Of livid hue. The entrails suffer lack;

And from the wasting liver oozes slow

A stream of black corruption. Nay, behold

(A sign of dark foreboding to a king

Who holdeth single sway), two swelling points

Of equal elevation rise to view;360

But both are lopped and covered with a veil.

Refusing lurking-place to things unseen,

The hostile side uprears itself with strength

And shows seven swelling veins; but these, again,

An intersecting line cuts straight across,

Preventing their return. The natural law365

And order of the parts has been reversed,

And nothing lies within its proper place.

All on the right the blood-filled lungs appear,

Incapable of air; the heart no more

Is found upon the left, its 'customed place.

The fatty walls, with their soft covering,

No longer richly fold the entrails in.370

The ways of nature are in all things changed;

The womb itself is most unnatural.

Look close, and see what impious thing is this:

Oh, monstrous! 'tis the unborn progeny

Of a heifer still unmated! stranger still,

It lies not in the wonted place, assigned

By nature's laws, but fills its mother's side.375

It moves its members with a feeble groan;

Its unformed limbs with trembling rigors twitch.

Black blood has stained the darkened entrails all;

The mangled bodies strive e'en yet to move,

Make show to rise, and menace with their horns

The priestly hands. The entrails shun the touch.380

Nor is that lowing which has frightened thee

The deep-voiced roar of bulls, nor do the calls

Of frightened cattle sound upon our ears:

It is the lowing of the altar fires,

It is the frightened muttering of the shrine!

Oedipus: What meaning have these monstrous signs? Declare;

And with no timid ears will I attend.385

For he who has the dregs of fortune drained

Fears nothing more.

Tiresias: The time will come to thee,

When these thy ills, for which thou seekest aid,

Will blessings seem.

Oedipus: But tell me then, I pray,

The one thing which the gods would have me know:

Whose hands are stained with murder of the king?

Tiresias: Neither the birds can summon up the name,390

Who cleave the depths of heaven on fleeting wing,

Nor yet the vitals plucked from living breasts.

But we must seek it in another way:

The murdered king himself must be recalled

From realms of everlasting night, that thus,

Released from Erebus, he may declare

His murderer. The earth must be unsealed;395

The pitiless divinity of Dis

Must be implored, and hither brought the shades

Who live beyond the Styx.

Now do thou tell

To whom thou giv'st the sacred embassy;

For 'tis not right for thee who hold'st the reins

Of government to seek the gloomy shades.

Oedipus: O Creon, thee this task demands, to whom,

As next in power, my kingdom looks for aid.400

Tiresias: And while we loose the bars of deepest hell,

Do ye the praises of our Bacchus tell.

[Exeunt Creon, Tiresias, and Manto.]

The Chorus [in dithyrambic strain sings in praise of Bacchus]: Bind ye now your flowing locks with the swaying ivy,

Brandish aloft with your languishing arms the Nysaean thyrsus!

O glorious light of heaven, attend the prayers405

Which noble Thebes, thy Thebes, O beautiful Bacchus,

With suppliant hands outstretched here offers thee.

Turn hither thy smiling virgin face,

Dispel the clouds with thy starry glance,410

The gloomy threats of Erebus,

And ravenous fate.

Thee it becomes to crown thy locks with flowers of the springtime,

Thee to bind thy head with the Tyrian fillet;

Or with the clinging ivy, gleaming with berries,

Softly to wreathe thy brow;415

Now thy hair to unbind and spread in confusion,

Now in close-drawn knot to collect and confine it;

Just as when thou, fearing the wrath of Juno,

Didst conceal thyself in the guise of maidens.

Virgin, too, thou seemedst with golden ringlets,420

Binding up thy robe with a saffron girdle.

So the softer graces of living please thee,

Robes ungirt and flowing in long profusion.

When in thy golden car thou wast drawn by lions,

Clad in flowing garments, the East beheld thee,425

All the vast expanse of the Indian country,

They who drink the Ganges and cleave the surface

Of snowy Araxes.

Seated on humble beast the old Silenus attends thee,

Binding his throbbing brows with a waving garland of ivy;430

While the wanton priests lead on the mysterious revels.

And then a troop of Bassarids

With dancing step conducted thee,

Now ranging o'er Pangaeus' foot,

And now on Thracian Pindus' top.435

Soon, 'mid the noble dames of Thebes,

A furious Maenad, the comrade of Bacchus,

In garment of fawn-skin, conducted the god.

The Theban dames, by Bacchus excited,

With streaming locks and thyrsus uplifted440

In high-waving hands, now join in the revels,

And wild in their madness they rend Pentheus

Limb from limb.

Their fury spent, with weary frame,

They look upon their impious deed,

And know it not.

Into the sea realms holds, the foster-mother of Bacchus;445

Round her the daughters of Nereus dance, Leucothoë singing;

Over the mighty deep, though new to its waves, Palaemon,

Brother of Bacchus, rules, a mortal changed to a sea-god.

When in childhood a band of robbers assailing

Bore thee away in their flying vessel a captive,

Nereus quickly calmed the billowy ocean;450

When lo! to rolling meadows the dark sea changes;

Here stands in vernal green the flourishing plane-tree,

There the groves of laurel dear to Apollo;

While resounds the chatter of birds in the branches.

Now are the oars enwreathed with the living ivy,

While at the masthead hang the clustering grape vines;455

There on the prow loud roars a lion of Ida,

At the stern appears a terrible tiger of Ganges.

Filled with terror the pirates leap in the ocean.

Straight in their plunging forms new changes appear;460

For first their arms are seen to shrink and fall,

Their bodies' length to shorten; and on their sides

The hands appear as fins; with curving back

They skim the waves, and, lashing their crescent tails,

They dash through the water.465

Changed to a school of dolphins now, they follow the vessel.

Soon did the Lydian stream with its precious waters receive thee,

Pouring down its golden waves in a billowy current.

Loosed was the vanquished bow and Scythian darts of the savage

Massagetan who mingles blood in his milky goblets.470

The realm of Lycurgus, bearer of axes, submitted to Bacchus;

The land of the Dacians[2] untamable felt his dominion,

The wandering tribes of the north by Boreas smitten,

And whom the Maeotis bathes with its frozen waters.475

Where the Arcadian star looks down from the zenith,

Even there the power of Bacchus extended;

Conquered too the scattered Gelonian peoples.

From the warlike maidens their arms he wrested;

Down to the earth they fell in desperate conflict,480

The hardy bands of Amazonian maidens.

Now, at last, their arrows swift are abandoned,

And Maenads have they become.

Holy Cithaeron too has streamed with slaughter,

Where was spilt the noble blood of Ophion.485

Proetus' daughters the forests sought; and Argos,

Juno at last consenting, paid homage to Bacchus.

The island of Naxos, girt by the broad Aegean,

Gave to Bacchus the maid whom Theseus abandoned,

Compensating her loss by a better husband.490

Out of the rock there gushed Nyctelian liquor;

Babbling streams at his word clove the grassy meadows;

Deep the earth drank in the nectarean juices;

Streams of snowy milk burst forth from the fountains,495

Mingled with Lesbian wine all fragrant with spices.

Now is the bride to her place in the heavens conducted;

Phoebus, with flowing locks, sings a stately anthem;

Love, in honor of both, bears the wedding torches;500

Jove lays down the deadly darts of his lightning,

Halting his bolts of flame at the coming of Bacchus.

While the gleaming stars in their boundless pasturage wander,

While the sea shall gird th' imprisoned earth with its waters,505

While the full-orb'd moon shall gather her lost refulgence,

While the morning star shall herald the coming of Phoebus,

While in the north the Bear shall fear the cerulean ocean,

Still shall we worship the shining face of the beautiful Bacchus.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Reading, te Dacûm.

ACT III

[Enter Creon, returned from the rites of necromancy.]

Oedipus: Although thy face displays the marks of grief,

Declare whose death an angry heaven demands.510

Creon: Thou bid'st me speak where fear would silence keep.

Oedipus: If Thebes, to ruin falling, move thee not,

Regard the scepter of thy kindred house.

Creon: Thou wilt repent the knowledge which thou seek'st.

Oedipus: A useless cure for ills is ignorance.515

And wilt thou still obstruct the public weal?

Creon: Where foul the cure, 'tis grievous to be cured.

Oedipus: Thy tidings speak; or, by thy pains subdued,

Thou soon shalt know what angered kings can do.

Creon: Kings hate the words whose speech they would compel. 520

Oedipus: In hades shalt thou pay thy life for all,

Unless thou tell the secrets of the fates.

Creon: Nay, let me hold my peace. No smaller boon

Was ever sought.

Oedipus: More often than by speech,

Have kingdoms by the boon of silence fall'n.525

Creon: When silence is denied what can be given?

Oedipus: He sins who silence holds when speech is best.

Creon: Then hear in peace the words which I must speak.

Oedipus: Was ever punishment for speech compelled?

Creon: Afar from Thebes there is a frowning grove530

Near the well-watered vale of Dirce's fount.

And there a cypress lifts its giant head

And holds within its evergreen embrace

The trees around. Here stands an ancient oak

And spreads its branches dark with clustering mould.

One side is torn by time's destructive hand;535

The rest, with roots decayed and falling, hangs

Supported on a neighbor's trunk. Here stand

The bitter laurel, rustling linden trees,

The myrtle, and the alder destined soon

To sweep its oarage on the boundless sea.

Midway, a mighty pine its smooth trunk lifts540

Against the rays of Phoebus and the winds,

And with its heavy shade it overwhelms

The lesser trees; for, with its spreading boughs,

It stands, the giant guardian of the wood.

Beneath this pine there springs a gloomy pool545

That never saw the sun nor light of day.

An oozy swamp surrounds the sluggish pool.

Here did the agéd priest direct his steps;

Nor was there need to wait; the gloomy spot

Supplied the shades of night. A trench is dug,

Where brands are kindled, pluck'd from funeral pyres.550

The priest is shrouded in a mourning pall,

And waves the bough; his dark robe sweeps the earth.

And now, in squalid garb and wrapped in gloom,

The priest advances, with his hoary locks555

Encircled by the yew-tree's deadly leaves.

Black sheep and sable oxen, backward driven,[3]

Are sacrificed. The fire devours the food,

And the living entrails quiver in the flames.

The shades he calls, and him who rules the shades,

And him who guards the dark Lethaean stream.560

A magic rune he mutters o'er and o'er

And fiercely chants the charm which either lures

The shifting ghosts, or forces them to come.

He burns the victims whole, and fills the trench

With sacrificial blood, and snowy milk,565

And, with his left hand pouring, mingles wine;

Again he chants, and, bending to the earth,

With stronger words and frantic, summons up

The manes. Loudly bayed the hounds of hell;

And thrice the hollows gave a mournful sound;570

The whole earth trembled and the solid ground

Was rent asunder. Then the priest exclaimed:

"I have prevailed, for strong the words I spoke;

The deep and gloomy realm of chaos yawns,

And for the dwellers in the home of Dis

A way is opened to the world of light."

The whole wood shrank away; its leaves erect

In horror stood, the mighty trunks were split, 575

And all the grove was smitten with amaze.

The frightened earth crouched back with hollow groans,

As if unwillingly she saw the deeps

Of Acheron assailed; or else herself,

That back to life the dead might find a way,

With crashing sound her close-wrought barriers burst;580

Or threefold Cerberus in angry rage

Clanked loud his heavy chains. Then suddenly

The earth yawned wide, and at our very feet

A deep abyss appeared. I saw, myself,

The sluggish pools amidst the dusky shades;

I saw the shadowy gods, and that black gloom

No earthly night can give. At that dread sight

My blood ran cold and froze within my veins.585

And then there hurried forth a dreadful band,

And stood in armed array, that viper brood,

The troop of brothers sprung from dragon's teeth;

And that fell pestilence, the curse of Thebes.

Then grim Erinys raised her piercing cry,

Blind Fury, Dread, and all the ghastly forms590

Which spawn and lurk within the endless shades:

Grief, in her madness, tearing out her hair;

Disease, scarce holding up her weary head;

Age, burdened with itself, and brooding Fear.

Our spirits died within us at the sight.595

Even the prophet's daughter stood amazed,

Though well she knew her father's mystic arts.

But he, undaunted, since he saw them not,

Convoked the bloodless throng of gloomy Dis.

Like clouds the shadowy forms come trooping up,

And snuff the air of unrestricted heaven.

Not lofty Eryx in his mountain glades600

As many falling leaves, nor Hybla's slopes

As many flowers produce, in sunny spring,

When greedy bees in teeming bunches swarm;

As many waves break not upon the shore;

As many birds deserting Strymon's streams,

Exchange not wintry blasts and Arctic snows,605

And seek the milder valley of the Nile;

As were the shades the prophet summoned forth.

In eager haste the shivering spirits seek

The hiding-places of the leafy grove.

From out the cave, his right hand by the horns610

A raging bull restraining, Zethus came,

And next Amphion, with that famous shell

Whose magic strains insensate rocks allured.

Here haughty Niobe, in safety now,

Amongst her children lifts her head in scorn

And proudly counts her shades. And worse than she,615

That mother, mad Agave, next appears,

With all the impious band who rent the king.

Then Pentheus' self, all torn and bleeding, comes,

In rage pursuing those wild Bacchanals.

At length, when often summoned, Laius comes

In shame, and, skulking, flees the shadowy throng,620

And hides himself away; but still the seer,

With unrelenting purpose pressing on,

Repeats his strong compelling exorcisms,

Until he brings the ghost to open view.

I shudder as I tell it. There he stood,

A fearful sight, his body drenched with blood,

His matted locks o'erspread with horrid filth.625

And now, with raging tongue, the specter spoke:

"O wild and savage house of Cadmus, thou

Who ever dost rejoice in brother's blood!

The thyrsus wave, in madness rend thy sons.

The greatest crime of Thebes is mother's love.

O fatherland, 'tis not the wrath of heaven,630

But sin of man by which thou art undone.

No plague-fraught south wind with its deadly blast,

Nor yet the parchéd earth with its dry breath,

Is harming thee; but 'tis thy bloody king,

Who, as the prize of savage murder done,

Hath seized his father's scepter and his bed.635

An impious son (but far more impious,

The mother who in most unhallowed womb

Bore children once again), he forced his way

Back to his source of life, and there begot

Upon his mother offspring horrible,

Got brothers to himself, a custom base,

Whence e'en the very beasts of prey are free.640

Oh, base entanglement, more monstrous far

Than that fell Sphinx which he himself hath slain.

Thee, thee, who dost the bloody scepter hold,

Thee will thy sire, still unavenged, pursue,

With all thy town; and with me will I bring

Th' attendant fury of my wedding night—

I'll bring her with her loud-resounding[4] lash! 645

Thy house, polluted, will I overthrow,

And thy Penates will I trample down

In fratricidal strife! Then quickly drive

Thy king, O Thebes, from out thy boundaries!

For when his baleful step shall leave the land,

In vernal green shall it renew itself,650

The air shall give again pure springs of life,

And to the woods their beauty shall return.

Destruction, Pestilence and Death, Distress,

Disease, Despair—his fitting company—

Shall all depart with him. And he, indeed,

Will seek with eager haste to flee his realm,

But him will I hedge round with barriers,655

And hold him back. Uncertain of his way,

And with his staff to guide his faltering steps,

He'll creep along his sad and darkened path.

Do ye the land deny him; I, his sire,

Will take away from him the light of heaven."

Oedipus: A chilling tremor penetrates my bones;

The very thing which I have feared to do,660

They say that I have done it. But the charge

That in unholy wedlock I am joined,

My mother Merope refutes, for she

To Polybus, my sire, is wedded still;

And my hands from stain of father's blood are clean,

Since Polybus in safety lives and reigns.

Since both my parents free me from the guilt

Of murder and that base, incestuous crime,

What room is there for accusation more?

And as for Laius, Thebes his death deplored665

Long 'ere I set my feet upon her soil.

What shall we say then? Was the seer deceived,

Or does the hand of God afflict the state?

No! now we see these two confederates

Deep in a crafty plot: that priest of thine

With lying tongue pretends the will of heaven,

And promises my sovereignty to thee.670

Creon: Would I expel my sister from the throne?

But if that sacred fealty which I owe

Unto my kindred house restrained me not,

Yet fortune would herself affright me sore,

For with care and danger is she ever fraught.

But be thyself content to lay aside,

While still thou safely mayst, the cares of state,675

Lest,[5] borne too long, they may o'erwhelm thee quite.

In a humbler state more safely shalt thou dwell.

Oedipus: And dost thou bid me, then, of mine own will

To lay aside the heavy cares of state?

Creon: Thus would I counsel those to whom the way

Is open yet to choose the path he will.680

But the lot that fortune sends thee thou must bear.

Oedipus: When one desires to reign, 'tis ever thus,

That humble life he praises, and the joys

Of ease and sleep are ever in his mouth.

A peaceful face oft hides a restless heart.

Creon: Does my long loyalty defend me not?685

Oedipus: To traitors, loyalty's a cloak to crime.

Creon: Free from the burdens of a kingly state,

I still enjoy the fruits of royalty;

My house is honored by our citizens;

And day by day thy royal gifts o'erflow,

And fill my kindred home with luxury.690

Rich food and clothing, gifts of every sort,

And safety flow to many through my aid.

Why should I think aught lacking to my lot?

Oedipus: Because there is a lack. Prosperity

Ne'er halts at any bounds.

Creon: And shall I fall,695

Prejudged, and have no right to plead my cause?

Oedipus: Hadst thou consideration for my life?

Did old Tiresias listen to my cause?

And yet I am condemned. My pattern, thou;

I do but follow in the way thou lead'st.

Creon: But what if I am guiltless?

Oedipus: Kings are wont

To fear alike the doubtful and the true.

Creon: Who quakes at empty fears, hath true in store.700

Oedipus Who in a fault is taken, and forgiven,

Is filled with hate. Let all such dubious faith

Be far from me.

Creon: But thus is hatred bred.

Oedipus: Nay, he who feareth hatred overmuch,

Knows not the art of ruling like a king;

For 'tis by fear that kings are guarded most.

Creon: Who holds the scepter with tyrannic sway,705

Doth live in fear of those who fear his power;

For terror ever doth return to him

Who doth inspire it.

Oedipus [to attendants]: Hence, away with him;

Deep in some rocky dungeon let him stay,

While I unto the palace take my way.

[Creon is led away by the attendants, while Oedipus retires into the palace.]

Chorus: Not thou the cause of these our ills;

And not on thy account hath fate

Attacked the house of Labdacus;710

But 'tis the ancient wrath of heaven

That still pursues our race.

Castalia's grove once lent its shade

Unto the Tyrian wanderer,

And Dirce gave her cooling waves,

What time the great Agenor's son,715

O'er all the earth the stolen prey

Of Jove pursuing, worn and spent,

Within these forests knelt him down

And adored the heavenly ravisher.

Then by Apollo's bidding led,

A wandering heifer following,720

Upon whose neck the dragging plow,

Nor the plodding wagon's curving yoke

Had never rested, he his quest

At last gave over, and his race

From that ill-omened heifer named.

From that time forth, the land of Thebes

Strange monsters hath engendered: first,725

That serpent, sprung from the valley's depths,

Hissing, o'ertopped the agéd oaks

And lofty pines; and higher still,

Above Chaonia's woods, he reared

His gleaming head, though on the ground730

His body lay in many coils.

And next the teeming earth produced

An impious brood of arméd men.

The battle call resounded loud

From the curving horn, and the piercing notes

Of the brazen trumpet shrill were heard.

Their new-created, nimble tongues,735

And voices strange, they first employ

In hostile clamor; and the fields,

The plains, their kindred soil, they fill.

This monster brood, consorting well

With that dire seed from which they sprung,

Their life within a day's brief span740

Enjoyed; for after Phoebus rose

They had their birth, but ere he set

They perished. At the dreadful sight

Great terror seized the wanderer;

And much he feared to face in war

His new-born foes. Until, at length

The savage youth in mutual strife745

Fell down, and mother earth

Beheld her sons, but now produced,

Returned again to her embrace.

And Oh, that with their fall might end

All impious strife within the state!

May Thebes, the land of Hercules,

Such fratricidal strife behold

No more!750

Why sing Actaeon's fate,

Whose brow the new-sprung antlers crowned

Of the long-lived stag, and whom his hounds,

Though their hapless master still, pursued?

In headlong haste through the mountains and woods,

He flees in fear, and with nimble feet755

He scours the glades and rocky passes,

In fear of the wind-tossed feathers hung

Among the trees; but most he shuns

The snares which he himself has set;

Until at last in the still, smooth pool760

He sees his horns and his features wild,

The pool where the goddess, too sternly chaste,

Had bathed her virgin limbs.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Reading, retro.

[4] Reading, sonantem.

[5] Reading, ne.

ACT IV

Oedipus: My soul is filled with dark, foreboding fear;

For the gods in heaven and hades join the charge765

That by my guilty hand King Laius fell.

And yet my soul, in conscious innocence,

And knowing better than the gods themselves

Its secret deeds, denies the charge.

But now,

Along the shadowy vistas of the past,

My memory beholds an agéd man who fell

Beneath the heavy stroke of my stout staff.

But first the elder strove with haughty words770

To drive the younger traveler from the path.

But that was far from Thebes, in Phocis' realm,

Where the forkéd road in three directions leads.

But thou, my faithful wife, dispel my care:

What span of life had Laius at his death?

Fell he in manhood's bloom, or spent with age?775

Jocasta: Midway 'twixt youth and age, but nearer age.

Oedipus: Did courtiers, thronging round, protect his course?

Jocasta: The many lost him on the winding way;

A few by faithful toil kept near his side.

Oedipus: Did any fall as comrade of his fate?780

Jocasta: One comrade in his death did valor give.

Oedipus: Alas, I stand convicted, for the place

And number tally. Tell me now the time.

Jocasta: Since Laius fell, ten harvests have been reaped.

[Enter an old Corinthian man, a messenger from Merope.]

Old Man [to Oedipus]: The state of Corinth calls thee to the throne,

For Polybus has gained his lasting rest.785

Oedipus: See how a heartless fate doth compass me!

But tell me how my father met his end.

Old Man: In gentle sleep he breathed his life away.

Oedipus: My sire is dead, and not by violence!

I call the gods to witness that to heaven

I now in piety may lift my hands,790

And fear no stain of impious slaughter more.

And yet a still more fearful fate remains.

Old Man: Thy father's kingdom will dispel thy fears.

Oedipus: My father's kingdom would I seek, but still

I fear my mother.

Old Man: Fear'st thou her who waits.795

With anxious heart, imploring thy return?

Oedipus: 'Tis piety itself that bids me flee.

Old Man: And wouldst thou leave her in her widowhood?

Oedipus: Thou speak'st the very essence of my fears.

Old Man: Speak out the fear that doth oppress thy soul;

For 'tis my wont in trusty confidence

To counsel kings.

Oedipus: By Phoebus' word forewarned,800

From wedlock with my mother do I flee.

Old Man: Then cease thy empty fears, and lay aside

Thy base forebodings; for I tell thee here

That thou art not the son of Merope.

Oedipus: Why did she wish to rear a spurious son?

Old Man: Because the proud security of kings

Is by a son established.

Oedipus: Tell me now.805

How thou dost know the secrets of the court.

Old Man: With my own hands I gave thee to the king.

Oedipus: Thou gavest me? But who gave me to thee?

Old Man: A shepherd on Cithaeron's snowy slopes.

Oedipus: How camest thou within that sacred wood?

Old Man: My sheep upon that mountain did I seek.810

Oedipus: Now on my body name some well-known mark.

Old Man: Behold, thy feet in infancy were pierced,

And from thy swollen ankles art thou named.

Oedipus: Who was the man who gave me as a gift

Into thy hands?

Old Man: He fed the royal flocks,815

And under him the hireling shepherds served.

Oedipus: But tell his name.

Old Man: An old man's memory

Grows faint and weakly falters with disuse.

Oedipus: But wouldst thou know the features of the man?

Old Man: I might recall him, for a slender clue820

Ofttimes awakens memory of things

Long buried and forgot.

Oedipus: Then hasten, slaves,

Let all the master-shepherds drive their flocks

Before the altar here, yea, summon all

On whom depends the guidance of the flocks.

Old Man: Or chance or providence has kept thy fate825

In darkness hid. What long hath lain concealed,

I bid thee suffer to remain in doubt.

For often truth, when brought into the light,

Becomes the bane of him who seeks for her.

Oedipus: Can any ills be worse than those I fear?

Old Man: Oh, be thou sure the truth is big with fate,

Whose meaning must be sought with toil and pain.

The public weal calls there, and here thine own,830

And both with equal voice. Direct thy steps

Along a middle course! provoke not fate;

Permit thy fortune to unfold itself.

It profits naught to change a happy state.

Oedipus: A change is well when all is at the worst.

Old Man: What better canst thou ask than royal birth?835

No further seek, lest thou thy sire repent.

Oedipus: Though I should prove to be of shameful blood,

My purpose still is fixed to know the truth.

[Enter Phorbas, the head-shepherd.]

But see, the agéd man, old Phorbas, comes,

'Neath whose control the royal flocks are kept.

Dost thou remember still his face or name?840

Old Man: His form eludes my mind; not fully known,

And yet again not all unknown his face.

[To Phorbas.]

Old man, while Laius still was king, didst thou,

His shepherd, ever drive the royal flocks

To pasture here upon Cithaeron's slopes?

Phorbas: On fair Cithaeron's sunny slopes my flocks845

Have ever found the greenest pasturage.

Old Man: Dost thou know me?

Phorbas: But dim and indistinct

My memory.

Oedipus: Didst thou at any time

An infant boy deliver to this man?

[Phorbas falters and turns pale.]

Come then, speak out! why dost thou hesitate?

And why does pallor overspread thy cheeks?

Why seek for words? The truth no respite needs.850

Phorbas: Thou speak'st of things long buried and forgot.

Oedipus: But speak, or pain shall drive thee to confess.

Phorbas: I gave a boy to him, a useless gift;

He never could have lived or known the light.

Old Man: The gods forbid! The child is living still;855

And may his life be long on earth, I pray.

Oedipus: Why dost thou think the child did not survive?

Phorbas: A slender rod of iron his ankles pierced,

And bound his limbs. This wound produced a sore,

Which by contagion spread o'er all his frame.

Old Man: Why question more? The fatal truth draws near.860

Who was that infant boy?

Phorbas: My lips are sealed.

Oedipus: Bring hither fire! Its flames shall loose thy speech.

Phorbas: Must truth be sought along such cruel paths?

I pray thy grace.

Oedipus: If I seem harsh to thee,

Or headstrong, thy revenge is in thy hand—865

The truth revealed. Then speak: who was the child?

Of what sire gotten? Of what mother born?

Phorbas: He was the son of her who is thy—wife.

Oedipus: Then yawn, O earth! and thou, O king of shades,

Into the lowest depths of hades hurl

This vile confounder of the son and sire!870

Ye citizens, on my incestuous head

Heap crushing rocks! with weapons slaughter me!

Let husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers—all

Whose name I have defiled, against me arm!

And let the poor, plague-smitten populace

Hurl blazing brands from off their funeral pyres!

The plague spot of the age, I wander here,875

Heaven-cursed pollutor of all sacred ties;

Who, in the day when first I breathed the air,

Was doomed to death.

[To himself.]

Call up thy courage now,

And dare some deed befitting these thy crimes.

Haste to thy palace and congratulate880

Thy mother's house increased by children's sons.

[Exit.]

Chorus: If it were mine to choose my fate

And fashion as I would,

I'd trim my sails to the gentle breeze,

Lest, by the raging blasts o'erwhelmed,885

My spars should broken be.

May soft and gently blowing winds

My dauntless bark lead on;

And ever on the middle course,

Where safely runs the path of life,890

May I be traveling.

Fearing the Cretan king, 'tis said,

And trusting in strange arts,

Young Icarus essayed the stars,

And strove to conquer birds in flight,895

On false wings balancing.

He fell into the raging sea

And his name alone survived.

But, wiser far, old Daedalus900

A safer course midst the clouds pursued,

Awaiting his wingéd son.

As the timid bird flees the threat'ning hawk,

And collects her scattered young;905

So the father watched till he saw his son

Plying his hands in the gulfing sea,

Enmeshed in his useless wings.

So does he stand in treacherous ways,

Whoever goes beyond the bounds

Ordained by nature's law.910

[Enter Messenger from within the palace.]

But what is this? The palace gates resound;

Behold, it is the royal messenger.

With wild and woeful mien he seems to come.

Speak out, and tell us what the news thou bring'st.

ACT V

Messenger: When Oedipus his impious race perceived,915

And saw the warning fates had been fulfilled;

When on a hideous charge he stood condemned;

Then, with a deadly purpose in his breast,

Did he approach his palace, and in haste

Beneath those hated battlements he went.

And as a lion rages o'er the sands,

And, threat'ning, tosses back his tawny mane;920

So Oedipus advanced with blazing eyes,

And stern, mad face, while hollow groans burst forth,

And from his limbs there dripped a chilling sweat.

He foams and vents a stream of threat'ning words,

And from his heart his mighty grief o'erflows.

He in his madness seeks against himself925

Some heavy penalty and like his fate.

"Why do I wait for punishment?" he cries;

"Let my guilty heart with hostile sword be pierced,

Or overwhelmed with flames or crushing rocks!

Oh, for a tiger or some bird of prey,

To rend my tender flesh! Do thou thyself,

Who hast beheld full many deeds of blood,930

O cursed Cithaeron, from thy forests send

Thy wild beasts 'gainst me or thy greedy dogs.

Oh, that Agave were returned to earth!

But thou, my soul, why dost thou shrink from death?

For death alone can make thee innocent."

So spake he, and his impious hand he laid935

Upon the hilt and drew his glittering sword.

"And dost thou, then, with this brief punishment

Expect to pay thy mighty debt of guilt,

And with one blow wilt balance all thy sins?

Thy death would satisfy thy murdered sire;

But what to appease thy mother wilt thou do,

And those thy children, shamefully begot?

What recompense canst make unto thy land,940

Which for thy sin is smit with pestilence?

Such debts as these thou canst not pay by death.

Let Nature, who, in Oedipus alone,

Strange births devising, hath her laws o'erturned,

Subvert herself again to punish him.

Let it be mine, in never-ending round,945

To live and die, and to be born again,

That for my crimes by never-ending pain

I may atone. Now use thy wit, poor soul.

Since by repeated death thou canst not die,

Choose then some form of lingering death in life,

Some way by which, not numbered with the dead,

Nor yet the living, thou mayst linger on.950

So die, that in thy death thou mayst remain

Without the land wherein thy father dwells.

O soul, why dost thou hesitate?" And then

A sudden stream of tears o'erspread his face,

And wet his cheeks. "And can my tears suffice?

Too long my eyes these useless showers have poured;955

Nay, let them follow where the tears have flowed,

From out their sockets driven. O gods of wedlock,

Is this enough? These eyes must be removed."

He spoke with frenzied rage; and all the while

His cheeks were flaming with a dangerous light,

And his starting eyeballs strained to leave their seats.

His face was full of passion, fierce resolve.960

Groaning he thrust his hands into his eyes;

And those fierce eyes stood forth to meet his hands,

And eager followed of their own accord

Their kindred hands, as courting that deep wound.

Deep in with hookéd fingers he explores,965

And rends his eyeballs from their deepest roots.

Still stays his hands within those empty seats,

And tears the hollow sockets with his nails,

With savage joy, with vain and endless rage;970

So great[6] his fear and hatred of the light.

He lifts his head, and with those empty eyes

The heavens surveying, tests his darkened sight.

Whatever from his mangled eyes still hangs,

He tears away, and now in triumph cries

To all the gods: "Oh, spare my country now,975

I pray; for I have done what must be done,

And I have paid the penalty I owed.

Now have I found at last a fitting night

To match my impious wedlock." As he speaks,

His face is watered by a hideous shower,

As the blood flows streaming from his ruptured veins.

Chorus: By fate we're driven; then yield to fate.980

No anxious, brooding care can change

The thread of destiny that falls

From that grim spindle of the Fates.

Whate'er we mortals suffer here,

Whate'er we do, all hath its birth

In that deep realm of mystery.

Stern Lachesis her distaff whirls,985

Spinning the threads of mortal men,

But with no backward-turning hand.

All things in ordered pathways go;

And on our natal day was fixed

Our day of death. Not God himself

Can change the current of our lives,

Which bears its own compelling force990

Within itself. Each life goes on

In order fixed and absolute,

Unmoved by prayer. Nay fear itself

Has been by many found a bane;

For, while they sought to shun their fate,

They came upon it in their flight.

But now the palace gates resound, and see,995

The sightless king himself, with none to guide,

Takes hitherward his blind and groping way.

[Enter Oedipus.]

Oedipus: Now all is well and finished; to my sire

I've paid the debt I owed. How sweet these shades!

What god, at length appeased, hath wrapped my head

In a pall of darkness, and my crimes forgiven?1000

Now have I 'scaped the conscious eye of day;

And nothing dost thou owe, O parricide,

To thine avenging hand. Thy sight is gone,

And such a countenance becomes thee well.

[Enter Jocasta.]

Chorus: See where with hurried step Jocasta comes,

Beside herself and overcome with grief;1005

As when in maddened rage that Theban dame

Her son's head tore away and realized

What she had done. She wavers, longs to speak

To that afflicted one, and fears to speak.

Now shame at last has yielded to her grief,

And with a faltering tongue she speaks to him.

Jocasta: What shall I call thee? Son? Dost shun that name?

Thou art my son; thy shame confesseth it.1010

And yet, O son, though all unwilling, speak.

Why dost thou turn away thy sightless face?

Oedipus: Who now forbids me to enjoy my night?

Who gives me back mine eyes? My mother's voice!

Oh, awful sound! Now is my labor vain.

Stay where thou art! Each step is impious.

Let boundless seas our guilty souls divide,1015

And lands remote; and if beneath this land

Some other hangs, beholding other stars,

May that far country one of us receive.

Jocasta: What thou deplorest is the fault of fate.

A fated crime can leave no stain of sin.

Oedipus: Now cease thy words, O mother, spare my ears,1020

By these poor remnants of my mangled form,

By that unhallowed offspring of my blood,

And all that in the double names we bear

Is right and wrong!

Jocasta [to herself]: Why art thou listless now,

O soul of mine? Since thou hast shared his guilt,

Why hesitate to share his punishment?1025

The beauty of all human intercourse

Has fallen into ruin for thy sake,

Confused and lost, O wretch incestuous.

Not if the father of the gods himself

Should hurl at me his glittering thunderbolts,

Could I for my foul crimes atonement make,1030

Since I the name of mother have profaned.

Now death is welcome, but the way of death

Must I consider.

[To Oedipus.]

Come, thou parricide,

And lift thy hand against thy mother too.

This act is wanting to complete thy work.

[To herself.]

Now let the sword be drawn. By this good blade

Was Laius, my husband, slain—not so;1035

My husband's father, by his rightful name!

Shall I this weapon plunge into my breast,

Or thrust it deep within my waiting neck?

Nay, nay: thou know'st not how to choose a place.

Strike here, O hand, through this capacious womb,

Which (horrible!) the son and husband bore.

[She stabs herself and falls dead.]

Chorus: She lies in death, her failing hand relaxed;1040

And spouting streams of blood drive out the sword.

Oedipus: O fate-revealer, thee do I upbraid,

Thou god and guardian of the oracles.

My father only was I doomed to slay;

But now, twice parricide and past my fears,

Have I been guilty, and my mother slain.

For 'tis by sin of mine that she is dead.1045

O lying Phoebus, now have I outdone

The impious fates.

With apprehensive feet

Let me go out upon my darkened way,

Planting my footsteps with a faltering tread,

And through the darkness grope with trembling hands.

Stay not thy flight, speed thy uncertain steps—1050

But hold! lest on thy mother's corse thou tread.

O Thebans, weak and smitten sore with ills,

Whose hearts are fainting in your breasts, behold,

I flee, I go: lift up your drooping heads.

A milder sky and sweeter air shall come

When I am gone. Whoever still retains1055

His feeble life may now inhale the air

In deep, life-giving draughts. Go, lend your aid

To those who were to certain death resigned;

For with me in my exile do I bear

All pestilential humors of the land.

Then come, ye blasting Fates and mad Despair,

Thou deadly Pestilence, come, come with me;1060

With such a company 'tis sweet to flee!

[Exit.]

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Reading, tantum.

---

PHOENISSAE, OR THEBAÏS
A FRAGMENT

---

PHOENISSAE, OR THEBAÏS
A FRAGMENT

---

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Oedipus		Late king of Thebes.
Antigone		Daughter of Oedipus, constant to him in his misfortunes.
Jocasta		Wife and mother of Oedipus.
Polynices	}	Sons of Oedipus and rivals for the throne.
Eteocles
Messenger

The scene is laid, first in the wild country to which Oedipus, accompanied by Antigone, has betaken himself; then in Thebes, and lastly in the plain before Thebes.

The time is three years after the great tragedy of Oedipus.

The stroke of fate, that has been threatening Oedipus since long before his birth, has fallen at last, and he has done the thing he feared to do. And now, self-blinded and self-exiled from his land, he has for three years wandered in rough and trackless places, attended by Antigone, his daughter, who, alone of all his friends, has condoned his fated sins and remained attached to him.

Meanwhile his sons, though they agreed to reign alternate years, are soon to meet in deadly strife; for Eteocles, although his year of royal power is at an end, refuses to give up the throne; and now Polynices, who has in exile wed the daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos, is marching against the gates of Thebes, with seven great armies, to enforce his rights.

[By a different version from the "Oedipus," Jocasta did not slay herself at once as in that tale, but still is living on in grief and shame, and strives to reconcile her sons.]

---

ACT I

Oedipus [to Antigone, who has followed him into exile]: O thou, who guid'st thy blinded father's steps,

Sole comfort of my weary heart, my child,

Begotten at such heavy cost to me,

Leave thou the unpropitious way I tread.

Why shouldst thou seek to lead my feet aright

Which fain would wander? Let me stumble on.5

Far better shall I find my way, alone,

The path that from the miseries of life

Shall take me, and the face of heaven and earth

Free from the sight of this ill-omened head.

O hand of mine, how little hast thou done!

For, though I do not see the light of day

Which looked upon my crime, still am I seen.

Unclasp thy clinging hand from mine; permit10

My sightless feet to wander where they will.

I go, I go where my Cithaeron lifts

His rugged crags on high; where to his dogs

Actaeon, speeding through the rocky ways,

Became a booty strange and pitiful;

Where through the dim old woods and dusky glades,15

By Bacchic frenzy fired, the mother wild

Her sisters led, rejoicing in the crime,

When on the waving thyrsus' point she bore

The gory head of Pentheus; where the bull

Of Zethus rushed along, the mangled corpse

Of Dirce dragging (through the thorny briars20

The mad beast's flight was traceable in blood);

Or where the cliff of Ino lifts its head

High o'er the heaving sea, into whose depths

The mother leaped, fleeing an unknown crime,

Yet daring other crime, by terror driven

To sink her son with her beneath the waves.25

Oh, happy they whose better fortune gave

Mothers like these! There is another place

Within these woods—my place, which calls to me,

To which I fain would haste; my eager feet

Will not delay, and thither will I go,

Unguided, all alone. Why hesitate30

To seek the place that most belongs to me?

Give back that death, Cithaeron, give again

That spot where once I lay upon thy breast,

That, where I should in infancy have died,

In age I may expire. Now let me pay

The debt I long have owed. O mountain, fell

And bloody, cruel, savage in thy rage,

Both when thou spar'st and when thou dost destroy,35

This body long ago was given to thee:

Obey my father's and my mother's will.

My soul is eager to receive at last

Its punishment. Why, daughter, why dost thou

With baleful love restrain me? Hold me not.

My father calls, and I will follow, yea,

Will follow him. Then cease to hold me back.40

See where the royal Laius comes in rage,

The blood-stained scepter of his ravished realm

Within his grasp. See, with his angry hands

He seeks to tear again my empty eyes.

O daughter, dost thou see my father, too?

I surely see him.

[To himself:] Now, O coward soul,

Brave but to mar a helpless part of thee,45

At length spew out that hateful life of thine.

Delay no more upon thy punishment,

And give thyself entirely unto death.

Why do I, sluggish, linger on in life?

There is no further crime that I can do.

Oh, my foreboding, wretched soul, there is!

[To Antigone.]

Flee from thy father, flee, while still a maid;

My mother's fate makes me of all afraid.50

Antigone: No power, my father, shall unloose my hold

Of thee; no one shall force me from thy side.

The illustrious, rich house of Labdacus,

Let my two brothers seek with strife to gain:

The greatest part of all my father's realm55

Is mine—my father's self. Nor shall this share

Be reft away from me by him who holds

By stolen right the scepter over Thebes,

Nor by that other brother who leads on

Against his native land th' Argolic hosts;

Though Jove himself should thunder out of heaven,

And hurl his bolt against my clinging hands,60

I would not let thee go. Though thou forbid,

I'll guide thee, O my father, 'gainst thy will,

And thy reluctant feet will I direct.

Seek'st thou the level plain? There will I go.

The rugged mountain heights? I'll not oppose,

But will precede thy way. Use me as guide

Wherever thou wouldst go; since for us both65

Is every path selected that thou tread'st.

With me, but not without me, canst thou die.

There springs a lofty cliff, precipitous,

And looks far out upon the sea below:

Shall we seek this? There hangs a naked rock,

There yawns the riven earth with gaping jaws:70

Wouldst thou to these? And there a mountain stream

In roaring torrent falls, and 'neath its waves

Worn fragments of the mountain roll along:

Shall we rush headlong in? Where thou wouldst go,

I go, but always first. I'll not oppose

Nor urge. Dost thou desire to be destroyed?

Is death thy highest wish? If thou dost die,75

I go before thee; if thou liv'st, I follow.

But change thy mind, call up thine old-time strength,

And with a mighty will thy sorrows curb.

Resist, since in such ills defeat is death.

Oedipus: Whence springs so rare a spirit in a house80

So impious? Whence comes this noble maid,

Unlike her race? Can it be true indeed?

Has any pious thing been born of me?

Ne'er would it be, for well I know my fates,

Except for harmful ends. Nature herself

Has changed her laws: now shall the stream, reversed,85

Bear back its whirling waters to their source;

The torch of Phoebus shall bring in the night,

And day be heralded by Hesperus;

And, that I may but add unto my woe,

I, too, shall pious be. Not to be saved—

This is for Oedipus the only cure.

Let me avenge my father, unavenged90

Till now. My hand, why dost thou hesitate

To exact the penalty I owe to him?

Whatever I have suffered hitherto

Was for my mother's sake. Release my hand,

Undaunted girl; thou but delay'st my death,

And thy living father's funeral prolong'st.95

Let earth conceal at last this hated form.

Thou wrongest me, though with a kind intent,

And deem'st it piety to keep thy sire

From burial. But they are one in guilt,

Both he who forces death upon a man

Who fain would live, and he who holds him back

Who longs to die. And yet they are not one;

For surely is the last the worser sin.100

To be condemned to death were better far

For me than to be saved from death. Then cease,

My child, from this attempt. I have reserved

For my own will the right to live or die.

Right gladly did I yield the sovereignty

O'er all my realm; yet o'er myself alone

I still am king. If thou in very truth105

Art loyal to me, give me back my sword,

That sword already with my father's blood

Defiled. Wilt give it back? Or do my sons

Retain my sword together with my throne?

'Tis well. Wherever there is need of crime,

There let it be; I gladly give it up.

Let both my sons possess the sword. But thou,

Flames, rather, and a heap of wood prepare;110

Then will I fling myself upon the pyre,

Cling in its hot embrace, and hide myself

Within its deadly hold. There will I loose

This stubborn soul, and give to mortal dust

Whatever lives in me. Where is the sea?

Come, lead me where some beetling crag juts out,115

Or where Ismenus rolls his savage waves;

Or thither would I go and end my life,

Where once upon a jutting rock abode

The hybrid Sphinx and wove her crafty speech.120

Direct me thither, set thy father there.

Let not that dreadful seat be empty long,

But place me there, a greater monster still.

There will I sit and of my fate propose

A riddle dark which no man will resolve.

Come listen, ye, who plow the Theban fields;

Whoever worships in the sacred grove125

Of Cadmus, for the deadly serpent famed,

Where hallowed Dirce lies; whoever drinks

Eurotas' stream; ye who in Sparta dwell,

Illustrious for its heavenly brothers twain;

And ye who reap Boeotia's fertile fields,

The plains of Elis and Parnassus' slopes:130

What riddle like to this could she propose,

That curse of Thebes, who wove destructive words

In puzzling measures? What so dark as this?

He was his grandsire's son-in-law, and yet

His father's rival; brother of his sons,135

And father of his brothers; at one birth

The granddame bore unto her husband sons,

And grandson's to herself. Who can unwind

A tangle such as this? E'en I myself,

Who bore the spoils of triumph o'er the Sphinx,

Stand mute before the riddle of my fate.

---

[Has a speech of Antigone dropped out at this point, or does Oedipus hark back to a previous thought after a dramatic pause?]

But why waste further words? Why dost thou try140

To soften my determined heart with prayers?

My will is fixed to pour this spirit forth

Which now for long has struggled sore with death,

And seek the world of shades; for blackest night

Is still not black enough for this my crime.

'Tis sweet in deepest Tartarus to hide;

Or, if there yet is deeper pit than this,145

There would I go. 'Tis well to do at last

The thing which long ago should have been done.

I cannot be prevented from my death.

Wilt take away my sword? Wilt bar all paths

That lead unto the fatal precipice?

Wilt keep my neck free from the choking noose?

Remove all poisonous herbs from me? Yet what,150

Think'st thou, will all that care of thine avail?

For death is everywhere. A kindly God

Hath this great law with wisest care ordained:

That anyone can take man's life away,

But none can stay his death; for countless ways

Are open unto him who seeks to die.

I ask no aid of thine. Well am I used

To employ this naked hand. Then come, my hand,155

With all thy force, with all thy passion, come.

And not one wound alone would I endure,

For I have sinned in every part of me.

Come, strike the mortal blow where'er thou wilt:

Break through my breast and tear my heart away,

So full of sin; lay bear my vitals all;160

Rain blows upon my neck until it break,

Or let thy gouging fingers tear my veins

Until they flow with blood. Or, if thou wilt,

Direct thine anger whither thou art wont:

These healing wounds reopen; let them flow

With streams of blood and loathsome gore again;

And through this passage drag my life away,

So stubborn in defeat, so hard to storm.165

And thou, O father, wheresoe'er thou art,

Who stand'st as judge upon my just deserts,

I ne'er have thought that such a crime as mine

Could ever be sufficiently atoned,

Nor has this living death contented me;

I have not bought my pardon with my eyes,

But fain would perish for thee, limit by limb.170

Exact at last the penalty I owe.

Now I atone; then I but sacrificed

Unto thy manes. Be thou here to aid,

And my reluctant hand help me to plunge

Deep down and deeper in my sightless eyes.

A scant and timid offering I made,

When first I plucked my eager eyeballs out.175

And even now my trembling spirit halts,

Yea, halts, though downward to my shrinking hands

My face inclines. Now shalt thou hear the truth,

O Oedipus: less boldly than thou plan'dst

Did'st thou pluck out thine eyes. Let now thy brain180

Feel those avenging fingers; through this door

Complete the death which has begun in me.

Antigone: O father, great of soul, I pray thee hear

With quiet mind thy wretched daughter's words:

I do not seek to lead thee back again

Into the presence of thy former home,

Nor to the illustrious splendor of thy realm;185

I ask thee not with calm and peaceful soul

To bear again that fearful shock of woe

Which even yet the soothing hand of time

Has not assuaged. And yet it is not meet

That one so stout of heart should be o'ercome

And to misfortune weakly turn his back.

It is not valor, father, as thou think'st,190

To shrink from life; but 'gainst the mightiest ills

To stand opposed, and not to flinch or budge,

That is the truest test of manly worth.

Who tramples under foot his destiny,

Who disregards and scorns the goods of life,

And aggravates the evils of his lot,195

Who has no further need of Providence:

Wherefore should such a man desire to die,

Or seek for death? Each is the coward's act.

No one holds death in scorn who seeks to die.

The man whose evils can no farther go

Is safely lodged. Who of the gods, think'st thou,200

Grant that he wills it so, can add one jot

Unto thy sum of trouble? Nor canst thou,

Save that thou deem'st thyself unfit to live.

But thou art not unfit, for in thy breast

No taint of sin has come. And all the more,

My father, art thou free from taint of sin,

Because, though heaven willed it otherwise,205

Thou still art innocent. What is there now

Which has so maddened thee, which goads thy heart

To fresh outbursts of grief? What forces thee

To seek the abodes of hell, and fly from these?

Is't that thou wouldst avoid the light of day?

Thou dost avoid the light. Or wouldst thou flee

This noble palace and thy native land?

Thy native land, although thou livest still,

Is dead to thee. Wouldst from thy sons escape,210

And from thy mother? From the sight of all

Has fate removed thee; and whatever death

From any man can take, thy life has taken.

Art weary of the kingdom's press and stir?

At thy command thy former courtier throng

Has vanished.—Whom, O father, dost thou flee?215

Oedipus: Myself I flee, I flee this heart of mine,

Full of all crimes; I flee this hand, this sky,

These gods; I flee those dreadful sins which I,

Though innocent, have done. And can it be

That this fair world, whence bounteous harvests spring,

Is trod by such as I? This wholesome air

Do I with pestilential lips inhale,220

With water quench my thirst, or any gift

Of kindly earth enjoy? And do I dare,

This impious, incestuous, curséd wretch,

To touch thy maiden hand? Have I still ears

To hear the name of parent or of son?225

Oh, that with rending hands I might destroy

These narrow ways of sound by which I hear

The words of men. My child, all sense of thee,

Who art a parcel of my impious deeds,

In my unhappiness I would have fled.230

But now my crime sticks fast within my heart,

And threatens ever to break out afresh;

For what my blinded eyes have spared to me,

Is through my ears poured in upon my soul.

Oh, why do I not plunge this darkened life

Into the eternal shadow-world of Dis?

Why do I longer hold my spirit here?235

Why be a burden to the upper world,

And wander still among the living men?

What evil yet remains? My fatherland,

My parents, children, valor—all are lost,

And that illustrious glory of the mind;

Yea, evil chance hath stripped me of my all.

Tears yet remained, but these with my own hand240

Have I destroyed. Then go thy ways, my child.

My soul will not give ear to any prayers,

And only seeks new punishment for crime,

And equal to my sin—if that can be.

While yet an infant was I doomed to death.

What mortal ever drew so hard a fate?

Ere I had seen the light, while still confined245

Within the darksome prison of the womb,

I was a thing of dread. The night of death

Lays hold on many at the hour of birth,

And snatches them away from dawning life;

But death anticipated birth in me.

Some are o'ertaken by untimely fate

While still within the womb, yet without sin.250

But I, yet hid within the hold of life,

While yet my very being was in doubt,

Was by the heavenly oracle compelled

To answer to a charge unspeakable.

My sire condemned me at Apollo's word,

And through my tender ankles thrust a rod

Still glowing from the forge; then sent his child

Into the forest deep, a prey for beasts255

And all the savage birds Cithaeron breeds,

Accustomed to be stained with royal blood.

Yet him, whom God condemned, who by his sire

Was cast away to die, death also fled.

And Delphi's oracle have I fulfilled:

For I with impious hand assailed my sire,260

And slew him.

[With bitter irony] Yet, for this impiety,

Perchance another act of piety

Will make amends: I killed my father; true,

But still I loved my mother.—Oh, 'tis shame

To mention such a wedlock; yet I will,

And force myself to bear this punishment,

To tell abroad my more than bestial crime,

So strange, that nations stand in dumb amaze,265

So shameful, that no age will credit it,

That e'en the shameless parricide is shocked:

Into my father's bed I bore my hands

Smeared with my father's blood, and there received

The wages of my crime—a greater crime.

My father's murder was a trivial thing;270

But, that my sum of crime might be complete,

My mother, to my marriage chamber led,

Conceived—Oh, how could nature e'er endure

A greater crime? And yet, if aught remains,

I have begotten children vile enough

To do this also. I have cast away

The scepter which I won by parricide,275

And with it other hands are armed for war.

Full well do I my kingdom's fortune know,

That never more shall any gain the throne

Without the sacrifice of kindred blood.

Dire evils doth my father-soul presage,

For even now are sown the baleful seeds

Of future strife; the plighted pact is spurned;280

One will not yield the throne he hath usurped,

The other claims his right, calls on the gods

To witness of his bond, and, driven from home,

Moves Argos and the towns of Greece to arms.

No light destruction comes to weary Thebes;

For weapons, flames, and wounds press hard on her,285

And greater woes than these, if such there be,

That all may know I have begotten sons.

Antigone: If thou no other cause for living hast,

My father, this one reason is enough,

That thou as father mayst restrain thy sons

From deadly strife. Thou only canst avert290

Their threats of impious war, curb their mad hearts,

Give peace to citizens, to country rest,

And to their broken treaty honest faith.

To many men art thou refusing life,

If for thyself thou dost refuse to live.

Oedipus: Think'st thou that such as they have aught of love295

For father or for right, whose hearts are filled

With lust for blood and power and impious arms,

Profane and cruel sons—in brief, my own?

Toward every form of evil deed they strive,

And have no scruples where their wrath impels.

In shame begot, they have no sense of shame.300

They have no feeling for their wretched sire,

None for their country. Naught but lust of power

Rules in their maddened breasts. I know full well

To what dire ends they tend, what monstrous deeds

They are prepared to do; and for this cause

I seek to find destruction's shortest path,

And haste to die, while yet within my house305

There is no soul more steeped in guilt than I.

O child, why dost thou weep about my knees,

Why seek with prayer to soften my hard heart?

This means alone my fortune has reserved

By which I may be led, unconquered else;

For thou alone canst soothe my stubborn soul,310

Canst teach me piety. For naught is hard

Or grievous in my sight, if I perceive

That thou dost wish it. Do thou but command:

Then will I swim the broad Aegean straits,

Will drink the flames which from Sicilia's mount

Earth belches forth in whirling, molten streams,315

Will beard the savage dragon in his den,

Still raging at the theft of Hercules;

At thy command, to birds of prey will give

My bleeding heart—at thy command will live.

[The first act seems to be complete here, except for the commenting chorus which would naturally follow. Oedipus has temporarily yielded to his daughter's will.]

ACT II

[The following passage fittingly opens the second act or episode. Although some editors would assign it to Antigone, it seems more fittingly to belong to a messenger who has just arrived, for the double reason that it gives fresher information from Thebes than Antigone would naturally possess; and that Oedipus, after the speech to his daughter with which the previous scene ended, would hardly address to her as rough a reply as he uses in his next speech.]

Messenger: Thee, sprung from regal stock to be our guide,320

In fear of civil strife our Thebes invokes,

And prays that thou wouldst save thy father's house

From the flaming torch of war. No mere threats, these;

For ever nearer does destruction come.

One brother claims his share of royal power,

His turn to rule according to the bond,

And now is rousing all the tribes of Greece325

To bloody war. Against the walls of Thebes

Seven camps have set them down. Haste to our aid,

And war and crime prohibit equally.

Oedipus: Do I seem one to stay the hand of crime,

And teach it to refrain from kindred blood?

Should I teach righteousness and filial love?330

They take me as a model for their crimes,

And follow me. I gladly recognize

And praise them as my sons; I urge them on

To do some outrage worthy of their sire.

Then on, my worthy offspring; by your deeds

Approve your noble birth; do ye surpass335

My glory and my praises; do some deed

Because of which your father will rejoice

That he has lived till now. And well I know

That you will do it; for to such an end

Were ye brought forth. Such noble birth as yours

Cannot be satisfied with common crime

Or slight. Then forward with your impious arms!

Attack your household gods with flaming brands;340

With torches gather in the ripened grain

Upon your native fields; confuse all things,

And hurry all to ruin absolute;

O'erthrow the city's walls, yea, lay them low,

E'en to the level of the plain; the gods

And temples in one common fall o'erwhelm;

Destroy our lares, now so foully stained,

And let our whole house perish utterly;345

Let all the city be consumed with fire,

And be my impious marriage chamber first

To feel the flames.

Antigone: This raging storm of grief

Give o'er; and let the sorrows of the state

Prevail with thee to reconcile thy sons.

Oedipus: And dost thou think that thou dost see in me350

A mild old man given o'er to peaceful thoughts?

And dost thou summon me unto thine aid,

As one who loves to 'stablish peace? Not so:

For even now my spirit swells with rage,

My grief burns fiercely, and I long to see

Some greater deed than chance or youthful wrath

Would dare attempt. I am not satisfied

With civil war: let brother brother slay.355

Nor yet would this suffice. I wait to see

Some evil done that shall be like my own,

That shall be worthy of my marriage bed.

Give deadly weapons to my mother's hand—

But do not seek to drag me from these woods.

Here will I hide within the rocky caves,

Or hedge myself about with thickets dense.360

Here will I catch at warlike rumor rife

And hear what news I may of brothers' strife.

ACT III

[It is possible that the following fragments belong to still another play. The presence of Antigone in Thebes, notwithstanding her resolve to remain with her father, would strengthen this view.]

Jocasta: Oh, fortunate Agave! for she bore,

Within the hand which did the deed, the spoil,

The horrid spoil of her dismembered son,365

A raging Maenad. Yea, she did the deed;

But naught in all her sinfulness did she

Save that one crime.[7] It is my least of sins

That I am guilty; this my greater crime,

That I have made another sinful too.

But even this seems light when I reflect

That I have given birth to sinful sons.

Till now 'twas wanting to my sum of woe

That I should love my country's enemy.370

Three times has winter put away his snows,

And thrice have Ceres' golden harvests fall'n

Beneath the sickle, since my hapless son

In exile wanders, robbed of fatherland,

And craves assistance from the Grecian kings.

He has become Adrastus' son-in-law,

Whose sway is o'er the waters of the sea

Which Isthmus cleaves. Adrastus even now375

Is leading on his tribes, and with him march

Seven other royal hosts. Ah, woe is me,

I know not what I ought to wish or say.

My exiled son with justice claims his share

Of empire, but he seeks it wrongfully.

How shall I pray? I count them both my sons,380

And yet, alas, without impiety,

Can I for neither pray. If for one son

I call a blessing down, 'tis but a curse

Upon the other's head. Yet this I know:

Although I love them both with equal love,

My heart inclines toward the better cause,385

The worser fortune, ever favoring him

Who suffers more; for this is fortune's way

To win the wretched to their own again.

[Enter Messenger in haste.]

Messenger: O queen, while thou dost utter these complaints,

And spend'st the precious time in useless tears,

With weapons drawn the battle lines approach.

The trumpet's blare incites to bloody war,

And even now the eagles are advanced.390

The kings in seven-fold battle are arrayed,

While the sons of Thebes with equal spirit go

To meet the enemy. With hurrying tread,

Now here, now there, advance the soldiery.

Behold, dark clouds of dust obscure the day,

And from the plain dense, smokelike billows rise,395

Which earth, beneath the tread of countless hoofs,

Sends rolling heavenward. And through the dust,

If terror-stricken eyes can see aright,

The hostile standards shine; with lifted spears

The foremost ranks advance; while banners gleam,

Bearing the names of famous generals wrought400

In golden characters.

Then haste, O queen:

Unto the warring brothers love restore,

Give peace to all, and by a mother's hands

Prevent the conflict of these impious bands.

Antigone: O mother, haste thee, haste on flying feet;

Hold back their weapons, from my brothers' hands

Strike down the swords, and 'twixt their deadly points

Thy bared breast interpose. Then, mother, haste;405

Or stop the war, or be thou first to fall.

Jocasta: I go, I go, and 'twixt their swords will stand,

And there unto their points expose my life.

And he who shall his brother seek to slay

Must slay his mother first. At my command

The son whose heart is moved by piety

Will lay aside his arms; the impious son410

Must first make war on me. These fiery youths

Will I, although a woman, old, restrain.

Within my sight shall be no impious deed;

Or, if within my sight one impious deed

Can be committed—then shall two be done.

[Exit toward the scene of conflict.]

Antigone: Now gleam the advancing standards, near at hand;

And loud the hostile battle-cry resounds.415

A moment, and the impious deed is done.

O mother, speed thee with thy prayers. But see!

You would suppose them by my weeping moved,

So slowly do the arméd lines advance.

Messenger: The lines move slowly, but the leaders haste.

Jocasta [hurrying onward]: What wingéd wind will speed me through the air,420

Bearing me onward with the storm's mad whirl?

What monstrous Sphinx or dark Stymphalian bird,

Whose spreading wings blot out the light of day,

Will bear me on its space-consuming wings?

What Harpy, hovering o'er the royal board

Of that stern Thracian king, will catch me up

Along the lofty highways of the air,425

And cast me headlong 'twixt th' opposing lines?

Messenger [looking after her]: Like some wild creature reft of sense she goes.

Swift as an arrow shot by Parthian hand,

Or as a ship which boisterous winds impel,

Or as the flight of falling star from heaven,430

Which in unswerving course athwart the sky

Darts on its fiery way: with maddened haste

The queen has sped her flight, and even now

Has ta'en her stand between th' opposing lines.

The battle pauses yet a little while,

O'ercome at sight of those maternal tears.

And now the hosts, on mutual slaughter bent,435

Stand with their weapons balanced in their hands:

Peace wins the day; the threat'ning points are lowered;

The swords are sheathed. But in the brothers' hands

They still are poised. The frantic mother now,

Her white hair torn with grieving, speaks to them,440

Beseaches their reluctant, stubborn wills,

And wets their knees with tears. Too long they bide:

Such halting bodes the mother's prayers denied.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Reading, ultra suum scelus hoc cucurrit.

ACT IV

[On the field before Thebes, between the battle lines.]

Jocasta [kneeling between her two hostile sons]: 'Gainst me your arms and blazing torches turn;

'Gainst me alone let every warrior rush,

Who comes from Argos thirsting for the fray,

And they who from the citadel of Thebes445

Come down to battle. Friend and foe, alike,

Attack this womb of mine which brothers bore

Unto my husband. Rend me limb from limb,

And scatter me abroad upon the plain.

I bore you both—will you lay down your arms?

Or shall I say from whom I bore you, too?

Give me your hands while still they are unstained.450

'Till now 'twas all unwittingly you sinned;

'Twas fortune's crime, who ever 'gainst our peace

Delights to plot. But this impiety

Is done with fullest knowledge of your sin.

Within your power lies whichsoe'er you will:455

If filial love, then grant your mother peace;

If crime, then must you do a greater crime.

Your mother stands between you, blocks your way;

Have done with war or with the war's delay.

To which of you in fond anxiety

Shall I address my prayers? Whom first embrace?460

My heart with equal love is drawn to both.

[Turning to Polynices.]

This son has wandered far away from me;

But if the compact of the brothers holds,

This other son must wander too. Alas,

And shall I never see you both again,

Except in enmity? Do thou come first

Into thy mother's arms, who hast endured

So many toils, so many miseries,465

And, worn with weary exile, see'st at last

Thy mother's face. Come nearer to me here.

Now sheathe thine impious sword; and this thy spear,

Which even now is quivering with hate

And eager to be thrown, thrust in the ground.

Put by thy shield as well; it keeps me off470

From folding thee unto my mother-breast.

Unbind thy brow, and from thy warlike head

Thy helm remove and let me see thy face.

Why dost thou turn away, and fix thine eyes

With timid gaze upon thy brother's band?

I'll throw my arms about thee for a shield,475

That through my body only may the sword

Find passage to thy blood. Why hesitate?

Can it be that thou dost fear thy mother's pledge?

Polynices: I fear; for nature's laws no longer hold.

Since I have known a brother's faithlessness,

I scarce can trust my mother's plighted word.480

Jocasta: Then lay thy hand upon the sword again,

Bind on thy helmet, take again thy shield;

And while thy brother doth his arms remove,

Remain thou armed.

[To Eteocles.]

Do thou lay by thy sword,

Who first didst cause the weapon to be drawn.

If peace is hateful to thee, if in war

Thou dost prefer to rage, a moment's truce485

Thy mother begs of thee, that on her sons,

Returned but now from exile, she may print

A kiss of love, the first—perchance the last.

While I seek peace, attend ye both, unarmed.

Dost thou fear him, and he fear thee, in turn?

But I do fear you both, and for you both.

Why dost refuse to sheathe thy naked sword?

Rejoice in this delay. You wage a war,490

Of which the best end is to be o'ercome.

And dost thou fear thy hostile brother's wiles?

If one must on his brother work deceit

Or suffer it himself, 'tis better far

To be the victim of the treachery

Than to perform the crime. But fear thou not;495

For I will shield thee from all sudden snares.

Do I prevail with thee? Or must I grudge

Thy father's blindness? Have I hither come

To check an impious crime, or see it done

Before my very eyes?

[Eteocles yields to her.]

He sheathes his sword,

And on his peaceful, grounded spear he leans.

[She turns to Polynices.]

And now to thee, O son, thy mother turns500

With prayers and tears. At last I see thy face

Which long have I desired and prayed to see.

Thee, as an exile from thy fatherland,

The household of a foreign king protects;

O'er many seas, by many chances driven,

Thou'rt still a wanderer. It was not mine

With stately train to lead thee to thy bride,505

With my own hand to deck the festal halls,

And with sacred fillets wreathe thy wedding torch.

The father of thy bride no wedding gifts,

No wealth of gold, has given, no fields, no towns;

Thy only gift is war. A foeman's son510

Hast thou become, far from thy native land,

An alien household's guest, driven from thine own,

Committed to another's interests,

A sinless exile. That no element

Might fail thee of thy father's hapless fate,

Thou too hast blundered in thy marriage choice.

O son, after so many years returned,515

O son, thy anxious mother's hope and fear,

For sight of whom I ever prayed the gods;

Though thy return was doomed to take from me

As much as at thy coming it could give:

"When shall I cease to fear for thee?" I said;520

The mocking god replied: "Him shalt thou fear."

I should not have thee near me now, indeed,

Were there no war; and there would be no war,

If thou wert not at hand. Oh, bitter price

And hard, that I must pay for sight of thee.

But still there's pleasure in't. These hostile hosts—525

Let them withdraw a little space from here,

While yet stern Mars dares no impiety.

Yet this as well is great impiety,

That they have been so near. I am appalled,

And tremble when I see two brothers stand,

Each fronting each, upon the brink of crime.530

My limbs do quake with fear. How near I came

To seeing greater infamy than that

Which thy poor father never could have seen!

Though I am freed from fear of such a crime,

Though I shall not behold such evil now,

Still am I most unhappy when I think

How nearly I beheld it. O my son,

By the womb that bore thee through ten weary months,535

And by thy noble sister's piety;

By thy unhappy father's sightless eyes,

Which he, though innocent of any crime,

Tore out, his fatal error to avenge:

Turn from thy father's walls these impious brands,540

Send back the standards of this warring host.

Though thou shouldst yield, still is the greater part

Of thy impiety already done:

Thy fatherland has seen its fertile plains

By hordes of hostile soldiery o'errun,

The arméd legions gleaming from afar,545

The broad Cadmean meadows trampled down

By flying hoofs, the princes, insolent,

High in their chariots dashing o'er the plain,

The blazing torches threatening our homes

With utter devastation, and, a crime

Which even Thebes till now has never seen,

A brother 'gainst his brother waging war.

This crime was seen by all our Theban host;550

The citizens and both thy sisters saw,

And I thy mother; to himself is due

That Oedipus, thy father, saw it not.

Oh, do thou but compare thyself with him,

By whose stern judgment fitting penalty

E'en error pays. Do not with impious sword555

Destroy thy city and thy father's house,

Nor overthrow the city thou wouldst rule.

What madness holds its sway within thy soul?

Wouldst thou, by seeking to obtain the land,

Destroy it? That it may become thine own,

Dost thou intend to spoil it utterly?

To thine own cause thou doest deadly wrong,

In harrying this very soil of thine560

With hostile arms, in laying low the crops,

And spreading fear through all the country round.

No one such devastation ever works

Upon his own. What thou dost burn with fire,

And reap with sword, 'tis plain that thou dost grant

To be another's. Gain thou then the throne,

Whichever of you will; but gain it so

That 'twill not be the kingdom's overthrow.565

Dost seek these homes with hostile sword and brand?

Wilt thou avail to batter down these walls

Which great Amphion built, these mighty walls,

Whose stones no human hand e'er set in place,

The huge weights moving by the creaking crane—

But, marshaled by the strains of song and harp,

The stones, e'en to the topmost turret's round,570

Moved of their own accord—wouldst shatter these?

As victor wilt thou bear away the spoils?

And shall rough soldiery lead off in chains

Thy father's noble friends and stately dames

Torn from their grieving husbands' very arms?

And, mingled with the wretched captive band,575

Shall Theban maidens go as presents meet

For wives of Argos? And shall I myself,

My hands (disgraceful!) bound behind my back,

The mother, be the booty of the son,

In triumph borne? And canst thou bear to see

On every hand thy fellow-citizens

To dire destruction given? 'Gainst these dear walls580

Canst thou lead on the savage enemy,

And fill thy native Thebes with blood and flame?

Hast thou so wild a heart within thy breast,

So hard and savage—and not yet a king?

Then what will't be when thou the scepter wield'st?

Oh, put aside thy spirit's swelling rage,

And give thyself once more to piety.585

Polynices: That I may wander still a fugitive?

That ever, banished from my native land,

Upon a stranger's bounty I may live?

What, think'st thou, could I suffer more than this,

If I had broken faith or falsely sworn?

Shall I be punished for another's sin,

While he enjoys the profits of his crime?590

Thou bid'st me go; and gladly would I yield

Unto my mother's will. But whither, then,

Shall I depart? "Let my proud brother dwell

Within my royal halls, and some poor hut

Be my abode": let such a boon be given

Unto the exile; give him in exchange

A hovel for a throne. And shall I, then,595

A pensioner upon my wealthy bride,

Be forced to yield to her unbending will,

And to her father's domineering ways

Submit like any slave? 'Tis hard, indeed,

To fall from royalty to servitude.

Jocasta: If thou art eager for a royal throne,

And if, without the scepter in thy hand,

Thou canst not live, whatever land thou wilt600

Will offer many kingdoms to thy hand.

On this side Tmolus lifts his ridgy heights,

Well known to Bacchus, where wide-spreading plains

Stretch out upon the grain-producing earth;

And where Pactolus' all-enriching stream

O'erflows the country with its sands of gold.

And there Maeander through the joyful fields605

Directs his wandering waves; swift Hermus, too,

Cleaves meadows rich. And there is Gargara,

Beloved of Ceres, and the fertile plains

Which Xanthus waters, fed by Ida's snows.

And here, where ends the long Ionian sea,[8]610

Across the narrows from Abydos stands

The Thracian Sestos. Farther to the east,

With safe and numerous harbors, lies the land

Of Lycia. There realms seek with thy sword;

Against these peoples let Adrastus fight,

And to thy sceptered hand deliver them.615

Consider that thy father still is king

Within this realm of Thebes. Far better, then,

Than such returns as this will exile seem.

Thou liv'st in exile through another's sin;

But thy return must be through thine alone.

With those brave troops of thine 'twere better far

To seek thee out new realms unstained by crime.620

Nay, e'en thy brother's self will be thy aid,

And fight for thee. Go, wage such warfare, then,

That, as thou fight'st, thy mother and thy sire

May pray for thy success. For, be assured,

That kingdoms won by crime are heavier far

Than any exile.625

Now consider well

The woes of war and war's uncertainties:

Though thou dost bring with thee the flower of Greece,

Though far and near thy arméd soldiery

Is spread, still ever in the balance hangs

The fate of war. 'Tis all as Mars decides.

Though two may seem to be unmatched in strength,630

The sword will make them equal; hope and fear

Are subject to the blind caprice of fate.

Uncertain is the prize of war thou seek'st,

But sure the crime. Suppose that all the gods

Have heard thy prayers; suppose the citizens,

In panic fear, have turned their backs and fled;

The soldiers' bloody corpses hide the plain:635

Though in such victory thou shouldst exalt

And bear thy murdered brother's spoils away,

Thy victory is but a broken thing.

What sort of warfare, think'st thou, that would be,

In which the victor wins by curséd crime,

And glories in it? Nay, thy brother's self,

Whom thou, unhappy man, dost seek to slay,640

When thou hast gained thy wish, thou wilt lament.

Oh, then, forego this most unhallowed strife,

And free at last thy fatherland from fear,

Thy parents from their grief.

Polynices: Shall I do this,

That so for all his treachery and crime

My curséd brother be not recompensed?

Jocasta: Fear not. He shall indeed be recompensed,645

For he shall reign.

Polynices: Is that a punishment?

Jocasta: If thou believe me not, believe thy sire,

Believe thy grandsire too. This truth to thee

Will Cadmus and the house of Cadmus tell.

Without disaster has no Theban king

E'er held the scepter, nor will anyone

Who wins the kingly power by broken faith

Retain it long. And 'mongst those faithless ones650

Count now thy brother.

Eteocles: Be it even so:

If I must die, I count it worthy death,

To die with kings.

[To Polynices.]

Thee to the exiled band

I doom.

Jocasta: Reign then, but hated by thy friends.

Eteocles: Who shrinks from hatred does not wish to reign.

That great divinity who made the world655

Made of one substance royalty and hate.

For me, I count it worthy of a king

To overcome this hate. By love of friends

Too oft is royal power circumscribed.

O'er those who hate him is the king more free

To lord it as he will. Who would be loved,

With but a weak and languid scepter reigns.

Jocasta: But hated empire never long endures.660

Eteocles: 'Tis for the king to speak of empire's rules.

Do thou give laws for exiles. For the throne—

Jocasta: Wouldst burn thy native land, thy home and all?

Eteocles: A kingdom is well bought at any price.

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FOOTNOTES:

[8] The text is corrupt here. The Ionian Sea, situated to the west of Greece, can have no possible connection with the region here described, i.e., the Hellespont.

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MEDEA

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