Oedipus: Act I

Oedipus: Now night has fled; and with a wavering gleamReturns the sun; all wrapped in murky cloudsHis beams arise, and with their baleful lightShall soon look forth upon our stricken homes,And day reveal the havoc of the night.Oh, who in all this realm is glad? O fate,That seemest good, how many ills lie hidBehind thy smiling face! As lofty peaksMost 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;So is the loftiest power the most exposedTo hostile fate's assaults.'Twas well conceivedThat 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 nowThe dreadful fear remains that by my handMy 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,And impious wedlock. 'Twas the fear of thisThat drove me headlong from my father's realm,And for no sin I left my native land.All self-distrustful did I well secureThy sacred laws, O mother Nature; still,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,Spares me alone? For what new horror nowAm I reserved? Amidst my city's woes,'Mid funeral pyres that ever must be wetWith 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 gainFor guilt a wholesome kingdom in return?Nay, rather, I myself infect the air.For now no breeze with its soft breath relievesOur spirits suffocating with the heat;No gentle zephyrs breathe upon the land;But Titan with the dog-star's scorching firesDoth parch us, pressing hard upon the backOf Nemea's lion. From their wonted streamsThe waters all have fled, and from the herbsTheir accustomed green. Now Dirce's fount is dry;While to a trickling rill Ismenus' floodHath shrunk, and barely laves the naked sands.Athwart the sky doth Phoebus' sister glideWith paling light, and, 'mid the lowering clouds,The darkling heavens fade. No starlight gleamsAmid the gloomy silence of the night,But heavy mists brood low upon the earth;And those bright mansions of the heavenly godsAre sicklied over with the hues of hell.The full-grown harvest doth withhold its fruit;And, though the yellow fields stand thick with corn,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.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 sireHere bears his son unto the funeral flames;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 burnWith others' fires the bodies of their friends.The fire is stol'n, for in their wretchednessNo shame remains. No separate tombs receiveThe 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 artAre smitten down. The baleful pestilenceRemoves the check that would restrain its force.So, prostrate at the altar, do I fallAnd, stretching suppliant hands, I pray the godsTo grant a speedy end; that in my deathI 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!Is death to be denied to me alone,So easy for all else? Come, fly the landThy baleful touch has tainted. Leave thou hereThe grief, the death, the pestilential air,Which with thyself thou bring'st. Go speed thy flightTo any land, e'en to thy parents' realm.

Jocastaboots it, husband, to augment thy woesWith lamentations? For I think, indeed,This very thing is regal, to endureAdversity, and all the more to stand,With heart more valiant and with foot more sure,When the weight of empire totters to its fall.For 'tis not manly to present thy backTo 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,Against the very giants would I stand.The Sphinx I fled not when she wove her wordsIn mystic measures, but I bore to lookUpon 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,The baleful creature poised her wings to strike,And, like a savage lion, lashed her tail,In act to spring; still did I dare my fateAnd ask her riddle. Then with horrid soundOf deadly jaws together crashed, she spake;The while her claws, impatient of delay,And eager for my vitals, rent the rock.But the close-wrought words of fate with guile entwined,And that dark riddle of the wingéd beastDid I resolve.

Jocasta: What meant'st then thou by theseThy maddened prayers for death? Thou mightst have died.But no; the very scepter in thy handIs thy reward for that fell Sphinx destroyed.

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.

Chorus: How art thou fall'n, O glorious stockOf 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,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 steedsOf the Parthian, deadliest when he flees;They trod the marge of the ruddy sea,Where Phoebus his rising beams displays,And the day reveals; where his nearer firesDarken the naked Indians.Yea we, that race invincible,Beneath the hand of greedy fateAre falling fast.The gloomy retinue of deathIn march unceasing hurries on;The grieving line unending hastesTo the place of death. Space fails the throng.For, though seven gates stand open wide,Still for the crowding funerals'Tis not enough; for everywhereIs carnage seen, and death treads hardUpon the heels of death.The sluggish ewes first felt the blight,For the woolly flock the rich grass croppedTo its own doom. At the victim's neckThe 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,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 sideHis rider falls.The abandoned flocks lie in the fields;The bull amid his dying herdIs pining; and the shepherd failsHis 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;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;No more are fields with verdure clad;No vines bend low with laden arms;For the very earth has felt the breathOf our dire pestilence.Through the riven bars of Erebus,With torches lit in Tartara,The raging band of the Furies troop;Dark Phlegethon has changed his course,And forced the waters of the StyxTo mingle with our Theban streams.Grim Death opes wide his greedy jaws,And all his baleful wings outspreads.And he who plies that swollen streamIn his roomy skiff, though his age is freshAnd hardy, scarce can raise his arms,O'erwearied with his constant toilAnd the passage of the endless throng.'Tis even rumored that the dogHath 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 twiceThe trees of our Cadmean woodsHave trembled sore and shed their snows;Twice Dirce flowed with streams of blood;And in the stilly night we heardThe baying of Amphion's hounds.Oh, cruel, strange new form of death,And worse than death! The sluggish limbsAre with a weary languor seized;The sickly cheek with fever burns,And all the head with loathsome soresIs blotched. Now heated vapors riseAnd scorch with fever's flames the brainWithin the body's citadel,And the throbbing temples swell with blood.The eyeballs start; the accurséd fireDevours the limbs; the ears resound,And from the nostrils dark blood dripsAnd strains apart the swelling veins.Now quick convulsions rend and tearThe inmost vitals.Now to their burning hearts they strainCold stones to soothe their agony;And they, whom laxer care permits,Since they who should control are dead,The fountains seek, and feed their thirstWith copious draughts. The smitten throngAll prostrate at the altars lieAnd pray for death; and this aloneThe 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.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.