Part 3

OEDIPUS. This and none other is my constant dread.

MESSENGER. Dost thou not know thy fears are baseless all?

OEDIPUS. How baseless, if I am their very son?

MESSENGER. Since Polybus was naught to thee in blood.

OEDIPUS. What say’st thou? was not Polybus my sire?

MESSENGER. As much thy sire as I am, and no more.

OEDIPUS. My sire no more to me than one who is naught?

MESSENGER. Since I begat thee not, no more did he.

OEDIPUS. What reason had he then to call me son?

MESSENGER. Know that he took thee from my hands, a gift.

OEDIPUS. Yet, if no child of his, he loved me well.

MESSENGER. A childless man till then, he warmed to thee.

OEDIPUS. A foundling or a purchased slave, this child?

MESSENGER. I found thee in Cithaeron’s wooded glens.

OEDIPUS. What led thee to explore those upland glades?

MESSENGER. My business was to tend the mountain flocks.

OEDIPUS. A vagrant shepherd journeying for hire?

MESSENGER. True, but thy savior in that hour, my son.

OEDIPUS. My savior? from what harm? what ailed me then?

MESSENGER. Those ankle joints are evidence enow.

OEDIPUS. Ah, why remind me of that ancient sore?

MESSENGER. I loosed the pin that riveted thy feet.

OEDIPUS. Yes, from my cradle that dread brand I bore.

MESSENGER. Whence thou deriv’st the name that still is thine.

OEDIPUS. Who did it? I adjure thee, tell me who Say, was it father, mother?

MESSENGER. I know not. The man from whom I had thee may know more.

OEDIPUS. What, did another find me, not thyself?

MESSENGER. Not I; another shepherd gave thee me.

OEDIPUS. Who was he? Would’st thou know again the man?

MESSENGER. He passed indeed for one of Laius’ house.

OEDIPUS. The king who ruled the country long ago?

MESSENGER. The same: he was a herdsman of the king.

OEDIPUS. And is he living still for me to see him?

MESSENGER. His fellow-countrymen should best know that.

OEDIPUS. Doth any bystander among you know The herd he speaks of, or by seeing him Afield or in the city? answer straight! The hour hath come to clear this business up.

CHORUS. Methinks he means none other than the hind Whom thou anon wert fain to see; but that Our queen Jocasta best of all could tell.

OEDIPUS. Madam, dost know the man we sent to fetch? Is the same of whom the stranger speaks?

JOCASTA. Who is the man? What matter? Let it be. ’Twere waste of thought to weigh such idle words.

OEDIPUS. No, with such guiding clues I cannot fail To bring to light the secret of my birth.

JOCASTA. Oh, as thou carest for thy life, give o’er This quest. Enough the anguish _I_ endure.

OEDIPUS. Be of good cheer; though I be proved the son Of a bondwoman, aye, through three descents Triply a slave, thy honor is unsmirched.

JOCASTA. Yet humor me, I pray thee; do not this.

OEDIPUS. I cannot; I must probe this matter home.

JOCASTA. ’Tis for thy sake I advise thee for the best.

OEDIPUS. I grow impatient of this best advice.

JOCASTA. Ah mayst thou ne’er discover who thou art!

OEDIPUS. Go, fetch me here the herd, and leave yon woman To glory in her pride of ancestry.

JOCASTA. O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word I leave thee, henceforth silent evermore. [Exit JOCASTA]

CHORUS. Why, Oedipus, why stung with passionate grief Hath the queen thus departed? Much I fear From this dead calm will burst a storm of woes.

OEDIPUS. Let the storm burst, my fixed resolve still holds, To learn my lineage, be it ne’er so low. It may be she with all a woman’s pride Thinks scorn of my base parentage. But I Who rank myself as Fortune’s favorite child, The giver of good gifts, shall not be shamed. She is my mother and the changing moons My brethren, and with them I wax and wane. Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth? Nothing can make me other than I am.

CHORUS. (Str.) If my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail, Thee, Cithaeron, I shall hail, As the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet Ere tomorrow’s full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet. Dance and song shall hymn thy praises, lover of our royal race. Phoebus, may my words find grace!

(Ant.) Child, who bare thee, nymph or goddess? sure thy sure was more than man, Haply the hill-roamer Pan. Of did Loxias beget thee, for he haunts the upland wold; Or Cyllene’s lord, or Bacchus, dweller on the hilltops cold? Did some Heliconian Oread give him thee, a new-born joy? Nymphs with whom he love to toy?

OEDIPUS. Elders, if I, who never yet before Have met the man, may make a guess, methinks I see the herdsman who we long have sought; His time-worn aspect matches with the years Of yonder aged messenger; besides I seem to recognize the men who bring him As servants of my own. But you, perchance, Having in past days known or seen the herd, May better by sure knowledge my surmise.

CHORUS. I recognize him; one of Laius’ house; A simple hind, but true as any man. [Enter HERDSMAN.]

OEDIPUS. Corinthian, stranger, I address thee first, Is this the man thou meanest!

MESSENGER. This is he.

OEDIPUS. And now old man, look up and answer all I ask thee. Wast thou once of Laius’ house?

HERDSMAN. I was, a thrall, not purchased but home-bred.

OEDIPUS. What was thy business? how wast thou employed?

HERDSMAN. The best part of my life I tended sheep.

OEDIPUS. What were the pastures thou didst most frequent?

HERDSMAN. Cithaeron and the neighboring alps.

OEDIPUS. Then there Thou must have known yon man, at least by fame?

HERDSMAN. Yon man? in what way? what man dost thou mean?

OEDIPUS. The man here, having met him in past times...

HERDSMAN. Off-hand I cannot call him well to mind.

MESSENGER. No wonder, master. But I will revive His blunted memories. Sure he can recall What time together both we drove our flocks, He two, I one, on the Cithaeron range, For three long summers; I his mate from spring Till rose Arcturus; then in winter time I led mine home, he his to Laius’ folds. Did these things happen as I say, or no?

HERDSMAN. ’Tis long ago, but all thou say’st is true.

MESSENGER. Well, thou mast then remember giving me A child to rear as my own foster-son?

HERDSMAN. Why dost thou ask this question? What of that?

MESSENGER. Friend, he that stands before thee was that child.

HERDSMAN. A plague upon thee! Hold thy wanton tongue!

OEDIPUS. Softly, old man, rebuke him not; thy words Are more deserving chastisement than his.

HERDSMAN. O best of masters, what is my offense?

OEDIPUS. Not answering what he asks about the child.

HERDSMAN. He speaks at random, babbles like a fool.

OEDIPUS. If thou lack’st grace to speak, I’ll loose thy tongue.

HERDSMAN. For mercy’s sake abuse not an old man.

OEDIPUS. Arrest the villain, seize and pinion him!

HERDSMAN. Alack, alack! What have I done? what wouldst thou further learn?

OEDIPUS. Didst give this man the child of whom he asks?

HERDSMAN. I did; and would that I had died that day!

OEDIPUS. And die thou shalt unless thou tell the truth.

HERDSMAN. But, if I tell it, I am doubly lost.

OEDIPUS. The knave methinks will still prevaricate.

HERDSMAN. Nay, I confessed I gave it long ago.

OEDIPUS. Whence came it? was it thine, or given to thee?

HERDSMAN. I had it from another, ’twas not mine.

OEDIPUS. From whom of these our townsmen, and what house?

HERDSMAN. Forbear for God’s sake, master, ask no more.

OEDIPUS. If I must question thee again, thou’rt lost.

HERDSMAN. Well then—it was a child of Laius’ house.

OEDIPUS. Slave-born or one of Laius’ own race?

HERDSMAN. Ah me! I stand upon the perilous edge of speech.

OEDIPUS. And I of hearing, but I still must hear.

HERDSMAN. Know then the child was by repute his own, But she within, thy consort best could tell.

OEDIPUS. What! she, she gave it thee?

HERDSMAN. ’Tis so, my king.

OEDIPUS. With what intent?

HERDSMAN. To make away with it.

OEDIPUS. What, she its mother.

HERDSMAN. Fearing a dread weird.

OEDIPUS. What weird?

HERDSMAN. ’Twas told that he should slay his sire.

OEDIPUS. What didst thou give it then to this old man?

HERDSMAN. Through pity, master, for the babe. I thought He’d take it to the country whence he came; But he preserved it for the worst of woes. For if thou art in sooth what this man saith, God pity thee! thou wast to misery born.

OEDIPUS. Ah me! ah me! all brought to pass, all true! O light, may I behold thee nevermore! I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed, A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed! [Exit OEDIPUS]

CHORUS. (Str. 1) Races of mortal man Whose life is but a span, I count ye but the shadow of a shade! For he who most doth know Of bliss, hath but the show; A moment, and the visions pale and fade. Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall Warns me none born of women blest to call.

(Ant. 1) For he of marksmen best, O Zeus, outshot the rest, And won the prize supreme of wealth and power. By him the vulture maid Was quelled, her witchery laid; He rose our savior and the land’s strong tower. We hailed thee king and from that day adored Of mighty Thebes the universal lord.

(Str. 2) O heavy hand of fate! Who now more desolate, Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire? O Oedipus, discrowned head, Thy cradle was thy marriage bed; One harborage sufficed for son and sire. How could the soil thy father eared so long Endure to bear in silence such a wrong?

(Ant. 2) All-seeing Time hath caught Guilt, and to justice brought The son and sire commingled in one bed. O child of Laius’ ill-starred race Would I had ne’er beheld thy face; I raise for thee a dirge as o’er the dead. Yet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath, And now through thee I feel a second death. [Enter SECOND MESSENGER.]

SECOND MESSENGER. Most grave and reverend senators of Thebes, What Deeds ye soon must hear, what sights behold How will ye mourn, if, true-born patriots, Ye reverence still the race of Labdacus! Not Ister nor all Phasis’ flood, I ween, Could wash away the blood-stains from this house, The ills it shrouds or soon will bring to light, Ills wrought of malice, not unwittingly. The worst to bear are self-inflicted wounds.

CHORUS. Grievous enough for all our tears and groans Our past calamities; what canst thou add?

SECOND MESSENGER. My tale is quickly told and quickly heard. Our sovereign lady queen Jocasta’s dead.

CHORUS. Alas, poor queen! how came she by her death?

SECOND MESSENGER. By her own hand. And all the horror of it, Not having seen, yet cannot comprehend. Nathless, as far as my poor memory serves, I will relate the unhappy lady’s woe. When in her frenzy she had passed inside The vestibule, she hurried straight to win The bridal-chamber, clutching at her hair With both her hands, and, once within the room, She shut the doors behind her with a crash. “Laius,” she cried, and called her husband dead Long, long ago; her thought was of that child By him begot, the son by whom the sire Was murdered and the mother left to breed With her own seed, a monstrous progeny. Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood, Husband by husband, children by her child. What happened after that I cannot tell, Nor how the end befell, for with a shriek Burst on us Oedipus; all eyes were fixed On Oedipus, as up and down he strode, Nor could we mark her agony to the end. For stalking to and fro “A sword!” he cried, “Where is the wife, no wife, the teeming womb That bore a double harvest, me and mine?” And in his frenzy some supernal power (No mortal, surely, none of us who watched him) Guided his footsteps; with a terrible shriek, As though one beckoned him, he crashed against The folding doors, and from their staples forced The wrenched bolts and hurled himself within. Then we beheld the woman hanging there, A running noose entwined about her neck. But when he saw her, with a maddened roar He loosed the cord; and when her wretched corpse Lay stretched on earth, what followed—O ’twas dread! He tore the golden brooches that upheld Her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote Full on his eye-balls, uttering words like these: “No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, Deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; Henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see Those ye should ne’er have seen; now blind to those Whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.” Such was the burden of his moan, whereto, Not once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift His eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs Bedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop, But one black gory downpour, thick as hail. Such evils, issuing from the double source, Have whelmed them both, confounding man and wife. Till now the storied fortune of this house Was fortunate indeed; but from this day Woe, lamentation, ruin, death, disgrace, All ills that can be named, all, all are theirs.

CHORUS. But hath he still no respite from his pain?

SECOND MESSENGER. He cries, “Unbar the doors and let all Thebes Behold the slayer of his sire, his mother’s—” That shameful word my lips may not repeat. He vows to fly self-banished from the land, Nor stay to bring upon his house the curse Himself had uttered; but he has no strength Nor one to guide him, and his torture’s more Than man can suffer, as yourselves will see. For lo, the palace portals are unbarred, And soon ye shall behold a sight so sad That he who must abhorred would pity it. [Enter OEDIPUS blinded.]

CHORUS. Woeful sight! more woeful none These sad eyes have looked upon. Whence this madness? None can tell Who did cast on thee his spell, prowling all thy life around, Leaping with a demon bound. Hapless wretch! how can I brook On thy misery to look? Though to gaze on thee I yearn, Much to question, much to learn, Horror-struck away I turn.

OEDIPUS. Ah me! ah woe is me! Ah whither am I borne! How like a ghost forlorn My voice flits from me on the air! On, on the demon goads. The end, ah where?

CHORUS. An end too dread to tell, too dark to see.

OEDIPUS. (Str. 1) Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud. Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot, What pangs of agonizing memory?

CHORUS. No marvel if in such a plight thou feel’st The double weight of past and present woes.

OEDIPUS. (Ant. 1) Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind, Thou carest for the blind. I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes, Thy voice I recognize.

CHORUS. O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?

OEDIPUS. (Str. 2) Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was That brought these ills to pass; But the right hand that dealt the blow Was mine, none other. How, How, could I longer see when sight Brought no delight?

CHORUS. Alas! ’tis as thou sayest.

OEDIPUS. Say, friends, can any look or voice Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice? Haste, friends, no fond delay, Take the twice cursed away Far from all ken, The man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.

CHORUS. O thy despair well suits thy desperate case. Would I had never looked upon thy face!

OEDIPUS. (Ant. 2) My curse on him whoe’er unrived The waif’s fell fetters and my life revived! He meant me well, yet had he left me there, He had saved my friends and me a world of care.

CHORUS. I too had wished it so.

OEDIPUS. Then had I never come to shed My father’s blood nor climbed my mother’s bed; The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled, Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child. Was ever man before afflicted thus, Like Oedipus.

CHORUS. I cannot say that thou hast counseled well, For thou wert better dead than living blind.

OEDIPUS. What’s done was well done. Thou canst never shake My firm belief. A truce to argument. For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes I could have met my father in the shades, Or my poor mother, since against the twain I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone. Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys A parent’s eyes. What, born as mine were born? No, such a sight could never bring me joy; Nor this fair city with its battlements, Its temples and the statues of its gods, Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all, Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes, By my own sentence am cut off, condemned By my own proclamation ’gainst the wretch, The miscreant by heaven itself declared Unclean—and of the race of Laius. Thus branded as a felon by myself, How had I dared to look you in the face? Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make A dungeon of this miserable frame, Cut off from sight and hearing; for ’tis bliss to bide in regions sorrow cannot reach. Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never Had shown to men the secret of my birth. O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home, Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called) How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul The canker that lay festering in the bud! Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit. Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen, Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways, Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt, My father’s; do ye call to mind perchance Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work I wrought thereafter when I came to Thebes? O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth, And, having borne me, sowed again my seed, Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children, Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood, All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun, Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet. O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me Down to the depths of ocean out of sight. Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch; Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear The load of guilt that none but I can share. [Enter CREON.]

CREON. Lo, here is Creon, the one man to grant Thy prayer by action or advice, for he Is left the State’s sole guardian in thy stead.

OEDIPUS. Ah me! what words to accost him can I find? What cause has he to trust me? In the past I have bee proved his rancorous enemy.

CREON. Not in derision, Oedipus, I come Nor to upbraid thee with thy past misdeeds. (To BYSTANDERS) But shame upon you! if ye feel no sense Of human decencies, at least revere The Sun whose light beholds and nurtures all. Leave not thus nakedly for all to gaze at A horror neither earth nor rain from heaven Nor light will suffer. Lead him straight within, For it is seemly that a kinsman’s woes Be heard by kin and seen by kin alone.

OEDIPUS. O listen, since thy presence comes to me A shock of glad surprise—so noble thou, And I so vile—O grant me one small boon. I ask it not on my behalf, but thine.

CREON. And what the favor thou wouldst crave of me?

OEDIPUS. Forth from thy borders thrust me with all speed; Set me within some vasty desert where No mortal voice shall greet me any more.

CREON. This had I done already, but I deemed It first behooved me to consult the god.

OEDIPUS. His will was set forth fully—to destroy The parricide, the scoundrel; and I am he.

CREON. Yea, so he spake, but in our present plight ’Twere better to consult the god anew.

OEDIPUS. Dare ye inquire concerning such a wretch?

CREON. Yea, for thyself wouldst credit now his word.

OEDIPUS. Aye, and on thee in all humility I lay this charge: let her who lies within Receive such burial as thou shalt ordain; Such rites ’tis thine, as brother, to perform. But for myself, O never let my Thebes, The city of my sires, be doomed to bear The burden of my presence while I live. No, let me be a dweller on the hills, On yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine, My tomb predestined for me by my sire And mother, while they lived, that I may die Slain as they sought to slay me, when alive. This much I know full surely, nor disease Shall end my days, nor any common chance; For I had ne’er been snatched from death, unless I was predestined to some awful doom. So be it. I reck not how Fate deals with me But my unhappy children—for my sons Be not concerned, O Creon, they are men, And for themselves, where’er they be, can fend. But for my daughters twain, poor innocent maids, Who ever sat beside me at the board Sharing my viands, drinking of my cup, For them, I pray thee, care, and, if thou willst, O might I feel their touch and make my moan. Hear me, O prince, my noble-hearted prince! Could I but blindly touch them with my hands I’d think they still were mine, as when I saw. [ANTIGONE and ISMENE are led in.] What say I? can it be my pretty ones Whose sobs I hear? Has Creon pitied me And sent me my two darlings? Can this be?

CREON. ’Tis true; ’twas I procured thee this delight, Knowing the joy they were to thee of old.

OEDIPUS. God speed thee! and as meed for bringing them May Providence deal with thee kindlier Than it has dealt with me! O children mine, Where are ye? Let me clasp you with these hands, A brother’s hands, a father’s; hands that made Lack-luster sockets of his once bright eyes; Hands of a man who blindly, recklessly, Became your sire by her from whom he sprang. Though I cannot behold you, I must weep In thinking of the evil days to come, The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you. Where’er ye go to feast or festival, No merrymaking will it prove for you, But oft abashed in tears ye will return. And when ye come to marriageable years, Where’s the bold wooers who will jeopardize To take unto himself such disrepute As to my children’s children still must cling, For what of infamy is lacking here? “Their father slew his father, sowed the seed Where he himself was gendered, and begat These maidens at the source wherefrom he sprang.” Such are the gibes that men will cast at you. Who then will wed you? None, I ween, but ye Must pine, poor maids, in single barrenness. O Prince, Menoeceus’ son, to thee, I turn, With the it rests to father them, for we Their natural parents, both of us, are lost. O leave them not to wander poor, unwed, Thy kin, nor let them share my low estate. O pity them so young, and but for thee All destitute. Thy hand upon it, Prince. To you, my children I had much to say, Were ye but ripe to hear. Let this suffice: Pray ye may find some home and live content, And may your lot prove happier than your sire’s.

CREON. Thou hast had enough of weeping; pass within.

OEDIPUS. I must obey, Though ’tis grievous.

CREON. Weep not, everything must have its day.

OEDIPUS. Well I go, but on conditions.

CREON. What thy terms for going, say.

OEDIPUS. Send me from the land an exile.

CREON. Ask this of the gods, not me.

OEDIPUS. But I am the gods’ abhorrence.

CREON. Then they soon will grant thy plea.

OEDIPUS. Lead me hence, then, I am willing.

CREON. Come, but let thy children go.

OEDIPUS. Rob me not of these my children!

CREON. Crave not mastery in all, For the mastery that raised thee was thy bane and wrought thy fall.

CHORUS. Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great, He who knew the Sphinx’s riddle and was mightiest in our state. Who of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes? Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies! Therefore wait to see life’s ending ere thou count one mortal blest; Wait till free from pain and sorrow he has gained his final rest.

FOOTNOTES