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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781985041837 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Publishing |
| Publication date: | 02/05/2018 |
| Pages: | 72 |
| Sales rank: | 188,997 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.15(d) |
About the Author
Sophocles (496-406 BC) lived through the greater part of the long struggle with Sparta and died a few months after Euripides. He is credited with developing the tragic form and his surviving tragedies are masterpieces of construction. Methuen Drama publishes two volumes of his plays.
Read an Excerpt
Oedipus the King
By Sophocles, David Grene
The University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 2010 The University of ChicagoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-76869-4
CHAPTER 1
OEDIPUS THE KING
Scene: In front of the palace of Oedipus at Thebes. To the right of the stage near the altar stands the Priest with a crowd of children. Oedipus emerges from the central door.
Oedipus
Children, young sons and daughters of old Cadmus, why do you sit here with your suppliant crowns? The town is heavy with a mingled burden of sounds and smells, of groans and hymns and incense; 5 I did not think it fit that I should hear of this from messengers but came myself,— I Oedipus whom all men call the Great.
(He turns to the Priest.)
You're old and they are young; come, speak for them. What do you fear or want, that you sit here 10 suppliant? Indeed I'm willing to give all that you may need; I would be very hard should I not pity suppliants like these.
Priest
O ruler of my country, Oedipus, you see our company around the altar; 15 you see our ages; some of us, like these, who cannot yet fly far, and some of us heavy with age; these children are the chosen among the young, and I the priest of Zeus. Within the market place sit others crowned 20 with suppliant garlands, at the double shrine of Pallas and the temple where Ismenus gives oracles by fire. King, you yourself have seen our city reeling like a wreck already; it can scarcely lift its prow out of the depths, out of the bloody surf. A blight is on the fruitful plants of the earth, 25 A blight is on the cattle in the fields, a blight is on our women that no children are born to them; a God that carries fire, a deadly pestilence, is on our town, strikes us and spares not, and the house of Cadmus is emptied of its people while black Death grows rich in groaning and in lamentation. 30 We have not come as suppliants to this altar because we thought of you as of a God, but rather judging you the first of men in all the chances of this life and when we mortals have to do with more than man. You came and by your coming saved our city, 35 freed us from tribute which we paid of old to the Sphinx, cruel singer. This you did in virtue of no knowledge we could give you, in virtue of no teaching; it was God that aided you, men say, and you are held with God's assistance to have saved our lives. Now Oedipus, Greatest in all men's eyes, 40 here falling at your feet we all entreat you, find us some strength for rescue. Perhaps you'll hear a wise word from some God, perhaps you will learn something from a man (for I have seen that for the skilled of practice the outcome of their counsels live the most). 45 Noblest of men, go, and raise up our city, go,—and give heed. For now this land of ours calls you its savior since you saved it once. So, let us never speak about your reign as of a time when first our feet were set secure on high, but later fell to ruin. 50 Raise up our city, save it and raise it up. Once you have brought us luck with happy omen; be no less now in fortune. If you will rule this land, as now you rule it, better to rule it full of men than empty. 55 For neither tower nor ship is anything when empty, and none live in it together.
Oedipus
I pity you, children. You have come full of longing, but I have known the story before you told it only too well. I know you are all sick, yet there is not one of you, sick though you are, 60 that is as sick as I myself. Your several sorrows each have single scope and touch but one of you. My spirit groans for city and myself and you at once. You have not roused me like a man from sleep; 65 know that I have given many tears to this, gone many ways wandering in thought, but as I thought I found only one remedy and that I took. I sent Menoeceus' son Creon, Jocasta's brother, to Apollo, 70 to his Pythian temple, that he might learn there by what act or word I could save this city. As I count the days, it vexes me what ails him; he is gone far longer than he needed for the journey. 75 But when he comes, then, may I prove a villain, if I shall not do all the God commands.
Priest
Thanks for your gracious words. Your servants here signal that Creon is this moment coming.
Oedipus
His face is bright. O holy Lord Apollo, 80 grant that his news too may be bright for us and bring us safety.
Priest
It is happy news, I think, for else his head would not be crowned with sprigs of fruitful laurel.
Oedipus
We will know soon, he's within hail. Lord Creon, my good brother, 85 what is the word you bring us from the God?
(Creon enters.)
Creon
A good word,—for things hard to bear themselves if in the final issue all is well I count complete good fortune.
Oedipus
What do you mean? What you have said so far leaves me uncertain whether to trust or fear. 90
Creon
If you will hear my news before these others I am ready to speak, or else to go within.
Oedipus
Speak it to all; the grief I bear, I bear it more for these than for my own heart.
Creon
I will tell you, then, 95 what I heard from the God. King Phoebus in plain words commanded us to drive out a pollution from our land, pollution grown ingrained within the land; drive it out, said the God, not cherish it, till it's past cure.
Oedipus
What is the rite of purification? How shall it be done?
Creon
By banishing a man, or expiation 100 of blood by blood, since it is murder guilt which holds our city in this destroying storm.
Oedipus
Who is this man whose fate the God pronounces?
Creon
My Lord, before you piloted the state we had a king called Laius.
Oedipus
I know of him by hearsay. I have not seen him. 105
Creon
The God commanded clearly: let some one punish with force this dead man's murderers.
Oedipus
Where are they in the world? Where would a trace of this old crime be found? It would be hard to guess where.
Creon
The clue is in this land; 110 that which is sought is found; the unheeded thing escapes: so said the God.
Oedipus
Was it at home, or in the country that death came upon him, or in another country travelling?
Creon
He went, he said himself, upon an embassy, but never returned when he set out from home. 115
Oedipus
Was there no messenger, no fellow traveller who knew what happened? Such a one might tell something of use.
Creon
They were all killed save one. He fled in terror and he could tell us nothing in clear terms of what he knew, nothing, but one thing only.
Oedipus
What was it? 120 If we could even find a slim beginning in which to hope, we might discover much.
Creon
This man said that the robbers they encountered were many and the hands that did the murder were many; it was no man's single power.
Oedipus
How could a robber dare a deed like this were he not helped with money from the city, money and treachery? 125
Creon
That indeed was thought. But Laius was dead and in our trouble there was none to help.
Oedipus
What trouble was so great to hinder you inquiring out the murder of your king?
Creon
The riddling Sphinx induced us to neglect 130 mysterious crimes and rather seek solution of troubles at our feet.
Oedipus
I will bring this to light again. King Phoebus fittingly took this care about the dead, and you too fittingly. And justly you will see in me an ally, 135 a champion of my country and the God. For when I drive pollution from the land I will not serve a distant friend's advantage, but act in my own interest. Whoever he was that killed the king may readily wish to dispatch me with his murderous hand; 140 so helping the dead king I help myself. Come, children, take your suppliant boughs and go; up from the altars now. Call the assembly and let it meet upon the understanding that I'll do everything. God will decide 145 whether we prosper or remain in sorrow.
Priest
Rise, children—it was this we came to seek, which of himself the king now offers us. May Phoebus who gave us the oracle come to our rescue and stay the plague. 150
(Exeunt all but the Chorus.)
Chorus
Strophe
What is the sweet spoken word of God from the shrine of Pytho rich in gold that has come to glorious Thebes? I am stretched on the rack of doubt, and terror and trembling hold my heart, O Delian Healer, and I worship full of fears for what doom you will bring to pass, new or renewed in the revolving years. 155 Speak to me, immortal voice, child of golden Hope.
Antistrophe
First I call on you, Athene, deathless daughter of Zeus, and Artemis, Earth Upholder, 160 who sits in the midst of the market place in the throne which men call Fame, and Phoebus, the Far Shooter, three averters of Fate, come to us now, if ever before, when ruin rushed upon the state, 165 you drove destruction's flame away out of our land.
Strophe
Our sorrows defy number; all the ship's timbers are rotten; taking of thought is no spear for the driving away of the plague. 170 There are no growing children in this famous land; there are no women bearing the pangs of childbirth. You may see them one with another, like birds swift on the wing, 175 quicker than fire unmastered, speeding away to the coast of the Western God.
Antistrophe
In the unnumbered deaths of its people the city dies; those children that are born lie dead on the naked earth unpitied, spreading contagion of death; and grey haired mothers and wives everywhere stand at the altar's edge, suppliant, moaning; 182–85 the hymn to the healing God rings out but with it the wailing voices are blended. From these our sufferings grant us, O golden Daughter of Zeus, glad-faced deliverance.
Strophe
There is no clash of brazen shields but our fight is with the War God, a War God ringed with the cries of men, a savage God who burns us; 191 grant that he turn in racing course backwards out of our country's bounds to the great palace of Amphitrite or where the waves of the Thracian sea 195 deny the stranger safe anchorage. Whatsoever escapes the night at last the light of day revisits; so smite the War God, Father Zeus, beneath your thunderbolt, for you are the Lord of the lightning, the lightning that carries fire. 200
Antistrophe
And your unconquered arrow shafts, winged by the golden corded bow, Lycean King, I beg to be at our side for help; 205 and the gleaming torches of Artemis with which she scours the Lycean hills, and I call on the God with the turban of gold, who gave his name to this country of ours, 210 the Bacchic God with the wind flushed face, Evian One, who travel with the Maenad company, combat the God that burns us with your torch of pine; for the God that is our enemy is a God unhonoured among the Gods. 215
(Oedipus returns.)
Oedipus
For what you ask me—if you will hear my words, and hearing welcome them and fight the plague, you will find strength and lightening of your load. Hark to me; what I say to you, I say as one that is a stranger to the story as stranger to the deed. For I would not 220 be far upon the track if I alone were tracing it without a clue. But now, since after all was finished, I became a citizen among you, citizens— now I proclaim to all the men of Thebes: who so among you knows the murderer 225 by whose hand Laius, son of Labdacus, died—I command him to tell everything to me,—yes, though he fears himself to take the blame on his own head; for bitter punishment he shall have none, but leave this land unharmed. Or if he knows the murderer, another, 230 a foreigner, still let him speak the truth. For I will pay him and be grateful, too. But if you shall keep silence, if perhaps some one of you, to shield a guilty friend, or for his own sake shall reject my words— hear what I shall do then: 235 I forbid that man, whoever he be, my land, my land where I hold sovereignty and throne; and I forbid any to welcome him or cry him greeting or make him a sharer 240 in sacrifice or offering to the Gods, or give him water for his hands to wash. I command all to drive him from their homes, since he is our pollution, as the oracle of Pytho's God proclaimed him now to me. So I stand forth a champion of the God and of the man who died. 245 Upon the murderer I invoke this curse— whether he is one man and all unknown, or one of many—may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth 250 I pray that I myself may feel my curse. On you I lay my charge to fulfill all this for me, for the God, and for this land of ours destroyed and blighted, by the God forsaken. Even were this no matter of God's ordinance 255 it would not fit you so to leave it lie, unpurified, since a good man is dead and one that was a king. Search it out. Since I am now the holder of his office, and have his bed and wife that once was his, 260 and had his line not been unfortunate we would have common children—(fortune leaped upon his head)—because of all these things, I fight in his defence as for my father, and I shall try all means to take the murderer 265 of Laius the son of Labdacus the son of Polydorus and before him of Cadmus and before him of Agenor. Those who do not obey me, may the Gods grant no crops springing from the ground they plough 270 nor children to their women! May a fate like this, or one still worse than this consume them! For you whom these words please, the other Thebans, may Justice as your ally and all the Gods live with you, blessing you now and for ever! 275
Chorus
As you have held me to my oath, I speak: I neither killed the king nor can declare the killer; but since Phoebus set the quest it is his part to tell who the man is.
Oedipus
Right; but to put compulsion on the Gods 280 against their will—no man can do that.
Chorus
May I then say what I think second best?
Oedipus
If there's a third best, too, spare not to tell it.
Chorus
I know that what the Lord Teiresias sees, is most often what the Lord Apollo 285 sees. If you should inquire of this from him you might find out most clearly.
Oedipus
Even in this my actions have not been sluggard. On Creon's word I have sent two messengers and why the prophet is not here already I have been wondering.
Chorus
His skill apart 290 there is besides only an old faint story.
Oedipus
What is it? I look at every story.
Chorus
It was said that he was killed by certain wayfarers.
Oedipus
I heard that, too, but no one saw the killer.
Chorus
Yet if he has a share of fear at all, his courage will not stand firm, hearing your curse. 295
Oedipus
The man who in the doing did not shrink will fear no word.
Chorus
Here comes his prosecutor: led by your men the godly prophet comes in whom alone of mankind truth is native.
(Enter Teiresias, led by a little boy.)
Oedipus
Teiresias, you are versed in everything, 300 things teachable and things not to be spoken, things of the heaven and earth-creeping things. You have no eyes but in your mind you know with what a plague our city is afflicted. My lord, in you alone we find a champion, in you alone one that can rescue us. Perhaps you have not heard the messengers, 305 but Phoebus sent in answer to our sending an oracle declaring that our freedom from this disease would only come when we should learn the names of those who killed King Laius, and kill them or expel from our country. Do not begrudge us oracles from birds, 310 or any other way of prophecy within your skill; save yourself and the city, save me; redeem the debt of our pollution that lies on us because of this dead man. We are in your hands; pains are most nobly taken to help another when you have means and power. 315
Teiresias
Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise! This I knew well, but had forgotten it, else I would not have come here.
Oedipus
What is this? How sad you are now you have come!
Teiresias
Let me go home. It will be easiest for us both 320 to bear our several destinies to the end if you will follow my advice.
Oedipus
You'd rob us of this your gift of prophecy? You talk as one who had no care for law nor love for Thebes who reared you.
Teiresias
Yes, but I see that even your own words miss the mark; therefore I must fear for mine. 325
Oedipus
For God's sake if you know of anything, do not turn from us; all of us kneel to you, all of us here, your suppliants.
Teiresias
All of you here know nothing. I will not bring to the light of day my troubles, mine— rather than call them yours.
Oedipus
What do you mean? You know of something but refuse to speak. 330 Would you betray us and destroy the city?
Teiresias
I will not bring this pain upon us both, neither on you nor on myself. Why is it you question me and waste your labour? I will tell you nothing.
Oedipus
You would provoke a stone! Tell us, you villain, 335 tell us, and do not stand there quietly unmoved and balking at the issue.
Teiresias
You blame my temper but you do not see your own that lives within you; it is me you chide.
Oedipus
Who would not feel his temper rise at words like these with which you shame our city? 340
Teiresias
Of themselves things will come, although I hide them and breathe no word of them.
Oedipus
Since they will come tell them to me.
Teiresias
I will say nothing further. Against this answer let your temper rage as wildly as you will.
Oedipus
Indeed I am 345 so angry I shall not hold back a jot of what I think. For I would have you know I think you were complotter of the deed and doer of the deed save in so far as for the actual killing. Had you had eyes I would have said alone you murdered him.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Oedipus the King by Sophocles, David Grene. Copyright © 2010 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction
Chronology of Ancient Greek Theater
Chronology of Ancient Greece
Translator's Preface
Oedipus the King
Notes
Interpretive Notes
Critical Excerpts
Questions for Discussion
Suggestions for the Interested Reader