The disease above all

That repels me with hatred and loathing.

HERMES

Be it so, but remember I warned you away,

Nor, embroiled in the meshes of ruin, complain

Of your fortune, nor feign that unwarned, unawares

Zeus suddenly smote you, but blame yourselves:

Yea, wittingly, willingly, folly-beguiled,

Will your feet be entrapped

In the far-flung nets of disaster!

PROMETHEUS

O mark, no longer in word but in deed,

Earth has been shaken;

The reverberant thunder is heard from the deep,

And the forked flame flares of the lightning, the coiled

Dust flieth upward, the four winds are at play

Frolicking wildly in ruin and riot,

And the sky and the sea in confusion are one:

Such is the storm Zeus gathers against me,

Ever nearer approaching with terrible tread.

O majestical Mother, O heavenly Sky,

In whose region revolveth the Light of the World,

Thou seest the wrongs that I suffer!

Oedipus Rex

SOPHOCLES

Characters

OEDIPUS , KING OF THEBES.

PRIEST of Zeus.

CREON , brother to Jocasta the Queen.

TIRESIAS , a Prophet, with the title of King.

A Messenger from Corinth.

An old Shepherd.

A Second Messenger, servant of Oedipus’ household.

JOCASTA the Queen, wife to Oedipus, formerly married to Laius, the last King.

The CHORUS is composed of Senators of Thebes.

Inhabitants of Thebes, Attendants.

A Boy leading Tiresias.

Oedipus Rex

Scene, before the Royal Palace at Thebes. Enter OEDIPUS; to him the Priest of Zeus, and Inhabitants of Thebes.

OEDIPUS

Children, you modern brood of Cadmus* old,

What mean you, sitting in your sessions here,

High-coronalled with votive olive-boughs,

While the whole city teems with incense-smoke,

And paean hymns, and sounds of woe the while?

Deeming unmeet, my children, this to learn

From others, by the mouth of messengers,

I have myself come hither, Oedipus,

Known far and wide by name. Do thou, old man,

Since ’tis thy privilege to speak for these,

Say in what case ye stand; if of alarm,

Or satisfaction with my readiness

To afford all aid; hard-hearted must I be,

Did I not pity such petitioners.

PRIEST

Great Oedipus, my country’s governor,

Thou seest our generations, who besiege

Thy altars here; some not yet strong enough

To flutter far; some priests, with weight of years

Heavy, myself of Zeus; and these, the flower

Of our young manhood; all the other folk

Sit, with like branches, in the market-place,

By the Ismenian hearth oracular*

And the twin shrines of Pallas.** Lo, the city

Labours—thyself art witness—over-deep

Already, powerless to uprear her head

Out of the abysses of a surge of blood;

Stricken in the budding harvest of her soil,

Stricken in her pastured herds, and barren travail

Of women; and He, the God with spear of fire,

Leaps on the city, a cruel pestilence,

And harries it; whereby the Cadmean home

Is all dispeopled, and with groan and wail

The blackness of the Grave made opulent.