df on rsf on df &c ad inf. & ad naus. 2:3:49

FINAL

OEDIPUS: My children, generations of the living
in the line of Kadmos, nursed at his ancient hearth:
why have you ~~STRENGTH~~ yourselves down before these altars
in supplication, with your boughs and garlands?
The breath of incense rises from the city
with a sound of lamentation.

O my sons,
there is no need of messengers between us:
see, I have come myself to hear your story,
I, Oedipus, who bear the famous name.

You, there, since you are eldest in the company,
speak for them all, tell me what preys upon you.
Are you afraid? Or do you crave some blessing?
Tell me, and never doubt that I will help you
in every way I can; I should be heartless
were I unmoved by such petitioners.

[to PRIEST]

PRIEST:

~~STRENGTH~~ O mighty Oedipus, ruler of our Thebes!
~~HOW~~ see these emissaries, young and old,
clinging to your altars: here are boys
who barely stand alone, and here are priests
by weight of age, as I am a priest of God;
and young men chosen from those yet unmarried;
as for the others, all that multitude,
they wait with olive chaplets in the squares,
at the two shrines of Pallas, and where Apollo
speaks in the glowing embers.

Your own eyes

steps

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you brought us fortune; be the same again!
No man disputes your power to rule the land:
but rule over men, not over a dead city!
Ships are only hulls, citadels are nothing,
when no life moves in the empty passageways.

OEDIPUS: Ah, poor children! You may be sure I know
all that you longed for in your coming here.
I know that you are deathly sick; and yet,
sick as you are, not one is as sick as I.
Each of you suffers in himself alone
his anguish, not another's; but my spirit
groans for the city, for myself, for you.

I was not sleeping, you are not waking me.
No, I have been in tears for a long while
and in my wandering thought walked many ways.
I have searched them all and found one helpful course
and taken it: I have sent Kreon,
son of Menoiceus, brother of the Queen,
to Delphi, Apollo's place of revelation,
to learn there, if he can,
what act or pledge of mine may save the city.

I have counted the days, and now, this very day,
I am troubled; for he has overstayed his time.
What is he doing? He has been gone too long.
Yet whenever he comes back, I should do ill
to scant anything that the god reveals.

PRIEST: It is a timely promise. At this instant

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they tell me Kreon is here.

**OEDIPUS:** O Lord Apollo!
May his news be fair as his face is radiant!

**PRIEST:** It could not be otherwise: he is crowned with bay,
and the chaplet's thick with berries.

**OEDIPUS:** We shall soon know;
he is near enough to hear us now.

[enter KREON]

O Prince:
brother: son of Menoiseus:
What answer do you bring us from the god?

**KREON:** It is favorable. I can tell you, great afflictions
will turn out well, if they are taken well.

**OEDIPUS:** What was the oracle? These hinting words
leave me still hanging between hope and fear.

**KREON:** Is it your pleasure to hear me, with all these
gathered around us? I am prepared to speak,
but should we not go in?

**OEDIPUS:** Let them all hear it;
it is for them I suffer, more than for myself.

**KREON:** Then I will tell you what I heard at Delphi.
In plain words
the god commands us to expel from the land of Thebes
an old defilement that it seems we shelter.
It is a deathly thing, beyond expiation.

OEDIPUS: What defilement? How shall we rid ourselves of it?

KREON: By exile or death, blood for blood. It was
murder that brought the plague-wind on the city.

OEDIPUS: Murder of whom? Surely the god has named him?

KREON: My lord: long ago Laios was our king,
before you came to govern us.

OEDIPUS: I know;
I learned of him from others; I never saw him.

KREON: He was murdered; and Apollo commands us now
to take revenge upon whoever killed him.

OEDIPUS: Upon whom? Where are they? Where shall we find a clue
to solve that crime, after so many years?

KREON: Here in this land, he said.--If we make enquiry,
we may touch things that otherwise escape us.

OEDIPUS: Tell me: Was Laios murdered in his house,
or in the fields, or in some foreign country?

KREON: He left us, so he said, to make a pilgrimage.
He did not come home again.

OEDIPUS: And was there no one,
no witness, no companion to tell what happened?

KREON: They were all killed but one, and he got away
so frightened that he could remember one thing only.

OEDIPUS: What was that one thing? One may be the key

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final version: 31 viij 1948

216-315

OEDIPUS:

Is this your prayer? It may be answered. Come,
listen to me, act as the crisis demands,
and you shall have relief from all these evils.

Until now I was a stranger to this tale,
as I had been a stranger to the act. The bad man...
Could I track him down without a word to go on? Close
But now, friends, as one who became a citizen
after the murder, joining the rest of you,
I make this proclamation to all Thebans:

If any man knows by whose hand Laios, son of Labdakos,
met his death, I direct that man to tell me everything,
no matter what he fears for having long withheld it.
Let it stand as promised that no further trouble
will come to him, but he may leave the land in safety.

Further: if anyone knows the murderer to be foreign,
let him not keep silent: he shall have his reward from me.

However, if he does keep silent; if any man
fearing for his friend or for himself disobeys this edict;

in that event what do I propose to do? Hear me:

I solemnly forbid the people of this country,
where power and throne are mine, ever to receive that man
or speak to him, no matter who he is, or let him
join in sacrifice, lustration, or prayer.

I decree that he be driven from every house,
being, as he is, corruption itself to us: the Delphic

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final version: 31 viij 1948

voice of God has just now sent this revelation.

Thus I associate myself with the Oracle
and take the side of the murdered king.

As for the criminal, I pray to God--
whether it be a lurking thief, or one of a number--
that I pray that man's life be consumed in evil and wretchedness.

And so far as I am concerned, this curse applies no less
if it should turn out that the culprit is my guest here,
sharing my hearth.

You have heard the penalty.
I lay it on you now to attend to this
for my sake, for Apollo's, for the sick
sterile city that Heaven has abandoned.
Suppose the oracle had given you no command:
should this corruption go uncleansed for ever?
You should have found the murderer! Your king,
a noble king, had been destroyed.

Now I,
having the power that he held before me,
having his bed, begetting children there
upon his wife, as he would, had he lived--
their son would have been my children's brother
if Laios had had luck in fatherhood!
(but surely ill luck rushed upon his reign)--

I say I take the son's part, just as though
I were his son, to press the fight for him
and see it through! I'll find the hand that brought

I/say/