by W. B. Yeats
OEDIPUS. TO vanquish those that drove me out, and to blast them from the ground.
THESEUS. Your presence may bring us a great destiny.
OEDIPUS. It shall — if you keep faith.
THESEUS. Have no fear of that — I shall not fail you.
OEDIPUS. I will not bind you with an oath as we bind unworthy men.
THESEUS. YOU would have gained nothing if you had; my word is my oath.
OEDIPUS. What will you do? How will you keep faith?
THESEUS. What do you fear?
OEDIPUS. Men will come.
THESEUS. There are those here who will see to that.
OEDIPUS. Beware — for if you leave me —
THESEUS. It is not for you to teach me my business.
OEDIPUS. My fear drives me on.
THESEUS. I see nothing to be afraid of.
OEDIPUS. YOU do not know what they have threatened.
THESEUS. Let these Thebans threaten as they will, there shall be foul weather between the threat and the act. Be of good courage. If
God sent you hither, you need no protection of mine, but God or no God my mere name will protect.
[Theseus goes out.
CHORUS.
Come praise Colonus’ horses, and come praise
The wine-dark of the wood’s intricacies,
The nightingale that deafens daylight there,
If daylight ever visit where,
Unvisited by tempest or by sun,
Immortal ladies tread the ground
Dizzy with harmonious sound,
Semele’s lad a gay companion.
And yonder in the gymnasts’ garden thrives
The self-sown, self-begotten shape that gives
Athenian intellect its mastery,
Even the grey-leaved olive-tree
Miracle-bred out of the living stone;
Nor accident of peace nor war
Shall wither that old marvel, for
The great grey-eyed Athena stares thereon.
Who comes into this country, and has come
Where golden crocus and narcissus bloom,
Where the Great Mother, mourning for her daughter
And beauty-drunken by the water
Glittering among grey-leaved olive-trees,
Has plucked a flower and sung her loss;
Who finds abounding Cephisus
Has found the loveliest spectacle there is.
Because this country has a pious mind
And so remembers that when all mankind
But trod the road, or splashed about the shore,
Poseidon gave it bit and oar,
Every Colonus lad or lass discourses
Of that oar and of that bit;
Summer and winter, day and night,
Of horses and horses of the sea, white horses.
ANTIGONE. O country that all men praise, the time has come to pay for praise.
OEDIPUS. Why do you say that? What has happened, daughter?
ANTIGONE. TO pay with deeds — Creon approaches, with many at his heels.
OEDIPUS. Kind old men, prove that I am safe indeed.
CHORUS. You shall have that proof. Put away all fear; though age has robbed me of my strength my country is as strong as ever.
Enter Creon with attendants
CREON. Sirs, worthy countrymen, my coming has alarmed you; I can see it by your eyes. Why do you shrink away? I have no hostile purpose. I come, an old man, to the strongest city in all Greece; I come, old as I am, to persuade that man there to return to Thebes. And I have been sent, not by any one man, but by the whole people, chosen for this embassy since being of his own blood I mourn for his misfortune as no other Theban can. Hear me, luckless Oedipus, come home. All the people call you hither, and I in chief, because I would be the basest of men if it did not grieve me more than it can any other to see you standing there, old man, a stranger and a wanderer, and to think that you have gone, one woman for attendant, hither and thither in beggary; and never did I think to see that woman sunk into such a state of misery, chained to your blindness and your penury, and she a ripe unmarried girl at every brute’s mercy. That such a thing should be is a public scandal, a shame that affects me and all our family. End this shame, Oedipus, by returning to your native city and to the house of your fathers; say goodbye in all friendship to this land, worthy though it be, for your own land has the first claim since you were born and bred there.
OEDIPUS. Audacity, professing the highest motives that you may deceive! You would carry me away bound and shackled to that very place where captivity would be the most bitter. In old days, driven mad by all the evil that I had brought upon myself, I cried out that you should cast me out of the land, but you were deaf and would not grant me what I asked; and when the violence of grief had passed and the seclusion of the house grown dear to me, then, then it was that you cast me from the house and from the land. You did not remember that I was of your blood, but now you remember it. Now that I have been welcomed by Athens and her children you would drag me away, covering up your purpose with specious words. What good is kindness done against our will? If a man gave no help in need, no gift when you asked it, but offered help and gift when you had no need of either, would you take pleasure in that man? Or thank him? Yet that is what you offer me, and, therefore, though it looks good it is evil. I will tell you what that evil is and prove how false you are. You have come to fetch me, but not that you may take me home, but to plant me somewhere on the borders that you may keep me in your power and therefore escape defeat in war, defeat from this land. But you shall not escape, that shall not be your portion, but this — the vengeance of my ghost; and for my two sons this heritage, a place in Thebes where they may die, a place in my kingdom just large enough for that. What do you know of the fortune of that kingdom? But I know it. My knowledge comes from Phoebus and his father God most high, aye, from truth itself, while you have come with fraudulent lips and between them a tongue like a sword; yet plead however you may, you shall not gain your case. What is the use of words? No words of mine can alter you. Get you gone; she and I live where we have chosen, and no matter what a plight we are in, our life, so long as we are contented with it, shall not be altogether wretched.
CREON. Whom has this debate made the more wretched? You who injure yourself thereby, or me that you have injured?
OEDIPUS. I am well content with your part in it, for you have moved neither me nor these that stand beside us.
CREON. DO you want everybody to know, miserable man, that age has not brought you sense? Do you want to make yourself a byword?
OEDIPUS. Your tongue is too ready to be honest.
CREON. And you speak many words and nothing to the point.
OEDIPUS. And yours, it seems, are to the point and few.
CREON. Who could speak to the point that had you for a listener?
OEDIPUS. Begone, I tell you to be gone, in my own name, and in the name of these others. And stop spying upon me in this place where I am predestined to remain.
CREON. These others will bear me out in what I have said, and as to the answer that you have sent to your own kith and kin, if ever I take you —
OEDIPUS. Can you take me in spite of these?
CREON. NO need to take you; I can make you smart enough without that.
OEDIPUS. NO matter how you bluster, what can you do?
CREON. One of your daughters has been seized and sent hence, and now I shall seize the other and send her after.
OEDIPUS. O misery!
CREON. You shall be more miserable yet.
OEDIPUS. YOU have taken my child.
CREON. And I shall take this one in a moment.
OEDIPUS. What will you do to help me, friends? Will you forsake me, or will you drive away this godless man?
CHORUS. Get you gone, stranger; you have done a most wicked act and plan another.
CREON [to his attendants]. Take that girl by force if she will not come of her own will.
; ANTIGONE. What am I to do, miserable that I am? Where shall I find help from Gods or men?
CHORUS [To Creon]. What are you doing, stranger?
CREON. I will not touch that man, but his daughter is mine.
OEDIPUS. Worthy old men —
CHORUS. Stranger, what you do is unjust.
CREON. NO. Just.
CHORUS. HOW can it be just?
CREON. I take one of my own kin.
[Lays his hand on Antigone.
OEDIPUS. Hear me, Athens!
CHORUS. Be careful, stranger, let her go. We shall soon find out whether you or we are the stronger.
[They gather round him, threatening.
CREON. Stand back.
CHORUS. We shall not stand back unless you change your mind.
CREON. If you injure me it will be war between Thebes and Athens.
OEDIPUS. War. I said so.
CHORUS. Take your hands from that girl.
CREON. YOU are not the master here.
CHORUS. Leave hold, I tell you.
CREON [to one of his guards who seizes Antigone]. Take her and begone.
CHORUS. TO the rescue, men of Colonus, to the rescue! The might of
Athens is insulted. Help! Help!
ANTIGONE. They are dragging me away — friends — friends —
OEDIPUS [blindly seeking for her]. Where are you, my child?
ANTIGONE. They are dragging me away.
OEDIPUS. Your hands, my child.
ANTIGONE. I am helpless.
CREON [to his guards]. Away with you.
OEDIPUS. O misery!
[Guards go out with Antigone.
CREON. Never will those two crutches prop your steps again. It is your will to ruin friends and country, and I can do nothing to prevent you. I though a prince have been their messenger, and I have failed, but you have done yourself no good in giving way to anger, and you will know that in times to come. You have always given yourself up to anger, no friend could ever turn you from it, and that has been your curse.
[He turns to follow his guard.
CHORUS. Stop! Stop!
CREON. Hands off!
CHORUS. YOU shall not go until those two girls have been given back.
CREON. Then I shall take what is, it seems, dearer to Athens than those two girls.
CHORUS. What are you planning now?
CREON. TO take that man there captive.
CHORUS. A brave threat!
CREON. It shall be made a deed upon the instant.
CHORUS. Yes, unless the King of this country intervenes.
OEDIPUS. Will you dare to touch me?
CREON. Be silent.
OEDIPUS. NO, no, but by permission of the powers of this place I speak yet one more curse. Wretch, I am blind, and you have taken by force the unhappy creature who gave me sight. Therefore I call upon the
Sun-God that sees all things, to give you an old age like mine.
CREON. Hear him, men of Colonus.
OEDIPUS. They hear both you and me, and they know that my wrongs can strike, that my revenge shall not be in words.
CREON. Then I will do what I threatened; alone and slow with age though I am, I will take that man by force.
[Approaches Oedipus to seize him.
OEDIPUS. O misfortune!
CHORUS. YOU are a foolhardy man to think that you can do it.
CREON. I think it.
CHORUS. If you do it there is no such city as Athens.
CREON. Even a weak man is strong in a good cause.
OEDIPUS. Hear what he is saying.
CHORUS. Let him say what he likes. He cannot do it, by God, he cannot.
CREON. What do you know of God?
CHORUS. Insolence!
CREON. Insolence that you must put up with.
Enter Theseus
THESEUS. What is this quarrel? What is the trouble? High words have reached me at the altar of the Sea-God, the patron saint of your own Colonus. Speak out — you have interrupted the sacrifice.
OEDIPUS. Friend, I know your voice. That man there has done me a foul wrong.
THESEUS. What wrong? What man? Speak out.
OEDIPUS. The man that is before your eyes — Creon. He has taken my children from me, all that I had.
THESEUS. What is that you say?
OEDIPUS. My tale is finished.
THESEUS [to his attendants]. Let one of you run to the altars, bid every one to leave the sacrifice and hurry to the cross-roads, whether upon foot or upon horseback. Let the horsemen ride with a loose rein, for if they do not get there before the girls I shall be made a mockery. Away, away. [Turning to Creon-] As for this man, if I had not kept a tight hold upon myself he would already have had something to remember me by, but it is better to deal out to him the law that he dealt out to Oedipus. [To Creon-} You shall not leave this country until you have brought back those girls and set them there in my sight, for what you have done is a disgrace to me and to my people as it is to you and to your people. You have come to a city that observes justice, that does all things according to the law, and you have set aside the laws of that city, taken captives at your own pleasure, taken what you wanted by violence, as though my city were uninhabited, or inhabited by slaves, and I a mere nothing. Thebes never taught you this — her men are honourable — nor would Thebes approve an act of robbery against me, nor that you should commit an act of robbery against the Gods, and carry away their suppliants. Do you suppose that I, if I trod your soil, would take anything without licence from its ruler, even if my claim were of all claims the most just? I know better how to deport myself among the people of another nation. But you who are old and should have learnt wisdom, you have brought disgrace upon an honourable city. I therefore repeat, unless those girls are brought to me you shall remain here, a captive in their stead, and do not think what I say mere words, for I say them with my whole heart and soul.
CHORUS. Think where you stand, stranger; you come of a just race, but your actions have been weighed and they are unjust.
CREON. I have done what I have done, not because I thought this city lacked law, lacked men for its defence, as you have declared, but because I did not believe that its people were so much in love with my own kindred that they would keep them against my will. I thought they would not protect a parricide, a pollution, a man who had taken his own mother to wife. That is why I dared to act, nor had I done so even then, but that he called down curses upon my people and upon myself. I thought I could requite such wrong. Only the dead are free from anger, and anger does not grow less as a man grows old. I have a just cause, but I am in your power, so do what you think right, and yet remember that however old I may be I can requite one deed with another.
OEDIPUS. DO such taunts disgrace most the man at whom they are aimed or the man that makes them? All that I am taunted with, parricide, incest, misery, I have borne indeed, but by no choice of mine, but at the pleasure of the Gods. Set me apart from these acts, apart from all that they, enraged, it may be, against my ancestors, have made me do against my family and myself, and there is nobody can accuse me of anything. They settled before my birth all that I was to do. The oracle had announced that my father was to die by the hand of his son. How then can I be blamed? I met my father not knowing who he was, and killed him not knowing what I did, but misery is not guilt. Are you not ashamed to have spoken of my mother, and to make me speak of my marriage with her, seeing that she was your own sister? You drive me to shameless speech and speak I must, whether I will or no — Misery! Misery! She was my mother indeed, and a mother bore children to her son, but one thing is plain as day, that what we did we did unknowingly, but that you knowingly have reviled her and me. You throw all that has happened in my teeth, and yet no man can judge me guilty either of that marriage or of my father’s death. Answer this one question — if an armed man were to start up before you now, would you out of your righteousness ask before you drew to defend yourself if he were, perchance, your father? I think that you would hav
e at him without further words and not search here and there to find the rights of it, seeing that you love your life. Yet that was how it was with me; into that dilemma had the Gods led me. If my father could come back to life he would not contradict what I have said. Yet you in a frenzy of speech, not caring what you say or do not say, have accused me, and before these strangers. You began with flattery, praising Theseus and Athens for their justice, and then when you could not get your way showed how little you thought of that justice by stealing my daughters and by laying your hands on me, yes, upon the old man and the suppliant. And therefore I call upon those Goddesses whom this land worships to fight upon my side, and I call upon this land that you may learn what men serve it.