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Delphi Complete Works of Sophocles

Page 32

by Sophocles


  For thee to make these glorious titles good.

  OEDIPUS

  Why this appeal, my daughter?

  ANTIGONE

  Father, lo!

  Creon approaches with his company.

  OEDIPUS

  Fear not, it shall be so; if we are old,

  This country’s vigor has no touch of age.

  [Enter CREON with attendants]

  CREON

  Burghers, my noble friends, ye take alarm

  At my approach (I read it in your eyes),

  Fear nothing and refrain from angry words.

  I come with no ill purpose; I am old,

  And know the city whither I am come,

  Without a peer amongst the powers of Greece.

  It was by reason of my years that I

  Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring

  Him back to Thebes; not the delegate

  Of one man, but commissioned by the State,

  Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed,

  Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes.

  O listen to me, luckless Oedipus,

  Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim

  With right to have thee back, I most of all,

  For most of all (else were I vile indeed)

  I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee

  An aged outcast, wandering on and on,

  A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay.

  Ah! who had e’er imagined she could fall

  To such a depth of misery as this,

  To tend in penury thy stricken frame,

  A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed,

  A prey for any wanton ravisher?

  Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast

  On thee and on myself and all the race?

  Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid.

  Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst.

  O, by our fathers’ gods, consent I pray;

  Come back to Thebes, come to thy father’s home,

  Bid Athens, as is meet, a fond farewell;

  Thebes thy old foster-mother claims thee first.

  OEDIPUS

  O front of brass, thy subtle tongue would twist

  To thy advantage every plea of right

  Why try thy arts on me, why spread again

  Toils where ‘twould gall me sorest to be snared?

  In old days when by self-wrought woes distraught,

  I yearned for exile as a glad release,

  Thy will refused the favor then I craved.

  But when my frenzied grief had spent its force,

  And I was fain to taste the sweets of home,

  Then thou wouldst thrust me from my country, then

  These ties of kindred were by thee ignored;

  And now again when thou behold’st this State

  And all its kindly people welcome me,

  Thou seek’st to part us, wrapping in soft words

  Hard thoughts. And yet what pleasure canst thou find

  In forcing friendship on unwilling foes?

  Suppose a man refused to grant some boon

  When you importuned him, and afterwards

  When you had got your heart’s desire, consented,

  Granting a grace from which all grace had fled,

  Would not such favor seem an empty boon?

  Yet such the boon thou profferest now to me,

  Fair in appearance, but when tested false.

  Yea, I will proved thee false, that these may hear;

  Thou art come to take me, not to take me home,

  But plant me on thy borders, that thy State

  May so escape annoyance from this land.

  That thou shalt never gain, but this instead —

  My ghost to haunt thy country without end;

  And for my sons, this heritage — no more —

  Just room to die in. Have not I more skill

  Than thou to draw the horoscope of Thebes?

  Are not my teachers surer guides than thine —

  Great Phoebus and the sire of Phoebus, Zeus?

  Thou art a messenger suborned, thy tongue

  Is sharper than a sword’s edge, yet thy speech

  Will bring thee more defeats than victories.

  Howbeit, I know I waste my words — begone,

  And leave me here; whate’er may be my lot,

  He lives not ill who lives withal content.

  CREON

  Which loses in this parley, I o’erthrown

  By thee, or thou who overthrow’st thyself?

  OEDIPUS

  I shall be well contented if thy suit

  Fails with these strangers, as it has with me.

  CREON

  Unhappy man, will years ne’er make thee wise?

  Must thou live on to cast a slur on age?

  OEDIPUS

  Thou hast a glib tongue, but no honest man,

  Methinks, can argue well on any side.

  CREON

  ’Tis one thing to speak much, another well.

  OEDIPUS

  Thy words, forsooth, are few and all well aimed!

  CREON

  Not for a man indeed with wits like thine.

  OEDIPUS

  Depart! I bid thee in these burghers’ name,

  And prowl no longer round me to blockade

  My destined harbor.

  CREON

  I protest to these,

  Not thee, and for thine answer to thy kin,

  If e’er I take thee —

  OEDIPUS

  Who against their will

  Could take me?

  CREON

  Though untaken thou shalt smart.

  OEDIPUS

  What power hast thou to execute this threat?

  CREON

  One of thy daughters is already seized,

  The other I will carry off anon.

  OEDIPUS

  Woe, woe!

  CREON

  This is but prelude to thy woes.

  OEDIPUS

  Hast thou my child?

  CREON

  And soon shall have the other.

  OEDIPUS

  Ho, friends! ye will not surely play me false?

  Chase this ungodly villain from your land.

  CHORUS

  Hence, stranger, hence avaunt! Thou doest wrong

  In this, and wrong in all that thou hast done.

  CREON (to his guards)

  ’Tis time by force to carry off the girl,

  If she refuse of her free will to go.

  ANTIGONE

  Ah, woe is me! where shall I fly, where find

  Succor from gods or men?

  CHORUS

  What would’st thou, stranger?

  CREON

  I meddle not with him, but her who is mine.

  OEDIPUS

  O princes of the land!

  CHORUS

  Sir, thou dost wrong.

  CREON

  Nay, right.

  CHORUS

  How right?

  CREON

  I take but what is mine.

  OEDIPUS

  Help, Athens!

  CHORUS

  What means this, sirrah? quick unhand her, or

  We’ll fight it out.

  CREON

  Back!

  CHORUS

  Not till thou forbear.

  CREON

  ’Tis war with Thebes if I am touched or harmed.

  OEDIPUS

  Did I not warn thee?

  CHORUS

  Quick, unhand the maid!

  CREON

  Command your minions; I am not your slave.

  CHORUS

  Desist, I bid thee.

  CREON (to the guard)

  And O bid thee march!

  CHORUS

  To the rescue, one and all!

  Rally, neighbors to my call!

  See, the foe is at the gate!

  Rally to defend the State.

  ANTIGON
E

  Ah, woe is me, they drag me hence, O friends.

  OEDIPUS

  Where art thou, daughter?

  ANTIGONE

  Haled along by force.

  OEDIPUS

  Thy hands, my child!

  ANTIGONE

  They will not let me, father.

  CREON

  Away with her!

  OEDIPUS

  Ah, woe is me, ah woe!

  CREON

  So those two crutches shall no longer serve thee

  For further roaming. Since it pleaseth thee

  To triumph o’er thy country and thy friends

  Who mandate, though a prince, I here discharge,

  Enjoy thy triumph; soon or late thou’lt find

  Thou art an enemy to thyself, both now

  And in time past, when in despite of friends

  Thou gav’st the rein to passion, still thy bane.

  CHORUS

  Hold there, sir stranger!

  CREON

  Hands off, have a care.

  CHORUS

  Restore the maidens, else thou goest not.

  CREON

  Then Thebes will take a dearer surety soon;

  I will lay hands on more than these two maids.

  CHORUS

  What canst thou further?

  CREON

  Carry off this man.

  CHORUS

  Brave words!

  CREON

  And deeds forthwith shall make them good.

  CHORUS

  Unless perchance our sovereign intervene.

  OEDIPUS

  O shameless voice! Would’st lay an hand on me?

  CREON

  Silence, I bid thee!

  OEDIPUS

  Goddesses, allow

  Thy suppliant to utter yet one curse!

  Wretch, now my eyes are gone thou hast torn away

  The helpless maiden who was eyes to me;

  For these to thee and all thy cursed race

  May the great Sun, whose eye is everywhere,

  Grant length of days and old age like to mine.

  CREON

  Listen, O men of Athens, mark ye this?

  OEDIPUS

  They mark us both and understand that I

  Wronged by the deeds defend myself with words.

  CREON

  Nothing shall curb my will; though I be old

  And single-handed, I will have this man.

  OEDIPUS

  O woe is me!

  CHORUS

  Thou art a bold man, stranger, if thou think’st

  To execute thy purpose.

  CREON

  So I do.

  CHORUS

  Then shall I deem this State no more a State.

  CREON

  With a just quarrel weakness conquers might.

  OEDIPUS

  Ye hear his words?

  CHORUS

  Aye words, but not yet deeds,

  Zeus knoweth!

  CREON

  Zeus may haply know, not thou.

  CHORUS

  Insolence!

  CREON

  Insolence that thou must bear.

  CHORUS

  Haste ye princes, sound the alarm!

  Men of Athens, arm ye, arm!

  Quickly to the rescue come

  Ere the robbers get them home.

  [Enter THESEUS]

  THESEUS

  Why this outcry? What is forward? wherefore was I called away

  From the altar of Poseidon, lord of your Colonus? Say!

  On what errand have I hurried hither without stop or stay.

  OEDIPUS

  Dear friend — those accents tell me who thou art —

  Yon man but now hath done me a foul wrong.

  THESEUS

  What is this wrong and who hath wrought it? Speak.

  OEDIPUS

  Creon who stands before thee. He it is

  Hath robbed me of my all, my daughters twain.

  THESEUS

  What means this?

  OEDIPUS

  Thou hast heard my tale of wrongs.

  THESEUS

  Ho! hasten to the altars, one of you.

  Command my liegemen leave the sacrifice

  And hurry, foot and horse, with rein unchecked,

  To where the paths that packmen use diverge,

  Lest the two maidens slip away, and I

  Become a mockery to this my guest,

  As one despoiled by force. Quick, as I bid.

  As for this stranger, had I let my rage,

  Justly provoked, have play, he had not ‘scaped

  Scathless and uncorrected at my hands.

  But now the laws to which himself appealed,

  These and none others shall adjudicate.

  Thou shalt not quit this land, till thou hast fetched

  The maidens and produced them in my sight.

  Thou hast offended both against myself

  And thine own race and country. Having come

  Unto a State that champions right and asks

  For every action warranty of law,

  Thou hast set aside the custom of the land,

  And like some freebooter art carrying off

  What plunder pleases thee, as if forsooth

  Thou thoughtest this a city without men,

  Or manned by slaves, and me a thing of naught.

  Yet not from Thebes this villainy was learnt;

  Thebes is not wont to breed unrighteous sons,

  Nor would she praise thee, if she learnt that thou

  Wert robbing me — aye and the gods to boot,

  Haling by force their suppliants, poor maids.

  Were I on Theban soil, to prosecute

  The justest claim imaginable, I

  Would never wrest by violence my own

  Without sanction of your State or King;

  I should behave as fits an outlander

  Living amongst a foreign folk, but thou

  Shamest a city that deserves it not,

  Even thine own, and plentitude of years

  Have made of thee an old man and a fool.

  Therefore again I charge thee as before,

  See that the maidens are restored at once,

  Unless thou would’st continue here by force

  And not by choice a sojourner; so much

  I tell thee home and what I say, I mean.

  CHORUS

  Thy case is perilous; though by birth and race

  Thou should’st be just, thou plainly doest wrong.

  CREON

  Not deeming this city void of men

  Or counsel, son of Aegeus, as thou say’st

  I did what I have done; rather I thought

  Your people were not like to set such store

  by kin of mine and keep them ‘gainst my will.

  Nor would they harbor, so I stood assured,

  A godless parricide, a reprobate

  Convicted of incestuous marriage ties.

  For on her native hill of Ares here

  (I knew your far-famed Areopagus)

  Sits Justice, and permits not vagrant folk

  To stay within your borders. In that faith

  I hunted down my quarry; and e’en then

  I had refrained but for the curses dire

  Wherewith he banned my kinsfolk and myself:

  Such wrong, methought, had warrant for my act.

  Anger has no old age but only death;

  The dead alone can feel no touch of spite.

  So thou must work thy will; my cause is just

  But weak without allies; yet will I try,

  Old as I am, to answer deeds with deeds.

  OEDIPUS

  O shameless railer, think’st thou this abuse

  Defames my grey hairs rather than thine own?

  Murder and incest, deeds of horror, all

  Thou blurtest forth against me, all I have borne,

  No willing sinner; so it pleased
the gods

  Wrath haply with my sinful race of old,

  Since thou could’st find no sin in me myself

  For which in retribution I was doomed

  To trespass thus against myself and mine.

  Answer me now, if by some oracle

  My sire was destined to a bloody end

  By a son’s hand, can this reflect on me,

  Me then unborn, begotten by no sire,

  Conceived in no mother’s womb? And if

  When born to misery, as born I was,

  I met my sire, not knowing whom I met

  or what I did, and slew him, how canst thou

  With justice blame the all-unconscious hand?

  And for my mother, wretch, art not ashamed,

  Seeing she was thy sister, to extort

  From me the story of her marriage, such

  A marriage as I straightway will proclaim.

  For I will speak; thy lewd and impious speech

  Has broken all the bonds of reticence.

  She was, ah woe is me! she was my mother;

  I knew it not, nor she; and she my mother

  Bare children to the son whom she had borne,

  A birth of shame. But this at least I know

  Wittingly thou aspersest her and me;

  But I unwitting wed, unwilling speak.

  Nay neither in this marriage or this deed

  Which thou art ever casting in my teeth —

  A murdered sire — shall I be held to blame.

  Come, answer me one question, if thou canst:

  If one should presently attempt thy life,

  Would’st thou, O man of justice, first inquire

  If the assassin was perchance thy sire,

  Or turn upon him? As thou lov’st thy life,

  On thy aggressor thou would’st turn, no stay

  Debating, if the law would bear thee out.

  Such was my case, and such the pass whereto

  The gods reduced me; and methinks my sire,

  Could he come back to life, would not dissent.

  Yet thou, for just thou art not, but a man

  Who sticks at nothing, if it serve his plea,

  Reproachest me with this before these men.

  It serves thy turn to laud great Theseus’ name,

  And Athens as a wisely governed State;

  Yet in thy flatteries one thing is to seek:

  If any land knows how to pay the gods

  Their proper rites, ’tis Athens most of all.

  This is the land whence thou wast fain to steal

  Their aged suppliant and hast carried off

  My daughters. Therefore to yon goddesses,

  I turn, adjure them and invoke their aid

  To champion my cause, that thou mayest learn

  What is the breed of men who guard this State.

  CHORUS

  An honest man, my liege, one sore bestead

  By fortune, and so worthy our support.

  THESEUS

  Enough of words; the captors speed amain,

  While we the victims stand debating here.

  CREON

  What would’st thou? What can I, a feeble man?

  THESEUS

  Show us the trail, and I’ll attend thee too,

 

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