The Complete Plays of Sophocles
Page 35
OEDIPUS
Reach out to me, daughter.
ANTIGONE
They are too strong.
KREON
(to his Soldiers)
Take her away from here.
ANTIGONE
I’m so weak! So weak! I can’t stop them.
KREON’s Soldiers drag ANTIGONE offstage.
KREON
Now you won’t have two daughters for crutches.
But since you want to lay waste your country
and its people—who’ve ordered me to do this,
though I remain their king—go right ahead, 930
fight for victory! You will find that nothing
you’re doing now, nothing you’ve ever done,
has done you any good—you’ve turned your back
on those who love you, while they’ve tried
to stop your self-destructive fury.
LEADER
Stop where you are, stranger.
LEADER grabs hold of KREON.
KREON
Keep your hands off me.
LEADER
When you’ve brought back his daughters!
KREON
That will cost Thebes a much steeper ransom.
I’ll take something worth more than these two girls. 940
LEADER
What are you threatening?
LEADER lifts his hands from KREON.
KREON
To seize that man there.
LEADER
Those are shocking words.
KREON
But ones I’ll make good.
LEADER
You might—unless our king stops you.
OEDIPUS
That is outrageous! So you would seize me?
KREON
Shut up!
OEDIPUS
NO!
Goddesses, don’t gag
the curse rising in my throat—on you, scum,
who have stolen my dear defenseless eyes,
gone like the sight I once possessed.
Let the Sun, who sees all there is, give you,
and every member of your family, 950
an old age as miserable as my own.
KREON
You people who live here, do you see that?
OEDIPUS
They see us both. They know you have caused me
real harm, while I’ve struck back with mere breath.
KREON
I will not curb my rage! Though I’m alone,
though age enfeebles me, I will take him.
KREON takes hold of OEDIPUS.
OEDIPUS
He’s done it.
LEADER
Stranger, what arrogance possessed you?
You think you can accomplish this?
KREON
I will accomplish it. 960
LEADER
Then I’ll cease to believe Athens is a city.
KREON
The weak overcome the powerful
if they have justice on their side.
OEDIPUS
Did you hear him?
LEADER
Zeus, back me up! He can’t enforce his boast.
KREON
But Zeus knows that I can. And you don’t know.
LEADER
That’s an outrage!
KREON
An outrage you can’t stop.
LEADER
You men who govern us! Come here! Be quick!
These men are heading for the border.
Enter THESEUS and his Men. KREON releases OEDIPUS and steps back.
THESEUS
What makes you shout? What’s wrong?
Are you so panicked that you’ll disrupt 970
my sacrifice to the seagod of Kolonos?
Speak up! Tell me the whole story, so I’ll
know why I’ve run here so fast my legs ache.
OEDIPUS
I recognize your voice, friend. That man
over there has done me serious harm.
THESEUS
What harm? Which man?
OEDIPUS
Kreon. He’s right there, you see him. He’s taken
two of my children—the two I have left.
THESEUS
What are you saying?
OEDIPUS
I’ve told you what he did.
THESEUS
Someone run to my people at the altars. 980
Order every man there to leave the sacrifice
and converge at the crossroads. Go on foot,
or loosen your horses’ reins and make them
gallop. Stop those girls from leaving town,
so I won’t look useless to this stranger,
caught off guard by a desperate act. Go now!
And as for that man standing over there—
if I could punish him for what he’s done
there is no way he would ever go free.
As things stand, he’s protected by the laws 990
that authorized his visit to Athens.
(to KREON)
But we won’t turn you loose until you bring
the girls here, where I can see them. Your actions
shame me, your family, and your country.
You’ve come to a city that loves justice.
We will do nothing contrary to law,
even though you flout our laws—invading
our territory, grabbing what you please,
keeping it by force. Do you think no men,
only slaves, live here? That I don’t matter? 1000
It’s not your breeding that makes you
a vile man. Thebes does not breed criminals.
She wouldn’t support you, not if she knew
you were plundering what belongs to me—
and to the gods—using force to abduct
helpless suppliants.
If I had crossed
your borders, no matter how just my cause,
I would first ask your ruler’s agreement,
whoever he might be, before I dragged
anybody off. I’d know how a stranger 1010
should deal with your country’s citizens.
But you’ve given your city a bad name
it doesn’t deserve. And as you’ve grown old
the years have blighted your intelligence.
I said before, and I say now: Someone
must bring the girls back. Unless you’d like
to take up permanent residence here.
These aren’t just words. They speak my mind.
LEADER
Do you see what’s become of you, stranger?
We thought at first that you were honest—like 1020
your people. Now we see the harm you cause.
KREON
I didn’t take these actions assuming,
as you would have it, that this city lacked
brave or intelligent men. I took them
because I assumed that its people
were not so taken with my relatives
as to feed and house them against my will.
I was sure you people wouldn’t shelter
a morally toxic father-killer,
a man whose wife bore children to her son. 1030
I knew that the Council of Mount Ares
convenes in your city, and believed it
much too wise to let vagrants enter Athens.
I trusted my conviction when I seized him.
Nor would I have abducted him
if he hadn’t laid curses on my kinfolk.
I am a man maligned! I have a right
to strike back. Anger doesn’t diminish
as we age. It consumes us till we die.
Only the dead are immune from anguish. 1040
Do what you want with me.
Though I’m nothing, mine is a just cause.
I may be old, but I’ll attempt
to pay you back blow for blow.
OEDIPUS
You have no shame! Tell me, does your nonsense
about a weak old man best fit you? Or me?
You charge me with murder, incest, disgrace—
misfortunes I suffered, but none of which
I chose. Perhaps it pleased the gods to hate
my ancestors. Examine my whole life. 1050
You can accuse me of no personal
wrongdoing, no crime whose expiation
impelled me to harm myself and my kin.
Tell me this. If the oracle of god
had decreed my father must die
at the hands of his own son, how
could you possibly think it just
to blame me? I wasn’t even born!
No father had begotten me,
no mother had conceived me. 1060
And if, born to this miserable fate
as I most surely was, I traded blows
with my father in combat, and killed him,
not knowing what I was doing, or to whom—
how could you condemn that ignorant act?
As for my mother—you disgrace yourself
when you force me to speak of her marriage.
She was your sister, and our marriage
happened in just the way I’ll now describe.
Given what’s come from your vulgar mouth, 1070
there is no reason to shut mine.
Yes!—she bore me. And that wrecked both our lives.
I didn’t know the truth, neither did she.
She give birth to me, and then she give birth
to children I fathered—to her shame.
I’m certain of one thing: it is your own
free choice to condemn us. But was my will
free when I married her? No! Nor do I
have any choice but to speak of it now.
Neither my marriage, nor the killing 1080
of my father—actions you keep on
throwing in my face—can be called crimes.
Of all my questions, answer just this one:
if, right now, a man standing beside you—
righteous you—tried to kill you, would you ask
whether or not the would-be murderer
was your father, or would you strike him down?
If your life mattered to you, I believe
you’d fight your assassin before you asked
yourself whether you were doing the right thing. 1090
Into such cataclysms the gods led me.
If my father’s spirit came back to life,
I don’t think he would disagree.
But you! Because you’re not a moral man,
because you’re willing to say anything,
because to you it’s all the same—
speech that’s vulgar and specch that’s not—
you slander and defame me
in the presence of these good men.
You’re quite happy to flatter Theseus— 1100
and Athens, for being such a well-run state.
Yet, in the midst of your adulation,
you have forgotten that if any city
knows the best way to venerate the gods,
it is Athens above all. So you try
to snatch me from this country, abuse me,
an old man, a suppliant! And worst of all
you seize my daughters! For all these reasons
I ask the goddesses living over there
for their help—provide me with friends!—so you 1110
may learn what kind of men defend this city.
LEADER
He’s a good man, King. His destiny
may horrify us, but he’s earned our help.
THESEUS
Enough discussion! The abductors
and their captives are on the move, while we,
the injured parties, just stand here.
KREON
What will you force a weak old man to do?
THESEUS
You can show me their route. I’ll go with you.
If you’re holding the girls we’re searching for
nearby, you’ll take me there yourself—but if 1120
your men have galloped off with their prizes,
that will save us some trouble, for my horsemen
will ride them down. Your men, thank god,
could never outrun mine to the frontier.
Let’s go! Listen to me: the snake’s defanged.
Fate’s caught the marauder in her trap.
Whatever you win by cunning, you will lose.
You’ll also lose your partners in this outrage.
I doubt you would have dared to attack us
unless you had some armed accomplices— 1130
perhaps you were counting on some traitor.
I’d better look to it—or else one lone
man could overthrow the whole city.
Are you hearing me? Or will you
ignore my words like the warnings you had
while you were planning this atrocity?
KREON
You’re on home ground, so nothing you can say
disturbs me. Back in Thebes I’ll know what to do.
THESEUS
Threaten me all you like—but start walking.
Oedipus, stay here. I’m sure you’ll be safe. 1140
And I promise you this: unless I’m killed
I’ll bring both of your daughters back alive.
OEDIPUS
May the gods bless your kindness, Theseus.
Bless your devotion to our welfare.
Exit THESEUS and his Men, escorting KREON.
OLD MEN
Oh let us be there,
to see the enemy
turn and fight! Bronze banging
bronze on the Pythian shore
or on torch-lit beaches
where two great queens—lips sworn 1150
to unbreakable silence
by the priests of Eumolpos—
nurture and watch over
funeral rites for the dead.
Out where Theseus,
the battle-igniter, and two
young girls, captive sisters,
converge at our borders,
surrounded by shouting
soldiers sure they have won. 1160
Or will the thieves be run down
in pastures west of the snowy
rock in the town of Oea,
as they flee on fast horses
or chariots driven at speed?
Kreon is beaten!
Men from Kolonos
make powerful warriors!
The steel of every bridle
flashes, the mounted troop 1170
charges ahead at full gallop.
They worship Athena;
they worship Poseidon,
the ocean-embracing
son of the goddess Rhea.
Are they in action yet,
or do they hold back?
My heart gives me
hope that the girls,
harshly tested, 1180
brutally abused
at the hands of their uncle,
will soon see us, face to face.
Today! Today is the day that Zeus
will conclude a great work,
the victory in battle I foresee!
Were I a dove right now, the storm’s
thrust lifting my strong wings,
I might soar through a cloud,
the battle raging below me. 1190
Hear it, Zeus, who rules
all other gods, who sees
all that there is to see!
Let our country’s defenders
strike the decisive blow
that will bring the prize home.
Help us, fearsome Athena!
Come, huntsman Apollo,
bring Artemis, your sister!
Come all you trackers 1200
of the dappled fast-moving deer—
help this land and our people!
You won’t find me a false prophet,
wandering friend. I’m looking now
at the girls and their escort coming home.
OEDIPUS
Where? Can you tell me? What are you saying?
Enter ANTIGONE and ISMENE with THESEUS and his Men.
ANTIGONE
(from a distance)
Father!—if only some god would show you
this princely man who’s brought us back to you!
OEDIPUS
Daughter? Is it you?
ANTIGONE
Yes! All these strong arms—
the king and his loyal men—set us free. 1210
OEDIPUS
Come toward me, child. Returned to me,
after I had lost hope. Come to my arms.
ANTIGONE
You ask for what I want to give.
OEDIPUS
Where are you, child?
ANTIGONE
We’re both coming to you.
OEDIPUS embraces his daughters.
OEDIPUS
My darling children!
ANTIGONE
You love us all.
OEDIPUS
You strengthen my old frame.
ANTIGONE
And share your grief.
OEDIPUS
I hold all my dear ones. If I die now,
I won’t die totally wretched, so long
as you two hold me like this. Cling so hard
you graft yourselves to your father, so tight 1220
I’ll feel released at last from the wanderings
that have left me bone-tired and miserable.
Now tell me quickly what happened out there.
A girl your size should keep it short.
ANTIGONE
The man who saved us is right here.
It was all his doing. Let him tell it.
That’s as brief as I can make it.
OEDIPUS
Don’t be surprised, my friend, that I’ve spoken
so long and so intently to my daughters.
I was quite sure they were lost forever. 1230
I owe the joy I’m feeling now
to you. You freed them, no one else.
May the gods grant all that I wish for you—
both you and your city—for I’ve found you
the most god-fearing, evenhanded
people on Earth. And your tongues never lie.
I know your virtues. Let me honor them:
you—and no other—gave me what I have.