Act 3: Discoveries

Listening for Leadership

Possible Group Activity

Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus, lines 1087-end, Translated by Sir Richard Jebb

Chorus
Who was it, my son, who of the race whose years are many, that bore you in wedlock with [1100] Pan, the mountain-roaming father? Or was it a bride of Loxias that bore you? For dear to him are all the upland pastures. [1105] Or perhaps it was Cyllene's lord, or the Bacchants' god, dweller on the hill-tops, that received you, a new-born joy, from one of the nymphs of Helicon, with whom he most often sports.

Oedipus
[1110] Elders, if it is right for me, who have never met the man, to guess, I think I see the herdsman we have been looking for for a lone time. In his venerable old age he tallies with this stranger's years, and moreover I recognize those who bring him, I think, as servants of mine. [1115] But perhaps you have an advantage in knowledge over me, if you have seen the herdsman before.

Chorus
Yes, I know him, be sure. He was in the service of Laius—trusty as any shepherd.

The herdsman is brought in.

Oedipus
I ask you first, Corinthian stranger, if this is the man you mean.

Messenger
[1120] He is, the one you are looking at.

Oedipus
You, old man—look this way and answer all that I ask—were you once in the service of Laius?

Servant
I was—not a bought slave, but reared in his house.

Oedipus
Employed in what labor, or what way of life?

Servant
[1125] For the better part of my life I tended the flocks.

Oedipus
And what regions did you most frequently haunt?

Servant
Sometimes Cithaeron, sometimes the neighboring ground.

Oedipus
Are you aware of ever having seen this man in these parts?

Servant
Doing what? What man do you mean?

Oedipus
[1130] This man here. Have you ever met him before?

Servant
Not so that I could speak at once from memory.

Messenger
And no wonder, master. But I will bring clear recollection to his ignorance. I am sure he knows well of the time we dwelled in the region of Cithaeron [1135] for six month periods, from spring to Arcturus, he with two flocks, and I, his comrade, with one. And then for the winter I used to drive my flock to my own fold, and he took his to the fold of Laius. [1140] Did any of this happen as I tell it, or did it not?

Servant
You speak the truth, though it was long ago.

Messenger
Come, tell me now: do you remember having given me a boy in those days, to be reared as my own foster-son?

Servant
What now? Why do you ask the question?

Messenger
[1145] This man, my friend, is he who then was young.

Servant
Damn you! Be silent once and for all!

Oedipus
Do not rebuke him, old man. Your words need rebuking more than his.

Servant
And in what way, most noble master, do I offend?

Oedipus
[1150] In not telling of the boy about whom he asks.

Servant
He speaks without knowledge, but is busy to no purpose.

Oedipus
You will not speak with good grace, but will in pain.

Servant
No, in the name of the gods, do not mistreat an old man.

Oedipus
Someone, quick—tie his hands him this instant!

Servant
[1155] Alas, why? What do you want to learn?

Oedipus
Did you give this man the child about whom he asks?

Servant
I did. Would that I had perished that day!

Oedipus
Well, you will come to that, unless you tell the honest truth.

Servant
But if I speak I will be destroyed all the more.

Oedipus
[1160] This man is bent, I think, on more delays.

Servant
No, no! I said before that I gave it to him.

Oedipus
Where did you get it from? From your own house, or from another?

Servant
It was not my own: I received it from another.

Oedipus
From whom of the citizens here? From what home?

Servant
[1165] For the love of the gods, master, ask no more!

Oedipus
You are dead if I have to question you again.

Servant
It was a child, then, of the house of Laius.

Oedipus
A slave? Or one of his own clan?

Servant
Alas! I am on the brink of speaking the dreaded words.

Oedipus
[1170] And I of hearing: I must hear nevertheless.

Servant
You must know then, that it was said to be his own child. But your lady within could say best how these matters lie.

Oedipus
How? Did she give it to you?

Servant
Yes, my lord.

Oedipus
For what purpose?

Servant
That I should do away with it.

Oedipus
[1175] Her own child, the wretched woman?

Servant
Yes, from fear of the evil prophecies.

Oedipus
What were they?

Servant
The tale ran that he would slay his father.

Oedipus
Why, then, did you give him to this old man?

Servant
Out of pity, master, thinking that he would carry him to another land, from where he himself came. But he saved him for the direst woe. [1180] For if you are what this man says, be certain that you were born ill-fated.

Oedipus
Oh, oh! All brought to pass, all true. Light, may I now look on you for the last time—I who have been found to be accursed in birth, [1185] accursed in wedlock, accursed in the shedding of blood.He rushes into the palace.

Chorus
Alas, generations of mortals, how mere a shadow I count your life! Where, where is the mortal who [1190] attains a happiness which is more than apparent and doomed to fall away to nothing? Your fate warns me—yours, unhappy Oedipus—to call no [1195] earthly creature blessed.

Chorus
For he, O Zeus, shot his shaft with peerless skill, and won the prize of an all-prosperous fortune, having slain the maiden with crooked talons, who sang darkly. [1200] He arose for our land like a tower against death. And from that time, Oedipus, you have been called our king, and have been honored supremely, holding power in great Thebes.

Chorus
But now whose story is more grievous in men's ears? [1205] Who is a more wretched slave to fierce plagues and troubles, with all his life reversed? Alas, renowned Oedipus! The same bounteous harbor was sufficient for you, both as child and as father, to make your nuptial couch in. Oh, how can the soil [1210] in which your father sowed, unhappy man, have endured you in silence for so long?

Chorus
Time the all-seeing has found you out, against your will: he judges the monstrous marriage in which [1215] parent and child have long been one. Alas, child of Laius, would that I had never seen you. I wail as one who pours a dirge from his lips. [1220] It was you who gave me new life, to speak directly, and through you darkness has fallen upon my eyes.

A second messenger enters from the house.

Second Messenger
You who are most honored in this land, what deeds you will hear, what deeds you will behold, what burden of sorrow will be yours, [1225] if, true to your race, you still care for the house of Labdacus. For I think that neither the Ister nor the Phasis could wash this house clean, so many are the ills that it shrouds, or will soon bring to light, ills wrought not unwittingly, but on purpose. [1230] And those griefs smart the most which are seen to be of our own choice.

Chorus
Indeed the troubles which we knew before are far from being easy to bear. Besides them, what do you have to announce?

Second Messenger
This is the shortest tale to tell and hear: [1235] our royal lady Iocasta is dead.

Chorus
Alas, wretched lady! From what cause?

Second Messenger
By her own hand. You will not suffer the worst part of the painful event, since you do not behold the events. Nevertheless, so far as my memory serves, [1240] you will learn that unhappy woman's fate. When, frantic, she passed within the vestibule, she rushed straight towards her marriage couch, clutching her hair with the fingers of both hands. Once within the chamber, [1245] she dashed the doors together behind her, then called on the name of Laius, long since a corpse, thinking of that son, born long ago, by whose hand the father was slain, leaving the mother to breed accursed offspring with his own child. And she bewailed the marriage in which, wretched woman, she had given birth to a twofold brood, [1250] husband by husband, children by her child. And how she perished is more than I know. For with a shriek Oedipus burst in, and did not allow us to watch her woe until the end: on him, as he rushed around, our eyes were set. [1255] To and fro he went, asking us to give him a sword, asking where he could find the wife who was no wife, but a mother whose womb had borne both him and his children. And in his frenzy a power greater than mortal man was his guide, for it was none of us mortals who were near. [1260] With a dread cry, as though someone beckoned him on, he sprang at the double doors, forced the bending bolts from the sockets, and rushed into the room. There we beheld the woman hanging by the neck in a twisted noose of swinging cords. [1265] And when he saw her, with a dread deep cry he released the halter by which she hung. And when the hapless woman was stretched out on the ground, then the sequel was horrible to see: for he tore from her raiment the golden brooches with which she had decorated herself, [1270] and lifting them struck his own eye-balls, uttering words like these: No longer will you behold such horrors as I was suffering and performing! Long enough have you looked on those whom you ought never to have seen, having failed in the knowledge of those whom I yearned to know—henceforth you shall be dark! [1275] With such a dire refrain, he struck his eyes with raised hand not once but often. At each blow the bloody eye-balls bedewed his beard, and sent forth not sluggish drops of gore, but all at once a dark shower of blood came down like hail. [1280] From the deeds of the two of them such ills have broken forth, not on one alone, but with mingled woe for man and wife. The old happiness of their ancestral fortune was once happiness indeed. But now today lamentation, ruin, death, shame, and every earthly ill that anyone could name are all theirs.

Chorus
And does the sufferer have any respite from pain now?

Second Messenger
He cries for some one to unbar the gates and show to all the Cadmeans his father's slayer, his mother's—the words must not pass my lips— [1290] in order to banish himself from the land and not to put the house under his own curse by waiting here. And yet he lacks strength, and one to guide his steps, for the anguish is more than he can bear. He will soon show this to you: look, the bars of the gates are withdrawn, [1295] and soon you will behold a sight which even he who abhors it must pity.

Chorus
O dread fate for men to see, O most dreadful of all that I have set my eyes on! Unhappy one, what madness has come upon you? [1300] Who is the unearthly foe who, with a leap of more than mortal range has made your ill-starred life his prey? Alas, alas, you hapless man! I cannot even look on you, though there is much I desire to ask, much I desire to learn, [1305] much that draws my wistful gaze: with such a shuddering do you fill me!

Oedipus
Woe is me! Alas, alas, wretched that I am! Where, where am I carried in my misery? [1310] How is my voice swept abroad on the wings of the air? Oh, my fate, how far you have sprung!

Chorus
To a dread place, dire in men's ears, dire in their sight.

Oedipus
Oh horror of darkness that enfolds me, unspeakable visitant, [1315] resistless, sped by a wind too favorable! Oh, me! and once again, Oh, me! How my soul is pierced by the stab of these goads and by the memory of sorrows!

Chorus
No wonder that amidst these woes [1320] you mourn and bear a double pain.

Oedipus
Ah, friend, you still are steadfast in your care for me, and still have patience to tend to the blind man! Ah, me! [1325] Your presence is not hidden from me—no, blind though I am, nevertheless I know your voice full well.

Chorus
Man of dread deeds, how could you quench your vision in this way? What divinity urged you on?

Oedipus
It was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought these troubles [1330] to pass, these terrible, terrible troubles. But the hand that struck my eyes was none other than my own, wretched that I am! [1335] Why should I see, when sight showed me nothing sweet?

Chorus
These things were just as you say.

Oedipus
What, my friends, can I behold anymore, what can I love, what greeting can touch my ear with joy? Hurry, friends, [1340] lead me from the land, lead me from here, the utterly lost, [1345] the thrice-accursed, the mortal most hateful to the gods!

Chorus
Wretched alike for your fortune and for your understanding of it, would that I had never known you!

Oedipus
Perish the man, whoever he was, who freed me in the past years from the cruel shackle on my feet—a thankless deed! Had I died then, [1355] I would not have been so sore a grief to my friends and to my own soul.

Chorus
I too would have had it thus.

Oedipus
In this way I would not have come to shed my father's blood, or been known among men as the husband of the woman from whom I was born. [1360] Now I am forsaken by the gods, son of a defiled mother, successor to the bed of the man who gave me my own wretched being: [1365] if there is a woe surpassing all woes, it has become Oedipus' lot.

Chorus
I cannot agree that you have counseled well: you would have been better dead than living and blind.

Oedipus
Do not tell me that things have not been best done in this way: [1370] give me counsel no more. If I had sight, I know not with what eyes I could even have looked on my father, when I came to the house of Hades, or on my miserable mother, since against both I have sinned such sins as hanging myself could not punish. [1375] But do you think that the sight of children, born as mine were, was lovely for me to look upon? No, no, never lovely to my eyes! No, neither was this town with its towering walls, nor the sacred statues of the gods, since I, thrice wretched that I am— [1380] I, noblest of the sons of Thebes—have doomed myself to know them no more by commanding that all should reject the impious one, the one whom the gods have revealed as unholy, a member of Laius' own race! After bearing such a stain upon myself, [1385] was I to look with steady eyes on this folk? No indeed: were there a way to choke the source of hearing, I would not have hesitated to make a fast prison of this wretched frame, so that I should have known neither sight nor sound. [1390] It is sweet for our thought to dwell beyond the sphere of grief. Alas, Cithaeron, why did you provide a shelter for me? When I was given to you, why did you not slay me straightway, that I might never reveal my origin to men. Ah, Polybus, ah, Corinth, and you that were called the ancient house of my father, [1395] how fair-seeming was I, your nurseling, and what evils were festering underneath! Now I am found to be evil and of evil birth. Oh you three roads, and you secret glen, you, thicket, and narrow way where three paths met— [1400] you who drank my father's blood from my own hands—do you remember, perhaps, what deeds I have performed in your sight, and then what fresh deeds I went on to do when I came here? Oh marriage rites, you gave me birth, and when you had brought me forth, [1405] you again bore children to your child, you created an incestuous kinship of fathers, brothers, sons, brides, wives, and mothers—all the foulest deeds that are wrought among men! But it is improper to mention what it is improper to do— [1410] hurry, for the love of the gods, hide me somewhere beyond the land, or slay me, or cast me into the sea, where you will never behold me any longer! Approach—deign to lay your hands on a wretched man—listen and fear not: my plague can rest [1415] on no other mortal.

Chorus
But here is Creon in good time to plan and perform that which you request. He alone is left to guard the land in your place.

Oedipus
Ah, me, how will I address him? [1420] What claim to credence can be shown on my part? For in the past I proved to be wholly false to him.

Enter Creon.

Creon
I have not come to mock or reproach you with any any past fault.

To the Attendants.

But you, if you no longer respect the children of men, [1425] revere at least the all-nurturing flame of our lord the Sun, and don't show so openly such a pollution as this, one which neither earth, nor holy rain, nor the light itself can welcome. Take him into the house as quickly as you can: it best accords with pity that [1430] kinfolk alone should see and hear a kinsman's woes.

Oedipus
For the gods' love—since you have done a gentle violence to my prediction and come in a spirit so noble to me, a man most vile—grant me a favor: I will speak for your own good, not mine.

Creon
[1435] And what do you wish so eagerly to get from me?

Oedipus
Cast me out of this land with all speed, to a place where no mortal shall be found to greet me.

Creon
This I could have done, to be sure, except I craved first to learn from the god all my duty.

Oedipus
[1440] But his pronouncement has been set forth in full—to let me perish, the parricide, unholy one that I am.

Creon
Thus it was said. But since we have come to such a pass, it is better to learn clearly what should be done.

Oedipus
Will you, then, seek a response on behalf of such a wretch as I?

Creon
[1445] Yes, for even you yourself will now surely put faith in the god.

Oedipus
Yes. And on you I lay this charge, to you I make this entreaty: give to the woman within such burial as you wish—you will properly render the last rites to your own. But never let this city of my father be condemned [1450] to have me dwelling within, as long as I live. No, allow me to live in the hills, where Cithaeron, famed as mine, sits, which my mother and father, while they lived, fixed as my appointed tomb, so that I may die according to the decree of those who sought to slay me. [1455] And yet I know this much, that neither sickness nor anything else can destroy me; for I would never have been snatched from death, except in order to suffer some strange doom. But let my fate go where it will. Regarding my children, Creon, I beg you to take no care of my sons: [1460] they are men, so that they will never lack the means to live wherever they should be. My two girls, poor hapless ones—who never knew my table spread separately, or lacked their father's presence, but always had a share of all that [1465] reached my hands—I implore you to take care of them. And, if you can, allow me to touch them with my hands, and to indulge my grief. Grant it, prince, grant it, noble heart. Ah, if I could but once touch them with my hands, I would think that I had them [1470] just as when I had sight.

Creon's Attendants lead in the children, Antigone and Ismene.

What is this? Oh, gods, can it be my loved ones that I hear sobbing, can Creon have taken pity on me and sent my children, my darlings? [1475] Am I right?

Creon
You are. I have brought this about, for I knew the joy which you have long had from them—the joy you now have.

Oedipus
Bless you, and for this errand may the god prove a kinder guardian to you than he has to me. [1480] My children, where are you? Come, here, here to the hands of the one whose mother was your own, the hands that have made your father's once bright eyes to be such orbs as these—his, who seeing nothing, knowing nothing, [1485] became your father by her from whom he was born! For you also do I weep, though I cannot see you, when I think of the bitter life that men will make you live in days to come. To what company of the citizens will you go, to what festival, [1490] from which you will not return home in tears, not sharing in the holiday? But when you reach a ripe age for marriage, who shall he be, who shall be the man, my daughters, to risk taking upon himself the reproaches [1495] that will certainly be baneful to my offspring and yours? What misery is lacking? Your father killed his own father, and bore you from the source of his own being! [1500] Such are the taunts that will be cast at you. And who then will wed you? The man does not live, no, it cannot be, my children, but you will wither in barren maidenhood. Son of Menoeceus, hear me: since you are the only father left to them—we, their parents, are both gone— [1505] do not allow them to wander poor and unwed, for they are your own kin, nor abase them to the level of my woes. Pity them, seeing them deprived of everything but you at such an age. [1510] Promise, noble man, and touch them with your hand. To you, children, I would have given much counsel, if your minds were mature. But now pray that you may live where occasion allows, and that the life which is your lot may be happier than your father's.

Creon
[1515] Your grief has had a sufficient scope: move on into the house.

Oedipus
I must obey, though I do it in no way gladly.

Creon
Yes, for it is in season that all things are good.

Oedipus
Do you know on what terms I will go?

Creon
You will tell me, and then I will know when I have heard them.

Oedipus
See that you send me to dwell outside this land.

Creon
You ask for what the god must give.

Oedipus
But to the gods I have become most hateful.

Creon
Then you will quickly get your wish.

Oedipus
So you consent?

Creon
It is not my way to say idly what I do not mean.

Oedipus
[1520] Then it is time to lead me away.

Creon
Come, then, but let your children go.

Oedipus
No, do not take them from me!

Creon
Do not wish to be master in all things: the mastery which you did attain has not followed you through life.

Chorus
Residents of our native Thebes, behold, this is Oedipus, [1525] who knew the renowned riddle, and was a most mighty man. What citizen did not gaze on his fortune with envy? See into what a stormy sea of troubles he has come! Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the final destined day, we must call no mortal happy until [1530] he has crossed life's border free from pain.