because I guessed the baffling riddle of the girl, half-maiden.AntigoneYou are bringing up again the reproach of the Sphinx. Talk no more of past success. This misery was in store for you all the while,to become an exile from your country and die anywhere.Leaving to my girlhood friends sad tears, I go forth from my native land, to roam as no maiden should.Ah! This dutiful resolve towards my father’s suffering will make me famous. Alas for the insults heaped on you and on my brother, whose dead body goes from the house unburied,poor boy! I will bury him secretly, though I have to die for it, father.OedipusShow yourself to your companions.AntigoneMy own laments suffice.OedipusGo pray at the altars.AntigoneThey have enough of my piteous tale.OedipusAt least go seek the Bromian god in his untrodden sanctuary among the Maenads’ hills.AntigoneBromius, for whom I once dressed in the Theban fawn-skin anddanced upon the hills in the holy choir of Semele—shall I now offer the gods homage that is not homage?
OedipusO citizens of a famous country, look at me; I am Oedipus, who solved the famous riddle, and was the greatest of men,I, who alone controlled the murderous Sphinx’s power, am now myself driven from the land in dishonor and misery. But why do I make this moan and useless lamentation? As a mortal, I must bear the constraint that the gods decree.
ChorusGreatly revered Victory,may you occupy my life and never cease to crown me!