Be gone, to your ruin; be gone this instant! Will you not turn your back and leave this house?TeiresiasI would not have come if you had not called me.OedipusI did not know you would speak foolishly, for otherwise it would have been a long time before I summoned you to my home.TeiresiasI was born like this—as you think, a fool, but in the opinion of the parents who bore you, quite sane.OedipusWhat parents? Wait. What man is my father?TeiresiasThis day will reveal your birth and bring your ruin.OedipusWhat riddles, what dark words you always say.TeiresiasAre you not the best at unravelling mysteries?OedipusReproach me in what you will find me to be great.TeiresiasYet it was just that fortune that undid you.OedipusBut if it saved this city I care not.TeiresiasI will take my leave. You, boy, lead me.OedipusYes, let him take you: while here, you are a hindrance, a source of trouble. When you have gone, you will vex me no more.TeiresiasI will go when I have performed the errand for which I came, fearless of your frown: you can never destroy me. I tell you: the man whom you have been seeking this long while,uttering threats and proclaiming a search into the murder of Laius, is here, ostensibly an alien sojourner, but soon to be found a native of Thebes; nor will he enjoy his fortune. A blind man, though now he sees,a beggar, though now rich, he will make his way to a foreign land, feeling the ground before him with his staff. And he will be discovered to be at once brother and father of the children with whom he consorts; son and husband of the woman who bore him;heir to his father’s bed, shedder of his father’s blood. So go in and evaluate this, and if you find that I am wrong, say then that I have no wit in prophecy.

ChorusWho is he of whom the divine voice from the Delphian rock has saidto have wrought with blood-red hands horrors that no tongue can tell? It is time that he ply in flight a foot stronger than the feet of storm-swift steeds.The son of Zeus is springing upon him with fiery lightning, and with him come the dread unerring Fates.