Oedipus Tyrannus

Sophocles

Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 1: The Oedipus Tyrannus. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1887.

  1. 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,
  2. accursed in wedlock, accursed in the shedding of blood.He rushes into the palace.
Chorus
  1. Alas, generations of mortals, how mere a shadow I count your life! Where, where is the mortal who
  2. 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
  3. earthly creature blessed.
Chorus
  1. 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.
  2. 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
  1. But now whose story is more grievous in men’s ears?
  2. 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
  3. in which your father sowed, unhappy man, have endured you in silence for so long?
Chorus
  1. Time the all-seeing has found you out, against your will: he judges the monstrous marriage in which
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  1. 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,
  2. 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.
  3. And those griefs smart the most which are seen to be of our own choice.
Chorus
  1. Indeed the troubles which we knew before are far from being easy to bear. Besides them, what do you have to announce?
Second Messenger
  1. This is the shortest tale to tell and hear:
  2. our royal lady Iocasta is dead.
Chorus
  1. Alas, wretched lady! From what cause?