Oedipus Tyrannus
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 1: The Oedipus Tyrannus. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1887.
- Misguided men, why have you raised
- such a foolish argument? Are you not ashamed, while the land is so sick, to stir up troubles of your own? Come, go into the house—and you, Creon, go to yours—and stop making so much of a petty grief.
- Kinswoman, Oedipus, your husband,
- wants to do one of two terrible things to me, either to thrust me from the land of my fathers or to arrest and slay me.
- Yes indeed, for I have caught him, lady, working evil against my person with his wicked craft.
- May I derive no benefit,
- but perish accursed, if I have done any of the things of which you charge me.
- In the name of the gods, believe it, Oedipus, first for the sake of this awful oath to the gods, then for my sake and for the sake of those who stand before you.
- Consent, reflect, listen, my king, I beg you.
- What would you have me grant you?
- Respect him who was in the past not foolish, and who now is strong in his oath.
- Do you understand what you crave?
- I do.
- Tell me, then, what you mean.
- That you should never use an unproved rumor to cast a dishonoring charge on the friend who has bound himself with a curse.
- Then be quite aware that when you seek this you are seeking death or exile from this land for me.
- No, by the god that stands at the head of all the host of the gods, no, by the sun. Unblest, unbefriended, may I die the worst possible death, if I have this thought!
- But my unhappy soul is worn by the withering of the land, as well as by the thought that our old sorrows should be crowned by new ones arising from the two of you.
- Then let him go, though I am surely doomed to be killed
- or thrust dishonored from the land. Your words, not his, move me to compassion; but he, wherever he be, shall be hated.