Oedipus Tyrannus

Sophocles

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

  1. laid myself under a terrible curse without realizing it.
Iocasta
  1. How do you mean? I tremble when I look at you, my lord.
Oedipus
  1. I have dread fears that the seer can see. But you will reveal the matter better if you tell me one thing more.
Iocasta
  1. Indeed, though I tremble, I will hear and answer all that you ask.
Oedipus
  1. Did he go with a small force, or like a chieftain, with many armed followers?
Iocasta
  1. Five they were in all—a herald among them—and there was one carriage which bore Laius.
Oedipus
  1. Alas! It is all clear now! Who gave you this information, lady?
Iocasta
  1. A servant, the only survivor who returned home.
Oedipus
  1. Is he by any chance in the house now?
Iocasta
  1. No. Soon after he returned and found you ruling in Laius’ stead,
  2. he pled with me, with hand laid on mine, to send him to the fields, to the pastures of the flocks, that he might be far from the sight of this town. And I sent him; he was worthy, for a slave, to win even a larger favor than that.
Oedipus
  1. Would, then, that he return to us without delay!
Iocasta
  1. That is easy. But why do you enjoin this?
Oedipus
  1. I fear, lady, that my words have been rash, and therefore I wish to see him.
Iocasta
  1. He will come. But I think that
  2. I too have a claim to learn what lies heavy on your heart, my king.
Oedipus
  1. It will not be kept from you, now that my forebodings have advanced so far. To whom more than to you would I speak in suffering such a fortune as this? My father was Polybus of Corinth,
  2. my mother the Dorian Merope. I was considered the greatest of the folk in that town, until a chance event befell me, worthy, indeed, of wonder, though not of my overreaction regarding it. At a banquet, a man drunk with wine
  3. cast it at me that I was not the true son of my father. And I, vexed, restrained myself for that day as best as I could, but on the next went to my mother and father and questioned them. They were angry at the one who had let this taunt fly.
  4. So I had comfort about them, but the matter rankled in my heart, for such a rumor still spread widely. I went to Delphi without my parents’ knowledge, and Phoebus sent me forth disappointed of the knowledge for which I had come,