Oedipus Tyrannus
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 1: The Oedipus Tyrannus. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1887.
- No, King—if this you are rightly called—Zeus all ruling, may it not escape you and your deathless power! The old prophecies concerning Laius are fading; already men give them no value, and nowhere is Apollo glorified with honors;
- the worship of the gods is perishing.
- Princes of the land, I am planning to visit the shrines of the gods, with this wreathed branch and these gifts of incense in my hands. For Oedipus excites his soul excessively with all sorts of grief,
- as he does not judge the new things from the old, like a man of sense, but is under the control of the speaker, if he speaks of frightful things. Since, then, I can do no good by counsel, to you, Lycean Apollo—for you are nearest—