Oedipus at Colonus
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 2: The Oedipus at Colonus. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889.
- They say a man—not from your city, yet of your race—has somehow thrown himself down, as a suppliant, at our altar of Poseidon, where I was sacrificing when I first set out here.
- What land does he come form? What does he desire by his supplication?
- I know one thing only: they tell me he asks to speak briefly with you, a thing of no great burden.
- On what topic? That suppliant state is of no small account.
- He asks, they say, no more than that he may confer with you,
- and return unharmed from his journey here.
- Who can he be that implores the god in this way?
- Consider whether there is anyone in your race at Argos, who might desire this favor from you.
- Dearest friend, say no more!
- What is wrong?
- Do not ask me for—
- For what? Speak!
- From hearing these things I know who the suppliant is.
- And who can he be, that I should have an objection to him?
- My son, lord, a hated son whose words would vex my ear like the words of no man besides.
- What? Can you not listen, without doing what you do not wish to do? Why does it pain you to hear him?
- Lord, that voice has become most hateful to his father. Do not constrain me to yield in this.
- But consider whether his suppliant state constrains you;
- what if you have a duty of respect for the god?
- Father, listen to me; I will offer counsel though I am young. Allow this man here to gratify his own feelings and the god as he wishes, and for your daughters’ sake allow our brother to come.