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.

  1. Let us now set forth to that place—the divine summons urges me—and hesitate no longer.
  2. Children, follow me. For now in turn it is I that shine forth wondrously as a leader for you, as you were your father’s. Onward. Do not touch me, but
  3. allow me unaided to find the sacred tomb where it is my fate to be buried in this land. This way, here—come this way! Hermes the Conductor and the goddess of the dead lead me in this direction. Light of day, no light to me, once you were mine,
  4. but now my body feels you for the last time! For now I go to hide the end of my life in the house of Hades. But you, dearest of strangers, may you yourself be prosperous, and this land, and your followers. In your prosperity,
  5. remember me in my death, and be fortunate evermore.He exits, followed by his daughters, Theseus, and attendants.
Chorus
  1. If it is right for me with prayer to adore the Unseen Goddess and you, Lord of the Dead, then hear me, Aidoneus, Aidoneus!
  2. Grant that without pain, without a fate arousing heavy grief, the stranger may pass to the all-concealing fields of the dead below, and to the Stygian house.
  3. Many were the sorrows that came to him without cause, but a just divinity will lift him up again.
Chorus
  1. Goddesses of the nether world and unconquered beast
  2. whose lair lies in the gates of many guests, you untamable Watcher of Hades, snarling from the cavern’s jaws, as rumor has always told! Hear me, Death, son of Earth and Tartarus!
  3. May that Watcher leave a clear path for the stranger on his way to the nether fields of the dead! To you I call, giver of the eternal sleep.
Messenger
  1. Citizens, my news might be summed up most briefly thus: Oedipus is dead.
  2. But the story of the happening cannot be told in brief words, as the deeds done there were not brief.
Chorus
  1. Is he gone, the unfortunate man?
Messenger
  1. You may be sure that he has left this life.
Chorus
  1. How? By a fate divine and painless, the poor man?
Messenger
  1. In that you touch upon what is indeed worthy of wonder. How he departed from here, you yourself must know since you were here: with no one of his friends as guide, but rather with himself leading the way for us all.
  2. When he had come to the Descending Way, which is bound by steps of bronze to earth’s deep roots, he paused at one of the many branching paths near the basin in the rock, where the faithful covenant of Theseus and Peirithous has its memorial.
  3. He stood midway between that basin and the Leaping stone, and between the hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb; then he sat down and loosened his filthy clothing. And then he called his daughters, and asked them to bring water from some flowing source, so that he might wash and make a drink-offering.
  4. They went to the hill which was in view, the hill of Demeter who guards the tender plants, and in a short time brought what their father had commanded. Then they washed him and dressed him, as is the custom. But when all his desire was fulfilled,