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.
- O Zeus! What shall I say? What shall I think, my father?
- What is it, Antigone, my child?
- I see a woman coming towards us, mounted on a colt of Etna; she wears a Thessalian bonnet to screen her face from the sun.
- What shall I say? Is it she, or is it not? Does my judgment err? Yes—no—I cannot tell—ah, me! It is no other, yes! She greets me with bright glances
- as she draws near, and makes a signal. Here is Ismene, clearly, and no other before me.
- What is that you say, my child?
- That I see your daughter, my sister. By her voice right away you can know her.
- Father and sister, names most sweet to me! How hard it was to find you!
- And how hard now to look upon you for my tears!
- My child, have you come?
- Father, your fate is sad to see!
- Are you with us, my child?
- Not without toil, indeed, for myself.
- Touch me, my daughter!
- I give a hand to each at once.
- Ah my children, my sisters!
- Alas, twice-wretched life!
- Her life and mine?
- And mine, wretched me, makes a third.
- Child, why have you come?