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. We have listened. Tell us what to do.
Oedipus
  1. I cannot make the trip; for I am disabled by lack of strength and lack of sight, twin evils. But let one of you two go and do these things. For I think that one soul suffices to pay this debt for ten thousand, if it comes with good will.
  2. Act, then, with speed. But do not abandon me, for my body would not have the strength to move, without help or a guiding hand.
Ismene
  1. Then I will go to perform the rite; but where I am to find the place—this I wish to learn.
Chorus
  1. On the further side of this grove, stranger. And if you have need of anything, there is a guardian of the place. He will direct you.
Ismene
  1. Off to my task. But you, Antigone, watch our father here. In the case of parents, if we toil, we must not keep a memory of it.Ismene exits.
Chorus
  1. Terrible it is, stranger, to arouse the old woe that has for so long been laid to rest: and yet I yearn to hear—
Oedipus
  1. What now?
Chorus
  1. —Of that grief-filled anguish, cureless, with which you have wrestled.
Oedipus
  1. By your hospitality, do not uncover the shame that I have suffered!
Chorus
  1. Seeing that the tale is wide-spread and in no way weakens, I wish, friend, to hear it straight.
Oedipus
  1. Ah me!
Chorus
  1. Grant the favor, I beg!
Oedipus
  1. Alas, alas!
Chorus
  1. Grant my wish, as I have granted yours to the full.
Oedipus
  1. I have suffered the greatest misery, strangers—suffered it through unintended deeds—may the god know it! No part was of my own choice.
Chorus
  1. But in what way?
Oedipus
  1. In an evil marriage, the city bound me, unknowing, to ruin.
Chorus
  1. Is it true, as I hear, that you made your mother the partner of your bed, to its infamy?
Oedipus
  1. Ah, me! These words, strangers, are like death to my ears. And those two maidens of mine—