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.
- Your strength and ours will soon come to the test.
- Stand back!
- Not while this is your purpose.
- There will be war with Thebes for you, if you harm me.
- Did I not say so?
- Unhand the girl at once!
- Do not make commands where you are not the master.
- Let go, I tell you!
- And I tell you: be off!
- Help, men of Colonus, bring help! The city, our city, is attacked by force! Come to our aid!
- I am being dragged away in misery. Strangers, strangers!
- My child, where are you?
- I am led off by force.
- Give me your hand, my child!
- I am helpless.
- Away with you!
- I am wretched, wretched!The guards exit with Antigone.
- So those two staffs will never again support your path.
- But since you wish to overcome your country and your friends, whose will I, though tyrant as well, am here discharging, then I wish you victory. For in time, I am sure, you will come to recognize all this, that now too as in time past, it is you who have done yourself no good, by indulging your anger despite your friends.
- This has always been your ruin.