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.
- Then I think this city no longer exists.
- For men who are just, you see, the weak vanquishes the strong.
- Do you hear his words?
- Yes, but he will not achieve them.
- Zeus knows perhaps, but you do not.
- This is an outrage!
- An outrage which you must bear.
- Hear people, hear rulers of the land! Come quickly, come!
- These men are on their way to cross our borders!
- What is this shout? What is the trouble? What fear has moved you to stop my sacrifice at the altar to the sea-god, the lord of your Colonus? Speak, so that I may know the situation; for that is why I have sped
- here more swiftly than was pleasant.
- Dearest of men! I know your voice. Terrible are the things I have just suffered at the hands of this man here.
- What things are these? And who has pained you? Speak!
- Creon, whom you see here,
- has torn from me my children—my only two.
- What is that you say?
- You have heard my wrongs.
- Hurry, one of you attendants, to the altars there, and order the people to leave the sacrifice
- and race on foot and by horse full speed, to the region where the two highways meet, so that the maidens may not pass, and I not become a mockery to this stranger as one worsted by force. Quick, I say, away with you!
- As for this man, if my