Oedipus Tyrannus
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Oedipus
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What are you saying? Do you know the secret and refuse to tell it? Will you betray and destroy the state?
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Teiresias
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I will grieve neither myself nor you. Why do you ask these things in vain? You will not learn the answers from me.
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Oedipus
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Will you not, basest of the base—
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you would anger a stone—speak out? can nothing touch you? Will you never make an end?
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Teiresias
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You blame my anger, but do not perceive your own: no, you blame me.
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Oedipus
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Who would not be angry hearing such words,
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with which you now are slighting the city?
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Teiresias
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The future will come of itself, though I shroud it in silence.
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Oedipus
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Since it must come anyway, it is right that you tell it to me.
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Teiresias
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I will speak no further: rage, if you wish, with the fiercest wrath your heart knows.
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Oedipus
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In my anger I will not spare to speak all my thoughts. Know that you seem to me to have helped in plotting the deed, and to have done it, short of performing the actual murder with your own hands: if you had eyesight, I would have said that you had done even this by yourself.
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Teiresias
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In truth? I order you to abide by you own decree, and from this day forth not to speak to these men or to me: you are the accursed defiler of this land.
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Oedipus
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So brazen with your blustering taunt?
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Where do you think to escape to?
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Teiresias
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I have escaped. There is strength in my truth.
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Oedipus
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Who taught you this? Not your skill, at any rate.
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Teiresias
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You yourself. For you spurred me on to speak against my will.
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Oedipus
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What did you say? Speak again, so I may learn it better.
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Teiresias
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Did you not understand before, or are you talking to test me?
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Oedipus
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I cannot say I understood fully. Tell me again.
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Teiresias
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I say that you are the killer of the man whose slayer you seek.
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Oedipus
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Now you will regret that you have said such dire words twice.
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Teiresias
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Should I tell you more, that you might get more angry?
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Oedipus
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Say as much as you want: it will be said in vain.
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Teiresias
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I say that you have been living in unguessed shame with your closest kin, and do not see into what woe you have fallen.
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Oedipus
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Do you think that you will always be able to speak like this without smarting for it?
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Teiresias
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Yes, if indeed there is any strength in truth.
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Oedipus
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But there is, except not for you. You do not have that strength, since you are maimed in your ears, in your wit, and in your eyes.
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Teiresias
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And you are a poor wretch to utter taunts that every man here will soon hurl at you.
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Oedipus
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Night, endless night has you in her keeping, so that you can never hurt me,
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or any man that sees the light of the sun.
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Teiresias
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No, it is not your fate to fall at my hands, since Apollo, to whom this matter is a concern, is sufficient.
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Oedipus
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Are these Creon’s devices, or your own?
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Teiresias
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Creon is no trouble for you: you are your own.
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Oedipus
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O wealth, and empire, and skill surpassing skill in life’s keen rivalries, how great is the envy in your keeping, if for the sake of this office which the city has entrusted to me, a gift unsought,
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Creon the trustworthy, Creon, my old friend, has crept upon me by stealth, yearning to overthrow me, and has suborned such a scheming juggler as this, a tricky quack, who has eyes only for profit, but is blind in his art!
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Come, tell me, where have you proved yourself a seer? Why, when the watchful dog who wove dark song was here, did you say nothing to free the people? Yet the riddle, at least, was not for the first comer to read: there was need of a seer’s help,
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and you were discovered not to have this art, either from birds, or known from some god. But rather I, Oedipus the ignorant, stopped her, having attained the answer through my wit alone, untaught by birds. It is I whom you are trying to oust, assuming that
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you will have great influence in Creon’s court. But I think that you and the one who plotted these things will rue your zeal to purge the land: if you did not seem to be an old man, you would have learned to your cost how haughty you are.
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Chorus
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To our way of thinking, these words, both his and yours, Oedipus,
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have been said in anger. We have no need of this, but rather we must seek how we shall best discharge the mandates of the god.
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Teiresias
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Though you are king, the right of reply must be considered the same for both: over that I have control.
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For I do not live as your slave, but as Loxias’. I will not stand enrolled as Creon’s client. And I tell you, since you have taunted my blindness, that though you have sight, you do not see what a state of misery you are in, or where you dwell, or with whom.
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Do you know who your parents are? You have been an unwitting enemy to your own kin, both in the Underworld and on the earth above, and the double lash of your mother’s and your father’s curse will one day drive you from this land in dreadful haste, with darkness upon those eyes of yours which now can see.
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What place will be harbor to your cries, what part of all Cithaeron will not ring with them soon, when you have learned the meaning of the nuptials in which, within that house, you found a fatal haven, after a voyage so fair? And you have not guessed at a throng of other ills
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which will bring you level with your true self and with your own children. Therefore heap your scorn upon Creon and upon my message: for no man will ever be crushed more miserably than you.
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Oedipus
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Are these taunts to be endured from him?
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Be gone, to your ruin; be gone this instant! Will you not turn your back and leave this house?
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Teiresias
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I would not have come if you had not called me.
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Oedipus
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I did not know you would speak foolishly, for otherwise it would have been a long time before I summoned you to my home.
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Teiresias
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I was born like this—as you think, a fool, but in the opinion of the parents who bore you, quite sane.
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Oedipus
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What parents? Wait. What man is my father?
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Teiresias
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This day will reveal your birth and bring your ruin.
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Oedipus
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What riddles, what dark words you always say.
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Teiresias
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Are you not the best at unravelling mysteries?
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Oedipus
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Reproach me in what you will find me to be great.
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Teiresias
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Yet it was just that fortune that undid you.
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Oedipus
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But if it saved this city I care not.
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Teiresias
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I will take my leave. You, boy, lead me.
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Oedipus
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Yes, let him take you: while here, you are a hindrance, a source of trouble. When you have gone, you will vex me no more.
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Teiresias
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I will go when I have performed the errand for which I came, fearless of your frown: you can never destroy me. I tell you: the man whom you have been seeking this long while,
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uttering threats and proclaiming a search into the murder of Laius, is here, ostensibly an alien sojourner, but soon to be found a native of Thebes; nor will he enjoy his fortune. A blind man, though now he sees,
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a beggar, though now rich, he will make his way to a foreign land, feeling the ground before him with his staff. And he will be discovered to be at once brother and father of the children with whom he consorts; son and husband of the woman who bore him;
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heir to his father’s bed, shedder of his father’s blood. So go in and evaluate this, and if you find that I am wrong, say then that I have no wit in prophecy.
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Chorus
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Who is he of whom the divine voice from the Delphian rock has said
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to have wrought with blood-red hands horrors that no tongue can tell? It is time that he ply in flight a foot stronger than the feet of storm-swift steeds.
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The son of Zeus is springing upon him with fiery lightning, and with him come the dread unerring Fates.
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Chorus
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Recently the message has flashed forth from snowy Parnassus
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ordering all to search for the unknown man. He wanders under cover of the wild wood, among caves and rocks, fierce as a bull, wretched and forlorn on his joyless path, still seeking to separate himself from the doom revealed at the central shrine of the earth.
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But that doom lives forever, forever flits around him.
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Creon
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Fellow citizens, having learned that Oedipus the king lays dire charges against me, I have come in indignation.
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If he thinks that in the present troubles he has suffered from me, by word or by deed, anything harmful, truly I do not desire my full term of years, when I must bear such blame as this. The wrong of this rumor
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touches me not in one point alone, but has the largest scope, if I am to be called a traitor in the city, a traitor by you and by my friends.
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Chorus
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But perhaps this taunt came under the stress of anger, rather than from the purpose of his heart.
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Creon
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Was the opinion given that my counsels had brought the seer to utter his falsehoods?
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Chorus
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Such things were said—I do not know with what meaning.
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Creon
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And was this charge laid against me with steady eyes and steady mind?
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Chorus
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I do not know. I see not what my masters do. But here comes our lord from the house.
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Oedipus
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You, how did you get here? Are you so boldfaced that you have come to my house, you who are manifestly the murderer of its master,
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the palpable thief of its crown? Come, tell me, in the name of the gods, was it cowardice or folly which you saw in me and which led you to plot this thing? Did you think that I would not notice this deed of yours creeping upon me by stealth, or that if I became aware of it I would not ward it off?
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Is your attempt not foolish, to seek the throne without followers or friends—a prize which followers and wealth must win?
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Creon
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Mark me now: hear a fair reply in answer to your words, and then judge for yourself on the basis of knowledge.
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Oedipus
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You are apt in speech, but I have a poor wit for lessons, since I have found you a malignant foe.
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Creon
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Now hear first how I will explain this very thing.
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Oedipus
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One thing—that you are not false—do not bother to explain to me.
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Creon
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If you think that stubbornness
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without sense is a virtue, you are not wise.
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Oedipus
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If you think you can wrong a kinsman and escape the penalty, you are not sane.
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Creon
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Justly said, I grant you: but tell me what the wrong is that you say you are suffering at my hands.
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Oedipus
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Did you, or did you not, advise me to send for that reverend seer?
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Creon
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Even now I am of the same mind.
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Oedipus
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How long is it, then, since Laius . . .
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Creon
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Did what? I do not understand.
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Oedipus
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was swept out of sight by deadly violence?
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Creon
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The count of years would run far into the past.
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Oedipus
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Did this seer possess this skill in those days?
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Creon
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He was wise as now, and held in equal honor.
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Oedipus
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Did he make mention of me at that time?
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Creon
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Never, certainly, when I was within hearing.
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Oedipus
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Did you never investigate the murder?