The Oedipus Trilogy - The Original Classic Edition. Sophocles Sophocles

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The Oedipus Trilogy - The Original Classic Edition - Sophocles Sophocles

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JOCASTA

       He shall be brought; but wherefore summon him?

       OEDIPUS

       Lady, I fear my tongue has overrun

       Discretion; therefore I would question him.

       JOCASTA

       Well, he shall come, but may not I too claim

       To share the burden of thy heart, my king?

       OEDIPUS

       And thou shalt not be frustrate of thy wish. Now my imaginings have gone so far.

       Who has a higher claim that thou to hear My tale of dire adventures? Listen then. My sire was Polybus of Corinth, and

       My mother Merope, a Dorian;

       And I was held the foremost citizen,

       Till a strange thing befell me, strange indeed, Yet scarce deserving all the heat it stirred.

       A roisterer at some banquet, flown with wine, Shouted "Thou art not true son of thy sire." It irked me, but I stomached for the nonce The insult; on the morrow I sought out

       My mother and my sire and questioned them. They were indignant at the random slur

       Cast on my parentage and did their best

       To comfort me, but still the venomed barb Rankled, for still the scandal spread and grew. So privily without their leave I went

       To Delphi, and Apollo sent me back

       Baulked of the knowledge that I came to seek. But other grievous things he prophesied,

       Woes, lamentations, mourning, portents dire;

       To wit I should defile my mother's bed

       And raise up seed too loathsome to behold, And slay the father from whose loins I sprang. Then, lady,--thou shalt hear the very truth-- As I drew near the triple-branching roads,

       A herald met me and a man who sat

       In a car drawn by colts--as in thy tale-- The man in front and the old man himself Threatened to thrust me rudely from the path, Then jostled by the charioteer in wrath

       I struck him, and the old man, seeing this,

       Watched till I passed and from his car brought down

       Full on my head the double-pointed goad.

       Yet was I quits with him and more; one stroke Of my good staff sufficed to fling him clean Out of the chariot seat and laid him prone.

       And so I slew them every one. But if

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       Betwixt this stranger there was aught in common

       With Laius, who more miserable than I,

       What mortal could you find more god-abhorred?

       Wretch whom no sojourner, no citizen

       May harbor or address, whom all are bound

       To harry from their homes. And this same curse

       Was laid on me, and laid by none but me. Yea with these hands all gory I pollute The bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile?

       Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch

       Doomed to be banished, and in banishment

       Forgo the sight of all my dearest ones, And never tread again my native earth;

       Or else to wed my mother and slay my sire,

       Polybus, who begat me and upreared?

       If one should say, this is the handiwork

       Of some inhuman power, who could blame His judgment? But, ye pure and awful gods, Forbid, forbid that I should see that day! May I be blotted out from living men

       Ere such a plague spot set on me its brand!

       CHORUS

       We too, O king, are troubled; but till thou

       Hast questioned the survivor, still hope on.

       OEDIPUS

       My hope is faint, but still enough survives

       To bid me bide the coming of this herd.

       JOCASTA

       Suppose him here, what wouldst thou learn of him?

       OEDIPUS

       I'll tell thee, lady; if his tale agrees

       With thine, I shall have 'scaped calamity.

       JOCASTA

       And what of special import did I say?

       OEDIPUS

       In thy report of what the herdsman said Laius was slain by robbers; now if he Still speaks of robbers, not a robber, I

       Slew him not; "one" with "many" cannot square. But if he says one lonely wayfarer,

       The last link wanting to my guilt is forged.

       JOCASTA

       Well, rest assured, his tale ran thus at first,

       Nor can he now retract what then he said;

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       Not I alone but all our townsfolk heard it. E'en should he vary somewhat in his story, He cannot make the death of Laius

       In any wise jump with the oracle.

       For Loxias said expressly he was doomed

       To die by my child's hand, but he, poor babe, He shed no blood, but perished first himself. So much for divination. Henceforth I

       Will look for signs neither to right nor left.

       OEDIPUS

       Thou reasonest well. Still I would have thee send

       And fetch the bondsman hither. See to it.

       JOCASTA

       That will I straightway. Come, let us within. I would do nothing that my lord mislikes. [Exeunt OEDIPUS and JOCASTA]

       CHORUS (Str. 1)

       My lot be still to lead

       The life of innocence and fly

       Irreverence in word or deed,

       To follow still those laws ordained on high

       Whose birthplace is the bright ethereal sky

       No mortal birth they own, Olympus their progenitor alone:

      

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