the godlike prophet, in whom alone of men doth live the truth.
Enter Teiresias, led by a Boy.
Oe. Teiresias, whose soul grasps all things,300 the lore that may be told and the unspeakable, the secrets of heaven and the low things of earth,—thou feelest, though thou canst not see, what a plague doth haunt our State,—from which, great prophet, we find in thee our protector and only saviour. Now, Phoebus—if indeed thou knowest it not from the messengers—sent answer to our question that the only riddance from this pest which could come was if we should learn aright the slayers of Laïus, and slay them, or send them into exile from our land.310 Do thou, then, grudge neither voice of birds nor any other way of seer-lore that thou hast, but rescue thyself and the State, rescue me, rescue all that is defiled by the dead. For we are in thy hand; and man's noblest task is to help others by his best means and powers.
Teiresias.
Alas, how dreadful to have wisdom where it profits not the wise! Aye, I knew this well, but let it slip out of mind; else would I never have come here.
Oe. What now? How sad thou hast come in!
Te. Let me go home;320 most easily wilt thou bear thine own burden to the end, and I mine, if thou wilt consent.
Oe. Thy words are strange, nor kindly to this State which nurtured thee, when thou withholdest this response.
Te. Nay, I see that thou, on thy part, openest not thy lips in season: therefore I speak not, that neither may I have thy mishap.
Oe. For the love of the gods, turn not away, if thou hast knowledge: all we suppliants implore thee on our knees.
Te. Aye, for ye are all without knowledge; but never will I reveal my griefs—that I say not thine.
Oe. How sayest thou?330 Thou knowest the secret, and wilt not tell it, but art minded to betray us and to destroy the State?
Te. I will pain neither myself nor thee. Why vainly ask these things? Thou wilt not learn them from me.
Oe. What, basest of the base,—for thou wouldest anger a very stone,—wilt thou never speak out? Can nothing touch thee? Wilt thou never make an end?
Te. Thou blamest my temper, but seest not that to which thou thyself art wedded: no, thou findest fault with me.
Oe. And who would not be angry to hear the words with which thou now dost slight this city?340
Te. The future will come of itself, though I shroud it in silence.
Oe. Then, seeing that it must come, thou on thy part shouldst tell me thereof.
Te. I will speak no further; rage, then, if thou wilt, with the fiercest wrath thy heart doth know.
Oe. Aye, verily, I will not spare—so wroth I am—to speak all my thought. Know that thou seemest to me e'en to have helped in plotting the deed, and to have done it, short of slaying with thy hands. Hadst thou eyesight, I would have said that the doing, also, of this thing was thine alone.
Te. In sooth?—I charge thee that thou abide350 by the decree of thine own mouth, and from this day speak neither to these nor to me: thou art the accursed defiler of this land.
Oe. So brazen with thy blustering taunt? And wherein dost thou trust to escape thy due?
Te. I have escaped: in my truth is my strength.
Oe. Who taught thee this? It was not, at least, thine art.
Te. Thou: for thou didst spur me into speech against my will.
Oe. What speech? Speak again that I may learn it better.
Te. Didst thou not take my sense before?360 Or art thou tempting me in talk?
Oe. No, I took it not so that I can call it known:—speak again.
Te. I say that thou art the slayer of the man whose slayer thou seekest.
Oe. Now thou shalt rue that thou hast twice said words so dire.
Te. Wouldst thou have me say more, that thou mayest be more wroth?
Oe. What thou wilt; it will be said in vain.
Te. I say that thou hast been living in unguessed shame with thy nearest kin, and seest not to what woe thou hast come.
Oe. Dost thou indeed think that thou shalt always speak thus without smarting?
Te. Yes, if there is any strength in truth.
Oe. Nay, there is,—for all save thee;370 for thee that strength is not, since thou art maimed in ear, and in wit, and in eye.
Te. Aye, and thou art a poor wretch to utter taunts which every man here will soon hurl at thee.
Oe. Night, endless night hath thee in her keeping, so that thou canst never hurt me, or any man who sees the sun.
Te. No, thy doom is not to fall by me: Apollo is enough, whose care it is to work that out.
Oe. Are these Creon's devices, or thine?
Te. Nay, Creon is no plague to thee; thou art thine own.
Oe. O wealth, and empire, and skill surpassing skill380 in life's keen rivalries, how great is the envy that cleaves to you, if for the sake, yea, of this power which the city hath put into my hands, a gift unsought, Creon the trusty, Creon mine old friend, hath crept on me by stealth, yearning to thrust me out of it, and hath suborned such a scheming juggler as this, a tricky quack, who hath eyes only for his gains, but in his art is blind!
Come, now, tell me, where hast thou proved thyself390 a seer? Why, when the Watcher was here who wove dark song, didst thou say nothing that could free this folk? Yet the riddle, at least, was not for the first comer to read; there was need of a seer's skill; and none such thou wast found to have, either by help of birds, or as known from any god: no, I came, I, Oedipus the ignorant, and made her mute, when I had seized the answer by my wit, untaught of birds. And it is I whom thou art trying to oust, thinking to stand close to Creon's throne.400 Methinks thou and the plotter of these things will rue your zeal to purge the land. Nay, didst thou not seem to be an old man, thou shouldst have learned to thy cost how bold thou art.
Ch. To our thinking, both this man's words and thine, Oedipus, have been said in anger. Not for such words is our need, but to seek how we shall best discharge the mandates of the god.
Te. King though thou art, the right of reply, at least, must be deemed the same for both; of that I too am lord. Not to thee do I live servant, but to Loxias;410 and so I shall not stand enrolled under Creon for my patron. And I tell thee—since thou hast taunted me even with blindness—that thou hast sight, yet seest not in what misery thou art, nor where thou dwellest, nor with whom. Dost thou know of what stock thou art? And thou hast been an unwitting foe to thine own kin, in the shades, and on the earth above; and the double lash of thy mother's and thy father's curse shall one day drive thee from this land in dreadful haste, with darkness then on the eyes that now see true.
And what place shall not be harbour to thy shriek,420 what of all Cithaeron
