THESEUS
Wouldst tell the old
misfortune of thy race?
OEDIPUS
No, that has grown a byword throughout Greece.
THESEUS
What then can be this more than
mortal grief?
OEDIPUS
My case stands thus; by my own flesh and blood
I was expelled my country, and can ne'er
Thither return again, a parricide.
THESEUS
Why fetch thee home if thou must needs obey.
THESEUS
What are they threatened by the oracle?
OEDIPUS
Destruction that awaits them in this land.
THESEUS
What can beget ill blood 'twixt them and me?
OEDIPUS
Dear son of Aegeus, to the gods alone
Is given
immunity from eld and death;
But nothing else escapes all-ruinous time.
Earth's might decays, the might of men decays,
Honor grows cold,
dishonor flourishes,
There is no
constancy 'twixt friend and friend,
Or city and city; be it soon or late,
Sweet turns to bitter, hate once more to love.
If now 'tis
sunshine betwixt Thebes and thee
And not a cloud, Time in his endless course
Gives birth to endless days and nights, wherein
The merest nothing shall
suffice to cut
With serried spears your bonds of amity.
Then shall my slumbering and buried corpse
In its cold grave drink their warm life-blood up,
If Zeus be Zeus and Phoebus still speak true.
No more: 'tis ill to tear aside the veil
Of mysteries; let me cease as I began:
Enough if thou wilt keep thy plighted troth,
Then shall thou ne'er
complain that Oedipus
Proved an
unprofitable and thankless guest,
Except the gods themselves shall play me false.
CHORUS
The man, my lord, has from the very first
Declared his power to offer to our land
These and like benefits.
THESEUS
Who could reject
The proffered amity of such a friend?
First, he can claim the hospitality
To which by
mutual contract we stand pledged:
Next, coming here, a suppliant to the gods,
He pays full
tribute to the State and me;
His favors
therefore never will I spurn,
But grant him the full rights of citizen;
And, if it suits the stranger here to bide,
I place him in your
charge, or if he please
Rather to come with me--choose, Oedipus,
Which of the two thou wilt. Thy choice is mine.
OEDIPUS
Zeus, may the
blessing fall on men like these!
THESEUS
What dost thou then decide--to come with me?
OEDIPUS
Yea, were it lawful--but 'tis rather here--
THESEUS
What wouldst thou here? I shall not
thwart thy wish.
OEDIPUS
Here shall I
vanquish those who cast me forth.
THESEUS
Then were thy presence here a boon indeed.
OEDIPUS
Such shall it prove, if thou fulfill'st thy pledge.
THESEUS
Fear not for me; I shall not play thee false.
OEDIPUS
No need to back thy promise with an oath.
THESEUS
An oath would be no surer than my word.
OEDIPUS
How wilt thou act then?
THESEUS
What is it thou fear'st?
OEDIPUS
My foes will come--
THESEUS
Our friends will look to that.
OEDIPUS
But if thou leave me?
THESEUS
Teach me not my duty.
OEDIPUS
'Tis fear constrains me.
THESEUS
_My_ soul knows no fear!
OEDIPUS
Thou knowest not what threats--
THESEUS
I know that none
Shall hale thee hence in my
despite. Such threats
Vented in anger oft, are blusterers,
An idle
breath, forgot when sense returns.
And for thy foemen, though their words were brave,
Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find
The seas between us wide and hard to sail.
Such my firm purpose, but in any case
Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here. My name,
Though I be distant, warrants thee from harm.
CHORUS
(Str. 1)
Thou hast come to a steed-famed land for rest,
O stranger worn with toil,
To a land of all lands the goodliest
Colonus' glistening soil.
'Tis the haunt of the clear-voiced nightingale,
Who hid in her bower, among
The wine-dark ivy that
wreathes the vale,
Trilleth her
ceaseless song;
And she loves, where the clustering berries nod
O'er a sunless, windless glade,
The spot by no
mortalfootstep trod,
The pleasance kept for the Bacchic god,
Where he holds each night his revels wild
With the nymphs who fostered the lusty child.
(Ant. 1)
And fed each morn by the pearly dew
The starred narcissi shine,
And a
wreath with the crocus' golden hue
For the Mother and Daughter twine.
And never the
sleepless fountains cease
That feed Cephisus' stream,
But they swell earth's bosom with quick increase,
And their wave hath a
crystal gleam.
And the Muses' quire will never disdain
To visit this heaven-favored plain,
Nor the Cyprian queen of the golden rein.
(Str. 2)
And here there grows, unpruned, untamed,
Terror to foemen's spear,
A tree in Asian soil unnamed,
By Pelops' Dorian isle unclaimed,
Self-nurtured year by year;
'Tis the grey-leaved olive that feeds our boys;
Nor youth nor withering age destroys
The plant that the Olive Planter tends
And the Grey-eyed Goddess herself defends.
(Ant. 2)
Yet another gift, of all gifts the most
Prized by our fatherland, we boast--
The might of the horse, the might of the sea;
Our fame, Poseidon, we owe to thee,
Son of Kronos, our king divine,
Who in these highways first didst fit
For the mouth of horses the iron bit;
Thou too hast taught us to fashion meet
For the arm of the rower the oar-blade fleet,
Swift as the Nereids' hundred feet
As they dance along the brine.
ANTIGONE
Oh land extolled above all lands, 'tis now
For thee to make these
glorious titles good.
OEDIPUS
Why this
appeal, my daughter?
ANTIGONE
Father, lo!
Creon approaches with his company.
OEDIPUS
Fear not, it shall be so; if we are old,
This country's vigor has no touch of age.
[Enter CREON with attendants]
CREON
Burghers, my noble friends, ye take alarm
At my approach (I read it in your eyes),
Fear nothing and
refrain from angry words.
I come with no ill purpose; I am old,
And know the city whither I am come,
Without a peer
amongst the powers of Greece.
It was by reason of my years that I
Was chosen to
persuade your guest and bring
Him back to Thebes; not the delegate
Of one man, but commissioned by the State,
Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed,
Being his kinsman, his most
grievous woes.
O listen to me, luckless Oedipus,
Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim
With right to have thee back, I most of all,
For most of all (else were I vile indeed)
I mourn for thy
misfortunes,
seeing thee
An aged outcast, wandering on and on,
A
beggar with one handmaid for thy stay.
Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall
To such a depth of
misery as this,
To tend in penury thy
stricken frame,
A
virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed,
A prey for any
wanton ravisher?
Seems it not cruel this
reproach I cast
On thee and on myself and all the race?
Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid.
Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst.
O, by our fathers' gods, consent I pray;
Come back to Thebes, come to thy father's home,
Bid Athens, as is meet, a fond
farewell;