Oedipus the King Read Online Free PDF

wool-strung boughs begging
for god's help? Our city is oppressed
with incense smoke and cries of mourners
and prayers sung to the Healing God.
I thought it wrong to let messengers
speak for you, my sons, I must hear
10 your words myself, so I have come out, I,
Oedipus, the name that all men know.
Speak to me, old man. Yours
is the natural voice for the rest.
What concerns drive you to me?
Fear? Reassurance? Be certain
I will give all the help I can.
I would be hard indeed if I didn't
pity those who approach me like this.
PRIEST You rule my country, Oedipus, and you see
20 who comes to your altars, how mixed
we are in years: children too weak
to travel far, old men worn down by age,
priests like myself, the priest of Zeus,
a picked group of our best young men.
More of us wait with wool-strung boughs
in the markets, or at Athena's two temples,
or watch the embers at Ismenus' shrine
for the glow of prophecy.
You can see for yourself
30 our city going under, too weak to lift
its head clear of each deadly surge.
Plague is killing our flowering farmland,
it's killing our grazing cattle. Our women
in labor give birth to nothing.
A burning god
rakes his fire through our city;
he hates us with fever, he empties
the House of Kadmosbut he makes
black Hades rich, with our groans and tears.
40 We don't believe you are the gods' equal, King,
but I, and these children, ask help here,
at your hearth, because we put you first, of all men,
at handling troubleor confronting gods.
You came to Thebes, you broke us free

     

page_22
Page 22
of the tax we paid with our lives
to the rasping Singer. No one prompted you,
you were not taught by any of us.
We tell ourselves, you had a god's help
when you pulled us back to life.
50 Once more, Oedipus, we need your power.
We beg you, each in our own pain
find our lost strength!by learning
what you can from a god's voice
or what some man can tell you.
I know this:
advice from men proven right in the past
will meet a crisis with the surest force.
Act as our greatest man! Act
as you did when you first seized fame!
60 Our country believes your nerve saved us then.
Don't let us look back on your rule, saying,
once he raised us, but later let us fall. Lift us to safety!so that no misstep
ever again will bring Thebes down.
Good luck came with you, a bird from god's will,
the day you rescued us. Be that same man now.
If you are going to rule us, King, it's better
to rule the living than a lifeless waste.
A walled city is nothing, a ship is nothing,
70 when there's no one aboard to man it.
OEDIPUS I do pity you, children. Don't think I'm unaware.
I know what need brings you: this sickness
harms you all. Yet, sick as you are,
not one of you suffers a sickness like mine.
Yours is a private grief, you feel
only what touches you. But my heart grieves
for you, for myself, and for our city.
You've come to wake me to all this.
There was truly no need. I haven't been asleep.
80 I have wept tears enough, for long enough;
my thoughts have raced down every twisting path.
The only cure all my thinking found
I've set in motion: I've sent Kreon,
my wife's brother, to Phoebus at Delphi,
to hear what action or what word of mine
will save this town. Already, counting what day
this is, I'm anxious: what is Kreon doing?
He takes too long, more than he needs.

     

page_23
Page 23
But when he comes, I'd be the criminal
90 not to do all the god shows me to do.
PRIEST Your words have just been made good: your men
are now signaling me that Kreon's here.
OEDIPUS O Lord Apollo,
may the luck he brings save us! Luck so bright
we can see itjust as we see him now.
(Kreon enters from the countryside, wearing a laurel crown.)
PRIEST Only a man whose news is sweet comes home
wearing a crown of laurel speckled with berries.
OEDIPUS We'll soon know, he's within earshot. Prince!
Brother kinsman, son of Menoikeos!
100 What kind of answer have you brought from god?
KREON A good one. I call nothing unbearable
if luck can straighten it, and bless the