Oedipus the King Read Online Free PDF Page B

outcome.
OEDIPUS But what did the god say? There's nothing in your words
so farto cheer me or to frighten me.
KREON Will you hear it in front of these men?
If so, I'll speak. Otherwise we go inside.
OEDIPUS Speak here, to all of us. I suffer more
for these men than for my own life.
KREON Then I'll report what I heard from Apollo,
110 who did not hide his meaning.
He commands we drive out what corrupts us,
what makes our land sick. We now harbor
something incurable. He says: purge it.
OEDIPUS Tell me the source of our trouble.
How do we cleanse ourselves?
KREON By banishing a manor by killing him. It's blood,
it's kin-murder that brings this storm on our city.
OEDIPUS Did god name this man whose luck dooms him?
KREON You know, King, that our city was ruled once
120 by Laius, before you came to take the helm?
OEDIPUS So I've heard. Though I never saw him.

     

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KREON Laius was murdered. Now, to avenge him, god
wills you to strike down with your own hands
those men whose hands struck Laius down.
OEDIPUS Where do I find these men? How do I track
vague footprints from a bygone crime?
KREON The god said: look here, in our land.
Nothing's caught that we don't chase
what we ignore goes free.
130 OEDIPUS Was Laius killed at home? Or in the countryside?
Or did they murder him on foreign ground?
KREON He said when he left that his journey would take him
into god's presence. But he never came home.
OEDIPUS Did none of his troop see and report
what happened? Is there no one
to question whose answers might help?
KREON All killed but a single terrified
survivor, able to tell us but one fact.
OEDIPUS What fact? One fact might point to many,
140 if we had one small clue to raise our hopes.
KREON They had the bad luck, he said, to meet bandits
who struck them with a force many hands strong.
It wasn't the violence of one man.
OEDIPUS What bandit would risk such a huge crime
unless somebody here hired him to do it?
KREON That was our thought, but fresh trouble
obsessed us. With Laius dead,
who was to lead our revenge?
OEDIPUS But here was your kingship murdered!
150 What kind of trouble could have blocked your search?
KREON The Sphinx's song. So wily, so baffling!
she forced us to forget the dark past
to confront what lay at our feet.
OEDIPUS I will go back, start fresh,
and clear up all this darkness.
Apollo was exactly right, and so were you,
to turn our minds back to the murdered man.
And now it's time I joined your search
for vengeance, which our land and the god deserve.

     

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160 I don't do it to placate any distant kin,
I will dispel this poison for my own sake.
Laius' killer might one day come for me,
exacting vengeance with that same hand.
So to defend the dead man serves my interest.
Rise, children, quick, up from the altar,
raise those branches that appeal to god.
Someone go call the people of Kadmos here.
Tell them I'm ready to do anything.
If god is with us, we will survive.
170 If not, our ruin has already happened.
(Exit Oedipus, into the palace.)
PRIEST Stand, children. The thing we came for
the king himself has promised to do.
Let god Apollo, who commands us to act,
lift this plague off our lives! Apollo our savior!
(The Theban suppliants leave; the Chorus enters.)
CHORUS What will you say to Thebes,
Voice from Zeus? What sweet sounds
bring your will from golden Delphi
to our bright city?
We're at the breaking point,
180 terror ranges through our minds.
Our wild cries reach for you,
Healing God from Delos
in holy dread we ask: does your will
bring a new threat, or an old doom
come back as the years wheel by?
Say it, Great Voice,
you who answer us always,
speak as Hope's golden child.
Athena, your help is the first we ask,
190 immortal daughter of Zeus,
then Artemis your sister
who protects our land, sitting throned
in the heart of our marketplace.
And Apollo, whose shots
hit from far off! Our three
defenders from death: come now!
If once you fought off destruction
by blowing away the fires of our