Readings: Sophocles, Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King
JOCASTA
All right, forget about those things you’ve said.850
Listen to me, and ease your mind with this—
no human being has skill in prophecy.
I’ll show you why with this example.
King Laius once received a oracle.
I won’t say it came straight from Apollo,
but it was from those who do assist the god.
It said Laius was fated to be killed
by a child of ours, one born to him and me.
Now, at least according to the story,
one day Laius was killed by foreigners, 860
by robbers, at a place where three roads meet.
Besides, before our child was three days old,
Laius pinned his ankles tight together
and ordered other men to throw him out
on a mountain rock where no one ever goes.
And so Apollo’s plan that he’d become
the one who killed his father didn’t work,
and Laius never suffered what he feared,
that his own son would be his murderer,
although that’s what the oracle had claimed. 870
So don’t concern yourself with prophecies.
Whatever gods intend to bring about
they themselves make known quite easily.
OEDIPUS
Lady, as I listen to these words of yours,
my soul is shaken, my mind confused . . .
JOCASTA
Why do you say that? What’s worrying you?
OEDIPUS
I thought I heard you say that Laius
was murdered at a place where three roads meet.
JOCASTA
That’s what was said and people still believe.
OEDIPUS
Where is this place? Where did it happen? 880
JOCASTA
In a land called Phocis. Two roads lead there—
one from Delphi and one from Daulia.
OEDIPUS
How long is it since these events took place?
JOCASTA
The story was reported in the city
just before you took over royal power
here in Thebes.
OEDIPUS
O Zeus, what have you done?
What have you planned for me?
JOCASTA
What is it,
Oedipus? Why is your spirit so troubled?
OEDIPUS
Not yet,
no questions yet. Tell me this—Laius,
how tall was he? How old a man? 890
JOCASTA
He was big—with hair starting to turn white.
In shape he was not all that unlike you.
OEDIPUS
The worse for me! I may have set myself
under a dreadful curse without my knowledge!
JOCASTA
What do you mean? As I look at you, my king,
I start to tremble.
OEDIPUS
I am afraid,
full of terrible fears the prophet sees.
But you can reveal this better if you now
will tell me one thing more.
JOCASTA
I’m shaking,
but if you ask me, I will answer you. 900
OEDIPUS
Did Laius have a small escort with him
or a troop of soldiers, like a royal king?
JOCASTA
Five men, including a herald, went with him.
A carriage carried Laius.
OEDIPUS
Alas! Alas!
It’s all too clear! Lady, who told you this?
JOCASTA
A slave—the only one who got away.
He came back here.
OEDIPUS
Is there any chance
he’s in our household now?
JOCASTA
No.
Once he returned and understood that you
had now assumed the power of slaughtered Laius, 910
he clasped my hands, begged me to send him off
to where our animals graze in the fields,
so he could be as far away as possible
from the sight of town. And so I sent him.
He was a slave but he’d earned my gratitude.
He deserved an even greater favour.
OEDIPUS
I’d like him to return back here to us,
and quickly, too.
JOCASTA
That can be arranged—
but why’s that something you would want to do?
OEDIPUS
Lady, I’m afraid I may have said too much.920
That’s why I want to see him here before me.
JOCASTA
Then he will be here. But now, my lord,
I deserve to know why you are so distressed.
OEDIPUS
My forebodings now have grown so great
I will not keep them from you, for who is there
I should confide in rather than in you
about such a twisted turn of fortune.
My father was Polybus of Corinth,
my mother Merope, a Dorian.
There I was regarded as the finest man 930
in all the city, until, as chance would have it,
something most astonishing took place,
though it was not worth what it made me to do.
At dinner there a man who was quite drunk
from too much wine began to shout at me,
claiming I was not my father’s real son.
That troubled me, but for a day at least
I said nothing, though it was difficult.
The next day I went to ask my parents,
my father and mother. They were angry 940
at the man who had insulted them this way,
so I was reassured. But nonetheless,
the accusation always troubled me—
the story had become known everywhere.
And so I went in secret off to Delphi.
I didn’t tell my mother or my father.
Apollo sent me back without an answer,
so I didn’t learn what I had come to find.
But when he spoke he uttered monstrous things,
strange terrors and horrific miseries— 950
my fate was to defile my mother’s bed,
to bring forth to men a human family
that people could not bear to look upon,
and slay the father who engendered me.
When I heard that, I ran away from Corinth.
From then on I thought of it just as a place
beneath the stars. I went to other lands,
so I would never see that prophecy fulfilled,
the abomination of my evil fate.
In my travelling I came across that place 960
in which you say your king was murdered.
And now, lady, I will tell you the truth.
As I was on the move, I passed close by
a spot where three roads meet, and in that place
I met a herald and a horse-drawn carriage,
with a man inside, just as you described.
The guide there tried to force me off the road—
and the old man, too, got personally involved.
In my rage, I lashed out at the driver,
who was shoving me aside. The old man, 970
seeing me walking past him in the carriage,
kept his eye on me, and with his double whip
struck me on the head, right here on top.
Well, I retaliated in good measure—
with the staff I held I hit him a quick blow
and knocked him from his carriage to the road.
He lay there on his back. Then I killed them all.
If that stranger was somehow linked to Laius,
who is now more unfortunate than me?
What man could be more hateful to the gods? 980
No stranger and no citizen can welcome him
into their lives or speak to him. Instead,
they must keep him from their doors, a curse
I laid upon myself. With these hands of mine,
these killer’s hands, I now contaminate
the dead man’s bed. Am I not depraved?
Am I not utterly abhorrent?
Now I must fly into exile and there,
a fugitive, never see my people,
never set foot in my native land again— 990
or else I must get married to my mother
and kill my father, Polybus, who raised me,
the man who gave me life. If anyone
claimed this came from some malevolent god,
would he not be right? O you gods,
you pure, blessed gods, may I not see that day!
Let me rather vanish from the sight of men,
before I see a fate like that engulf me!
Sophocles, Antigone, trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald
CREON: {Slowly, dangerously.]
And you, Antigone,
You with your head hanging––do you confess this thing?
ANTIGONE:
I do. I deny nothing.
CREON: [To SENTRY:]
You may go.
{Exit SENTRY. To ANTIGONE:]
Tell me, tell me briefly:
Had you heard my proclamation touching this matter?
ANTIGONE:
It was public. Could I help hearing it?
CREON:
And yet you dared defy the law.
ANTIGONE:
I dared.
It was not God’s proclamation. That final Justice
That rules the world below makes no such laws.
Your edict, King, was strong,
But all your strength is weakness itself against
The immortal unrecorded laws of God.
They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,
Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.
I knew I must die, even without your decree:
I am only mortal. And if I must die
Now, before it is my time to die,
Surely this is no hardship: can anyone
Living, as I live, with evil all about me,
Think Death less than a friend? This death of mine
Is of no importance; but if I had left my brother
Lying in death unburied, I should have suffered.
Now I do not.
You smile at me. Ah Creon,
Think me a fool, if you like; but it may well be
That a fool convicts me of folly.
CHORAGOS:
Like father, like daughter: both headstrong, deaf to reason!
She has never learned to yield.
She has much to learn.
The inflexible heart breaks first, the toughest iron
Cracks first, and the wildest horses bend their necks
At the pull of the smallest curb.
Pride? In a slave?
This girl is guilty of a double insolence,
Breaking the given laws and boasting of it.
Who is the man here,
She or I, if this crime goes unpunished?
Sister’s child, or more than sister’s child,
Or closer yet in blood––she and her sister
Win bitter death for this!
[To servants:]
Go, some of you,
Arrest Ismene. I accuse her equally.
Bring her: you will find her sniffling in the house there.
Her mind’s a traitor: crimes kept in the dark
Cry for light, and the guardian brain shudders:
But now much worse than this
Is brazen boasting of barefaced anarchy!
ANTIGONE:
Creon, what more do you want than my death?
CREON:
Nothing.
That gives me everything.
ANTIGONE:
Then I beg you: kill me.
This talking is a great weariness: your words
Are distasteful to me, and I am sure that mine
Seem so to you. And yet they should not seem so:
I should have praise and honor for what I have done.
All these men here would praise me
Were their lips not frozen shut with fear of you.
[Bitterly.]
Ah the good fortune of kings,
Licensed to say and do whatever they please!
CREON:
You are alone here in that opinion.
ANTIGONE:
No, they are with me. But they keep their tongues in leash.
CREON:
Maybe. But you are guilty, and they are not.
ANTIGONE:
There is no guilt in reverence for the dead.
CREON:
But Eteocles––was he not your brother too?
ANTIGONE:
My brother too.
CREON:
And you insult his memory?
ANTIGONE: [Softly.]
The dead man would not say that I insult it.
CREON:
He would: for you honor a traitor as much as him.
ANTIGONE:
His own brother, traitor or not, and equal in blood.
CREON:
He made war on his country. Eteocles defended it.
ANTIGONE:
Nevertheless, there are honors due all the dead.
CREON:
But not the same for the wicked as for the just.
ANTIGONE:
Ah Creon, Creon,
Which of us can say what the gods hold wicked?
CREON:
An enemy is an enemy, even dead.
ANTIGONE:
It is may nature to join in love, not hate.
CREON: {Finally losing patience.]
Go join them, then; if you must have your love,
Find it in hell!