Oedipus: What is his country? what the suitor’s prayer?
Theseus: I know but one thing; he implores, I am told, A word with thee—he will not trouble thee.
Oedipus: What seeks he? If a suppliant, something grave.
Theseus: He only waits, they say, to speak with thee, And then unharmed to go upon his way.
Oedipus: I marvel who is this petitioner.
Theseus: Think if there be not any of thy kin At Argos who might claim this boon of thee.
Oedipus: Dear friend, forbear, I pray.
Theseus: What ails thee now?
Oedipus: Ask it not of me.
Theseus: Ask not what? explain.
Oedipus: Thy words have told me who the suppliant is.
Theseus: Who can he be that I should frown on him?
Oedipus: My son, O king, my hateful son, whose words Of all men’s most would jar upon my ears.
Theseus: Thou sure mightest listen. If his suit offend, No need to grant it. Why so loth to hear him?
Oedipus: That voice, O king, grates on a father’s ears; I have come to loathe it. Force me not to yield.
Theseus: But he hath found asylum. O beware, And fail not in due reverence to the god.
Antigone: O heed me, father, though I am young in years. Let the prince have his will and pay withal What in his eyes is service to the god; For our sake also let our brother come. If what he urges tend not to thy good He cannot surely wrest perforce thy will. To hear him then, what harm? By open words A scheme of villainy is soon bewrayed. Thou art his father, therefore canst not pay
In kind a son’s most impious outrages. O listen to him; other men like thee Have thankless children and are choleric, But yielding to persuasion’s gentle spell They let their savage mood be exorcised. Look thou to the past, forget the present, think On all the woe thy sire and mother brought thee; Thence wilt thou draw this lesson without fail, Of evil passion evil is the end.
Thou hast, alas, to prick thy memory, Stern monitors, these ever-sightless orbs. O yield to us; just suitors should not need To be importunate, nor he that takes A favour lack the grace to make return.
Oedipus: Grievous to me, my child, the boon ye win By pleading. Let it be then; have your way Only if come he must, I beg thee, friend, Let none have power to dispose of me.
Theseus: No need, Sir, to appeal a second time. It likes me not to boast, but be assured Thy life is safe while any god saves mine. Exit Theseus.
Chorus: Strophe
Who craves excess of days, Scorning the common span Of life, I judge that man A giddy wight who walks in folly’s ways. For the long years heap up a grievous load, Scant pleasures, heavier pains, Till not one joy remains For him who lingers on life’s weary road And come it slow or fast, One doom of fate Doth all await, For dance and marriage bell, The dirge and funeral knell. Death the deliverer freeth all at last.
Antistrophe
Not to be born at all Is best, far best that can befall, Next best, when born, with least delay To trace the backward way. For when youth passes with its giddy train, Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils, Pain, pain for ever pain; And none escapes life’s coils. Envy, sedition, strife, Carnage and war, make up the tale of life. Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage Of unregarded age, Joyless, companionless and slow, Of woes the crowning woe.