Epode
Such ills not I alone, He too our guest hath known, E’en as some headland on an iron-bound shore, Lashed by the wintry blasts and surge’s roar, So is he buffeted on every side By drear misfortune’s whelming tide, By every wind of heaven o’erborne Some from the sunset, some from orient morn, Some from the noonday glow. Some from Rhipean gloom of everlasting snow.
Antigone: Father, methinks I see the stranger coming, Alone he comes and weeping plenteous tears.
Oedipus: Who may he be?
Antigone: The same that we surmised. From the outset—Polyneices. He is here.
Enter Polyneices.
Polyneices: Ah me, my sisters, shall I first lament My own afflictions, or my aged sire’s, Whom here I find a castaway, with you, In a strange land, an ancient beggar clad In antic tatters, marring all his frame, While o’er the sightless orbs his unkept locks Float in the breeze; and, as it were to match, He bears a wallet against hunger’s pinch. All this too late I learn, wretch that I am, Alas! I own it, and am proved most vile In my neglect of thee: I scorn myself. But as almighty Zeus in all he doth Hath Mercy for co-partner of this throne, Let Mercy, father, also sit enthroned In thy heart likewise. For transgressions past May be amended, cannot be made worse.
Why silent? Father, speak, nor turn away, Hast thou no word, wilt thou dismiss me then In mute disdain, nor tell me why thou art wrath? O ye his daughters, sisters mine, do ye This sullen, obstinate silence try to move. Let him not spurn, without a single word Of answer, me the suppliant of the god.
Antigone: Tell him thyself, unhappy one, thine errand; For large discourse may send a thrill of joy, Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness, And to the tongue-tied somehow give a tongue.
Polyneices: Well dost thou counsel, and I will speak out. First will I call in aid the god himself, Poseidon, from whose altar I was raised, With warrant from the monarch of this land, To parley with you, and depart unscathed. These pledges, strangers, I would see observed By you and by my sisters and my sire. Now, father, let me tell thee why I came. I have been banished from my native land
Because by right of primogeniture I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne Wherefrom Etocles, my younger brother, Ousted me, not by weight of precedent, Nor by the last arbitrament of war, But by his popular acts; and the prime cause Of this I deem the curse that rests on thee. So likewise hold the soothsayers, for when I came to Argos in the Dorian land
And took the king Adrastus’ child to wife, Under my standard I enlisted all The foremost captains of the Apian isle, To levy with their aid that sevenfold host Of spearmen against Thebes, determining To oust my foes or die in a just cause. Why then, thou askest, am I here today? Father, I come a suppliant to thee Both for myself and my allies who now
With squadrons seven beneath their seven spears Beleaguer all the plain that circles Thebes. Foremost the peerless warrior, peerless seer, Amphiaraiis with his lightning lance; Next an Aetolian, Tydeus, Oeneus’ son; Eteoclus of Argive birth the third; The fourth Hippomedon, sent to the war By his sire Talaos; Capaneus, the fifth, Vaunts he will fire and raze the town; the sixth
Parthenopaeus, an Arcadian born Named of that maid, longtime a maid and late Espoused, Atalanta’s true-born child; Last I thy son, or thine at least in name, If but the bastard of an evil fate, Lead against Thebes the fearless Argive host. Thus by thy children and thy life, my sire, We all adjure thee to remit thy wrath And favour one who seeks a just revenge
Against a brother who has banned and robbed him. For victory, if oracles speak true, Will fall to those who have thee for ally. So, by our fountains and familiar gods I pray thee, yield and hear; a beggar I And exile, thou an exile likewise; both Involved in one misfortune find a home As pensioners, while he, the lord of Thebes, O agony! makes a mock of thee and me.
I’ll scatter with a breath the upstart’s might, And bring thee home again and stablish thee, And stablish, having cast him out, myself. This will thy goodwill I will undertake, Without it I can scare return alive.
Chorus: For the king’s sake who sent him, Oedipus, Dismiss him not without a meet reply.
Oedipus: Nay, worthy seniors, but for Theseus’ sake Who sent him hither to have word of me. Never again would he have heard my voice; But now he shall obtain this parting grace, An answer that will bring him little joy. O villain, when thou hadst the sovereignty That now thy brother holdeth in thy stead, Didst thou not drive me, thine own father, out, An exile, cityless, and make we wear
This beggar’s garb thou weepest to behold, Now thou art come thyself to my sad plight? Nothing is here for tears; it must be borne By me till death, and I shall think of thee As of my murderer; thou didst thrust me out; ’Tis thou hast made me conversant with woe, Through thee I beg my bread in a strange land; And had not these my daughters tended me I had been dead for aught of aid from thee.
They tend me, they preserve me, they are men Not women in true service to their sire; But ye are bastards, and no sons of mine. Therefore just Heaven hath an eye on thee; Howbeit not yet with aspect so austere As thou shalt soon experience, if indeed These banded hosts are moving against Thebes. That city thou canst never storm, but first Shall fall, thou and thy brother, blood-imbrued.
Such curse I lately launched against you twain, Such curse I now invoke to fight for me, That ye may learn to honour those who bear thee Nor flout a sightless father who begat Degenerate sons—these maidens did not so. Therefore my curse is stronger than thy “throne,” Thy “suppliance,” if by right of laws eterne Primeval Justice sits enthroned with Zeus. Begone, abhorred, disowned, no son of mine,
Thou vilest of the vile! and take with thee This curse I leave thee as my last bequest:— Never to win by arms thy native land, No, nor return to Argos in the Vale, But by a kinsman’s hand to die and slay Him who expelled thee. So I pray and call On the ancestral gloom of Tartarus To snatch thee hence, on these dread goddesses I call, and Ares who incensed you both
To mortal enmity. Go now proclaim What thou hast heard to the Cadmeians all, Thy staunch confederates—this the heritage that Oedipus divideth to his sons.
Chorus: Thy errand, Polyneices, liked me not From the beginning; now go back with speed.
Polyneices: Woe worth my journey and my baffled hopes! Woe worth my comrades! What a desperate end To that glad march from Argos! Woe is me! I dare not whisper it to my allies Or turn them back, but mute must meet my doom. My sisters, ye his daughters, ye have heard The prayers of our stern father, if his curse Should come to pass and ye some day return To Thebes, O then disown me not, I pray, But grant me burial and due funeral rites. So shall the praise your filial care now wins Be doubled for the service wrought for me.