Oedipus: Out on the twain! The thoughts and actions all Are framed and modelled on Egyptian ways. For there the men sit at the loom indoors While the wives slave abroad for daily bread. So you, my children—those whom I behoved To bear the burden, stay at home like girls, While in their stead my daughters moil and drudge Lightening their father’s misery. The one Since first she grew from girlish feebleness
To womanhood has been the old man’s guide And shared my weary wandering, roaming oft Hungry and footsore through wild forest ways, In drenching rains and under scorching suns, Careless herself of home and ease, if so Her sire might have her tender ministry. And thou, my child, whilom thou wentest forth, Eluding the Cadmeians’ vigilance, To bring thy father all the oracles
Concerning Oedipus, and didst make thyself My faithful lieger, when they banished me. And now what mission summons thee from home, What news, Ismene, hast thou for thy father? This much I know, thou com’st not empty-handed, Without a warning of some new alarm.
Ismene: The toil and trouble, father, that I bore To find thy lodging-place and how thou faredst, I spare thee; surely ’twere a double pain To suffer, first in act and then in telling; ’Tis the misfortune of thine ill-starred sons I come to tell thee. At the first they willed To leave the throne to Creon, minded well Thus to remove the inveterate curse of old, A canker that infected all thy race.
But now some god and an infatuate soul Have stirred betwixt them a mad rivalry To grasp at sovereignty and kingly power. Today the hot-brained youth, the younger born, Is keeping Polyneices from the throne, His elder, and has thrust him from the land. The banished brother (so all Thebes reports) Fled to the vale of Argos, and by help Of new alliance there and friends in arms,
Swears he will stablish Argos straight as lord Of the Cadmeian land, or, if he fail, Exalt the victor to the stars of heaven. This is no empty tale, but deadly truth, My father; and how long thy agony, Ere the gods pity thee, I cannot tell.
Oedipus: Hast thou indeed then entertained a hope The gods at last will turn and rescue me?
Ismene: Yea, so I read these latest oracles.
Oedipus: What oracles? What hath been uttered, child?
Ismene: Thy country (so it runs) shall yearn in time To have thee for their weal alive or dead.
Oedipus: And who could gain by such a one as I?
Ismene: On thee, ’tis said, their sovereignty depends.
Oedipus: So, when I cease to be, my worth begins.
Ismene: The gods, who once abased, uplift thee now.
Oedipus: Poor help to raise an old man fallen in youth.
Ismene: Howe’er that be, ’tis for this cause alone That Creon comes to thee—and comes anon.
Oedipus: With what intent, my daughter? Tell me plainly.
Ismene: To plant thee near the Theban land, and so Keep thee within their grasp, yet now allow Thy foot to pass beyond their boundaries.
Oedipus: What gain they, if I lie outside?
Oedipus: Thy tomb, If disappointed, brings on them a curse.
Oedipus: It needs no god to tell what’s plain to sense.
Ismene: Therefore they fain would have thee close at hand, Not where thou would’st be master of thyself.
Oedipus: Mean they to shroud my bones in Theban dust?
Ismene: Nay, father, guilt of kinsman’s blood forbids.
Oedipus: Then never shall they be my masters, never!