Ismene: Thebes, thou shalt rue this bitterly some day!
Oedipus: When what conjunction comes to pass, my child?
Ismene: Thy angry wraith, when at thy tomb they stand.
Oedipus: And who hath told thee what thou tell’st me, child?
Ismene: Envoys who visited the Delphic hearth.
Oedipus: Hath Phoebus spoken thus concerning me?
Ismene: So say the envoys who returned to Thebes.
Oedipus: And can a son of mine have heard of this?
Ismene: Yea, both alike, and know its import well.
Oedipus: They knew it, yet the ignoble greed of rule Outweighed all longing for their sire’s return.
Ismene: Grievous thy words, yet I must own them true.
Oedipus: Then may the gods ne’er quench their fatal feud, And mine be the arbitrament of the fight, For which they now are arming, spear to spear; That neither he who holds the scepter now May keep this throne, nor he who fled the realm Return again. They never raised a hand, When I their sire was thrust from hearth and home; When I was banned and banished, what recked they? Say you ’twas done at my desire, a grace
Which the State, yielding to my wish, allowed? Not so; for, mark you, on that very day When in the tempest of my soul I craved Death, even death by stoning, none appeared To further that wild longing, but anon, When time had numbed my anguish and I felt My wrath had all outrun those errors past, Then, then it was the city went about By force to oust me, respited for years;
And they my sons, who should as sons have helped, Did nothing: and, one little word from them Was all I needed, and they spoke no word, But let me wander on forevermore, A banished man, a beggar. These two maids Their sisters, girls, gave all their sex could give, Food and safe harbourage and filial care; While their two brethren sacrificed their sire For lust of power and sceptred sovereignty.
No! me they ne’er shall win for an ally, Nor will this Theban kingship bring them gain; That know I from this maiden’s oracles, And those old prophecies concerning me, Which Phoebus now at length has brought to pass. Come Creon then, come all the mightiest In Thebes to seek me; for if ye my friends, Championed by those dread Powers indigenous, Espouse my cause; then for the State ye gain
A great deliverer, for my foemen bane.
Chorus: Our pity, Oedipus, thou needs must move, Thou and these maidens; and the stronger plea Thou urgest, as the saviour of our land, Disposes me to counsel for thy weal.
Oedipus: Aid me, kind sirs; I will do all you bid.
Chorus: First make atonement to the deities, Whose grove by trespass thou didst first profane.
Oedipus: After what manner, stranger? Teach me, pray.
Chorus: Make a libation first of water fetched With undefilèd hands from living spring.
Oedipus: And after I have gotten this pure draught?
Chorus: Bowls thou wilt find, the carver’s handiwork; Crown thou the rims and both the handles crown—
Oedipus: With olive shoots or blocks of wool, or how?
Chorus: With wool from fleece of yearling freshly shorn.