Chorus: Alas, poor queen! how came she by her death?
Second Messenger: By her own hand. And all the horror of it, Not having seen, yet cannot apprehend. Nathless, as far as my poor memory serves, I will relate the unhappy lady’s woe. When in her frenzy she had passed inside The vestibule, she hurried straight to win The bridal-chamber, clutching at her hair With both her hands, and, once within the room, She shut the doors behind her with a crash.
“Laius,” she cried, and called her husband dead Long, long ago; her thought was of that child By him begot, the son by whom the sire Was murdered and the mother left to breed With her own seed, a monstrous progeny. Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood, Husband by husband, children by her child. What happened after that I cannot tell,
Nor how the end befell, for with a shriek Burst on us Oedipus; all eyes were fixed On Oedipus, as up and down he strode, Nor could we mark her agony to the end. For stalking to and fro “A sword!” he cried, “Where is the wife, no wife, the teeming womb That bore a double harvest, me and mine?” And in his frenzy some supernal power (No mortal, surely, none of us who watched him)
Guided his footsteps; with a terrible shriek, As though one beckoned him, he crashed against The folding doors, and from their staples forced The wrenchèd bolts and hurled himself within. Then we beheld the woman hanging there, A running noose entwined about her neck. But when he saw her, with a maddened roar He loosed the cord; and when her wretched corpse Lay stretched on earth, what followed—O ’twas dread!
He tore the golden brooches that upheld Her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote Full on his eye-balls, uttering words like these: “No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, Deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; Henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see Those ye should ne’er have seen; now blind to those Whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.”
Such was the burden of his moan, whereto, Not once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift His eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs Bedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop, But one black gory downpour, thick as hail. Such evils, issuing from the double source, Have whelmed them both, confounding man and wife. Till now the storied fortune of this house Was fortunate indeed; but from this day Woe, lamentation, ruin, death, disgrace, All ills that can be named, all, all are theirs.
Chorus: But hath he still no respite from his pain?
Second Messenger: He cries, “Unbar the doors and let all Thebes Behold the slayer of his sire, his mother’s—” That shameful word my lips may not repeat. He vows to fly self-banished from the land, Nor stay to bring upon his house the curse Himself had uttered; but he has no strength Nor one to guide him, and his torture’s more Than man can suffer, as yourselves will see. For lo, the palace portals are unbarred, And soon ye shall behold a sight so sad That he who must abhorred would pity it.
Enter Oedipus blinded.
Chorus: Woeful sight! more woeful none These sad eyes have looked upon. Whence this madness? None can tell Who did cast on thee his spell, Prowling all thy life around, Leaping with a demon bound. Hapless wretch! how can I brook On thy misery to look? Though to gaze on thee I yearn, Much to question, much to learn, Horror-struck away I turn.
Oedipus: Ah me! ah woe is me! Ah whither am I borne! How like a ghost forlorn My voice flits from me on the air! On, on the demon goads. The end, ah where?
Chorus: An end too dread to tell, too dark to see.
Oedipus: Strophe 1
Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud. Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot. What pangs of agonising memory?
Chorus: No marvel if in such a plight thou feel’st The double weight of past and present woes.
Oedipus: Antistrophe 1
Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind, Thou carest for the blind. I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes, Thy voice I recognise.
Chorus: O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?
Oedipus: Strophe 2
Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was That brought these ills to pass; But the right hand that dealt the blow Was mine, none other. How, How, could I longer see when sight Brought no delight?
Chorus: Alas! ’tis as thou sayest.
Oedipus: Say, friends, can any look or voice Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice? Haste, friends, no fond delay. Take the twice cursed away Far from all ken, The man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.
Chorus: O thy despair well suits thy desperate case. Would I had never looked upon thy face!
Oedipus: Antistrophe 2