OED. Whence? Was't your own, or from another's hand?
THEB. SH. 'Twas not mine own; another gave it me.
OED. What Theban gave it, from what home in Thebes?
THEB. SH. O, I implore thee, master, ask no more!
OED. You perish, if I have to ask again.
THEB. SH. The child was of the stock of Laius.
OED. Slave-born, or rightly of the royal line?
THEB. SH. Ah me! Now comes the horror to my tongue!
OED. And to mine ear. But thou shalt tell it me!
THEB. SH. He was given out for Laius' son: but she,
Thy queen, within the palace, best can tell.
OED. How? Did she give it thee?
THEB. SH. My lord, she did.
OED. With what commission?
THEB. SH. I was to destroy him.
OED. And could a mother's heart be steeled to this?
THEB. SH. With fear of evil prophecies.
OED. What were they?
THEB. SH. 'Twas said the child should be his father's death.
OED. What then possessed thee to give up the child
To this old man?
THEB. SH. Pity, my sovereign lord!
Supposing he would take him far away
Unto the land whence he was come. But he
Preserved him to great sorrow. For if thou
Art he this man hath said, be well assured
Thou bear'st a heavy doom.
OED. O horrible!
Horrible! All fulfilled, as sunlight clear!
Oh may I nevermore behold the day,
Since proved accursèd in my parentage,
In those I live with, and in him I slew! [_Exeunt_
CHORUS.
O mortal tribes of men, I 1
How near to nothingness
I count you while your lives remain!
What man that lives hath more of happiness
Than to seem blest, and, seeming, fade in night?
O Oedipus, in this thine hour of gloom,
Musing on thee and thy relentless doom,
I call none happy who beholds the light.
Thou through surpassing skill I 2
Didst rise to wealth and power,
When thou the monstrous riddling maid didst kill,
And stoodst forth to my country as a tower
To guard from myriad deaths this glorious town;
Whence thou wert called my king, of faultless fame,
In all the world a far-resounded name,
Unparagoned in honour and renown.
But now to hear of thee, who more distressed? II 1
Who more acquainted with fierce misery,
Assaulted by disasters manifest,
Than thou in this thy day of agony?
Most noble, most renowned!--Yet one same room
Heard thy first cry, and in thy prime of power,
Received thee, harbouring both bride and groom,
And bore it silently till this dread hour.
How could that furrowing of thy father's field
Year after year continue unrevealed?
Time hath detected thine unwitting deed, II 2
Time, who discovers all with eyes of fire,
Accusing thee of living without heed
In hideous wedlock husband, son, and sire.
Ah would that we, thou child of Laius born,
Ah would that we had never seen thee nigh!
E'er since we knew thee who thou art, we mourn
Exceedingly with cries that rend the sky.
For, to tell truth, thou didst restore our life
And gavest our soul sweet respite after strife.
_Enter_ Messenger.
MESS. O ye who in this land have ever held
Chief honour, what an object of dire woe
Awaits your eyes, your ears! What piercing grief
Your hearts must suffer, if as kinsmen should
Ye still regard the house of Laius!
Not Phasis, nor the Danube's rolling flood,
Can ever wash away the stain and purge
This mansion of the horror that it hides.
--And more it soon shall give to light, not now
Unconsciously enacted. Of all ill,
Self-chosen sorrows are the worst to bear.
CH. What hast thou new to add? the weight of grief
From that we know burdens the heart enough.
MESS. Soon spoken and soon heard is the chief sum.
Jocasta's royal head is sunk in death.
CH. The hapless queen! What was the fatal cause?
MESS. Her own determination. You are spared
The worst affliction, not being there to see.
Yet to the height of my poor memory's power
The wretched lady's passion you shall hear.
When she had passed in her hot mood within
The vestibule, straight to the bridal room
She rushes, tearing with both hands her hair.
Then having entered, shutting fast the door,
She called aloud on Laius, long dead,
With anguished memory of that birth of old
Whereby the father fell, leaving his queen
To breed a dreadful brood for his own son.
And loudly o'er the bed she wailed, where she,
In twofold wedlock, hapless, had brought forth
Husband from husband, children from a child.
We could not know the moment of her death,
Which followed soon, for Oedipus with cries
Broke in, and would not let us see her end,
But held our eyes as he careered the hall,
Demanding arms, and where to find his wife,--
No, not his wife, but fatal mother-croft,
Cropped doubly with himself and his own seed.
And in his rage some god directed him
To find her:--'twas no man of us at hand.
Then with a fearful shout, as following
His leader, he assailed the folding-doors;
And battering inward from the mortised bolts
The bending boards, he burst into the room:
Where high suspended we beheld the queen,
In twisted cordage resolutely swung.
He all at once on seeing her, wretched king!
Undid the pendent noose, and on the ground
Lay the ill-starred queen. Oh, then 'twas terrible
To see what followed--for he tore away
The tiring-pins wherewith she was arrayed,
And, lifting, smote his eyeballs to the root,
Saying, Nevermore should they behold the evil
His life inherited from that past time,
But all in dark henceforth should look upon
Features far better not beheld, and fail
To recognize the souls he had longed to know.
Thus crying aloud, not once but oftentimes
He drave the points into his eyes; and soon
The bleeding pupils moistened all his beard,
Nor stinted the dark flood, but all at once
The ruddy hail poured down in plenteous shower.
Thus from two springs, from man and wife together,
Rose the joint evil that is now o'erflowing.
And the old happiness in that past day
Was truly happy, but the present hour
Hath pain, crime, ruin:--whatsoe'er of ill
Mankind have named, not one is absent here.
CH. And finds the sufferer now some pause of woe?
MESS. He bids make wide the portal and display
To all the men of Thebes the man who slew
His father, who unto his mother did
What I dare not repeat, and fain would fling
His body from the land, nor calmly bide
The shock of his own curse on his own hall.
Meanwhile he needs some comfort and some guide,
For such a load of misery who can bear?
Thyself shalt judge: for, lo, the palace-gates
Unfold, and presently thine eyes will see
A hateful sight, yet one thou needs must pity.
_Enter_ OEDIPUS, _blind and unattended._
LEADER OF CH. O horror of the world!
Too great for mortal eye!
More terrible than all I have known of ill!
What fury of wild thought
Came o'er thee? Who in heaven
Hath leapt against thy hapless life
With boundings out of measure fierce and huge?
Ah! wretched one, I cannot look on thee:
No, though I long to search, to ask, to learn.
Thine aspect is too horrible.--I cannot!
OED. Me miserable! Whither am I borne?
Into what region are these wavering sounds
Wafted on aimless wings? O ruthless Fate!
To what a height thy fury hath soared!
CH. Too far
For human sense to follow, or human thought
To endure the horror.
OED. O dark cloud, descending I 1
Unutterably on me! invincible,
Abhorred, borne onward by too sure a wind.
Woe, woe!
Woe! Yet again I voice it, with such pangs
Both from these piercing wounds I am assailed
And from within through memory of my grief.
CH. Nay, 'tis no marvel if thy matchless woe
Redouble thine affliction and thy moan!
OED. Ah! Friend, thou art still constant! Thou remainest I 2
To tend me and to care for the blind man.
Alas!
I know thee well, nor fail I to perceive,
Dark though I be, thy kind familiar voice.
CH. How dreadful is thy deed! How couldst thou bear
Thus to put out thine eyes? What Power impelled thee?
OED. Apollo, dear my friends, Apollo brought to pass II 1
In dreadful wise, this my calamitous woe.
But I,--no being else,--I with this hand destroyed them.
[_Pointing to his eyes_
For why should I have sight,
To whom nought now gave pleasure through the eye?
CH. There speak'st thou truly.
OED. What could I see, whom hear
With gladness, whom delight in any more?
Lead me away out of the land with speed!
Be rid of the destroyer, the accursed,
Whom most of all the world the Gods abhor.
CH. O miserable in thy calamity
And not less miserable in thy despair,
Would thou wert still in ignorance of thy birth!
OED. My curse on him who from the cruel bond II 2
That held my feet in that high pasture-land
Freed me, and rescued me from murder there,
And saved my life! Vain kindness! Then to have died
Had spared this agony to me and mine.
CH. Ay, would it had been so!
OED. Then had I ne'er
Been proved a parricide, ne'er borne the shame
Of marriage bonds incestuous! But now
I am God abandoned, Son of the unholy,
Rival of him who gave me being. Ah woe!
What sorrow beyond sorrows hath chief place?
That sorrow Oedipus must bear!
LEADER OF CH. I know not how to call thee wise in this:
Thou wert better dead than to be blind and live.
OED. That this last act hath not been for the best
Instruct me not, nor counsel me again.
How, if I kept my sight, could I have looked
In Hades on my father's countenance,
Or mine all hapless mother, when, toward both,
I have done deeds no death can e'er atone?
Ah! but my children were a sight of joy,--
Offspring of such a marriage! were they so?
Never, to eyes of mine! nor town, nor tower,
Nor holy shrines o' the gods, which I myself,
Dowered with the fairest life of Theban men,
Have forfeited, alas, by mine own law,
Declaring men should drive from every door
One marked by Heaven as impious and impure,
Nay worse, of Laius born! And was I then,
By mine own edict branded thus, to look
On Theban faces with unaltered eye?
Nay verily, but had there been a way
To stop the hearing fountain through the ear,
I had not faltered, but had closed and barred
Each gate of this poor body, deaf and blind!
So thought might sweetly dwell at rest from ill
Cithaeron! Why didst thou receive me? Why
Not slay me then and there? So had I not
Told to the world the horror of my birth.
O foster home of Corinth and her king,
How bright the life ye cherished, filming o'er
What foulness far beneath! For I am vile,
And vile were both my parents. So 'tis proved
O cross road in the covert of the glen,
O thicket in the gorge where three ways met,
Bedewed by these my hands with mine own blood
From whence I sprang--have ye forgotten me?
Or doth some memory haunt you of the deeds
I did before you, and went on to do
Worse horrors here? O marriage twice accurst!
That gave me being, and then again sent forth
Fresh saplings springing from the selfsame seed,
To amaze men's eyes and minds with dire confusion
Of father, brother, son, bride, mother, wife,
Murder of parents, and all shames that are!
Silence alone befits such deeds. Then, pray you,
Hide me immediately away from men!
Kill me outright, or fling me far to sea,
Where never ye may look upon me more.
Come, lend your hand unto my misery!
Comply, and fear not, for my load of woe
Is incommunicable to all but me.
CH. With timely presence to fulfil thy need
With act and counsel, Creon comes, who now
Is regent o'er this people in thy room.
OED. Alas, what shall I say to him? What plea
For my defence will hold? My evil part
Toward him in all the past is clearly proved.
_Enter_ CREON.
CR. I come not, Oedipus, to mock thy woes,
Nor to reproach thee for thine evils past.
But ye, (_to_ Chorus) if all respect of mortal eye
Be dead, let awe of the universal flame
Of life's great nourisher, our lord the Sun,
Forbid your holding thus unveiled to view
This huge abomination, which nor Earth
Nor sacred Element, nor light of Heaven
Can once endure. Convey him in with speed.
Religion bids that kindred eyes and ears
Alone should witness kindred crime and woe.
OED. By Heaven, since thou hast reft away my fear,
So nobly meeting my unworthiness,
I pray thee, hear me for thine own behoof.
CR. What boon dost thou desire so earnestly?
OED. Fling me with speediest swiftness from the land,
Where nevermore I may converse with men.
CR. Doubt not I would have done it, but the God
Must be inquired of, ere we act herein.
OED. His sacred utterance was express and clear,
The parricide, the unholy, should be slain.
CR. Ay, so 'twas spoken: but, in such a time,
We needs must be advised more perfectly.
OED. Will ye then ask him for a wretch like me?
CR. Yea. For even thou methinks wilt now believe.
OED. Not only so. But I will charge thee too,
With urgent exhortation, to perform
The funeral rite for her who lies within--
She is thy kinswoman--howe'er thou wilt.
But never let this city of my sires
Claim me for living habitant! There, there
Leave me to range the mountain, where my nurse,
Cithaeron, echoeth with my name,--Cithaeron,
Which both my parents destined for my tomb.
So my true murderers will be my death.
Yet one thing I can tell. Mine end will come
Not by disease nor ordinary chance
I had not lived when at the point to die,
But for some terrible doom. Then let my fate
Run out its full career. But for my children
Thou, Creon, shalt provide. As for my sons,
I pray thee burden not thyself with them.
They ne'er will lack subsistence--they are men.
But my poor maidens, hapless and forlorn,
Who never had a meal apart from mine,
But ever shared my table, yea, for them
Take heedful care, and grant me, though but once.
Yea, I beseech thee, with these hands to feel,
Thou noble heart! the forms I love so well,
And weep with them our common misery.
Oh, if my arms were round them, I might seem
To have them as of old when I could see--
What! Am I fooled once more, or do I hear
My dear ones weeping! And hath Creon sent,
Pitying my sorrows, mine own children to me
Whom most I love? Can this be truth I utter?
CR. Yea, I have done it. For I knew the joy
Thou ever hadst in this, thy comfort now.
OED. Fair be thy fortune, and, for this last deed,
Heaven guide thee on a better course than mine.
Where are ye, O my children? Come, draw near
To these my hands of brother blood with you,
Hands that have made so piteous to your sight
The darkened gaze of his once brilliant eyes,
Who all in blindness, with no thought of ill,
Became your father at that fount of life,
Where he himself took being! Oh! for you
I weep, not seeing you, when I but think
Of all the bitter passages of fate
That must attend you amongst men. For where
Can ye find fellowship, what civic throng
Shall ye resort unto, what festival,
From whence, instead of sight or sound enjoyed,
Ye will not come in tears unto your home?
And when ye reach the marriageable bloom,
My daughters, who will be the man to cast
His lot with yours, receiving for his own
All those reproaches which have marred the name
Of both my parents and your name no less?
What evil is not here? Your father slew
His father, and then eared the mother field
Where he himself was sown, and got you from
The source of his own birth. Such taunts will fly.
And who will marry you? No man, my daughters;
But ye must wither childless and unwed.
Son of Menoeceus, who alone art left
As father to these maidens, for the pair
That gave them birth are utterly undone,
Suffer them not, being your kinswomen,
To wander desolate and poor, nor make
Their lot perforce the counterpart of mine.
But look on them with pity, left in youth
Forlorn of all protection save from thee.
Noble one, seal this promise with thy hand!
--For you, my children, were ye of an age
To ponder speech, I would have counselled you
Full carefully. Now I would have you pray
To dwell where 'tis convenient, that your life
May find more blessing than your father knew.
CR. Thou hast had enough of weeping. Close thee in thy chamber walls.
OED. I must yield, though sore against me.
CR. Yea, for strong occasion calls.
OED. Know'st thou on what terms I yield it?
CR. Tell me, let us hear and know.
OED. That ye send from the country.
CR. God alone can let thee go.
OED. But the Gods long since abhor me.
CR. Thou wilt sooner gain that boon.
OED. Then consent.
CR. 'Tis not my wont to venture promises too soon.
OED. Lead me now within the palace.
CR. Come, but leave thy children.
OED. Nay!
Tear not these from my embraces!
CR. Hope not for perpetual sway:
Since the power thou once obtainedst ruling with unquestioned might
Ebbing from thy life hath vanished ere the falling of the night.
LEADER OF CHORUS.
Dwellers in our native Thebè, fix on Oedipus your eyes.
Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and most wise.
Like a star his envied fortune mounted beaming[6] far and wide:
Now he sinks in seas of anguish, whelmed beneath a raging tide.
Therefore, with the old-world sages, waiting for that final day,
I will call no mortal happy, while he holds his house of clay,
Till without one pang of sorrow, all his hours have passed away.
* * * * *