[Enter TEIRESIAS, led by a boy.]
OEDIPUS
Teiresias, seer who comprehendest all,
Lore of the wise and hidden mysteries,
High things of heaven and low things of the earth,
Thou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught,
What plague infects our city; and we turn
To thee, O seer, our one defense and shield.
The purport of the answer that the God
Returned to us who sought his oracle,
The messengers have doubtless told thee–how
One course alone could rid us of the pest,
To find the murderers of Laius,
And slay them or expel them from the land.
Therefore begrudging neither augury
Nor other divination that is thine,
O save thyself, thy country, and thy king,
Save all from this defilement of blood shed.
On thee we rest. This is man’s highest end,
To others’ service all his powers to lend.
TEIRESIAS
Alas, alas, what misery to be wise
When wisdom profits nothing! This old lore
I had forgotten; else I were not here.
OEDIPUS
What ails thee? Why this melancholy mood?
TEIRESIAS
Let me go home; prevent me not; ’twere best
That thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.
OEDIPUS
For shame! no true-born Theban patriot
Would thus withhold the word of prophecy.
TEIRESIAS
_Thy_ words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I
For fear lest I too trip like thee…
OEDIPUS
Oh speak,
Withhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know’st,
Thy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.
TEIRESIAS
Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice
Will ne’er reveal my miseries–or thine. [2]
OEDIPUS
What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak!
Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?
TEIRESIAS
I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask
Thus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?
OEDIPUS
Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.
Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee,
Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?
TEIRESIAS
Thou blam’st my mood and seest not thine own
Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.
OEDIPUS
And who could stay his choler when he heard
How insolently thou dost flout the State?
TEIRESIAS
Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.
OEDIPUS
Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.
TEIRESIAS
I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,
And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.
OEDIPUS
Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,
Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too,
All save the assassination; and if thou
Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot
That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.
TEIRESIAS
Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide
By thine own proclamation; from this day
Speak not to these or me. Thou art the man,
Thou the accursed polluter of this land.
OEDIPUS
Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts,
And think’st forsooth as seer to go scot free.
TEIRESIAS
Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.
OEDIPUS
Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art.
TEIRESIAS
Thou, goading me against my will to speak.
OEDIPUS
What speech? repeat it and resolve my doubt.
TEIRESIAS
Didst miss my sense wouldst thou goad me on?
OEDIPUS
I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.
TEIRESIAS
I say thou art the murderer of the man
Whose murderer thou pursuest.
OEDIPUS
Thou shalt rue it
Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.
TEIRESIAS
Must I say more to aggravate thy rage?
OEDIPUS
Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.
TEIRESIAS
I say thou livest with thy nearest kin
In infamy, unwitting in thy shame.
OEDIPUS
Think’st thou for aye unscathed to wag thy tongue?
TEIRESIAS
Yea, if the might of truth can aught prevail.
OEDIPUS
With other men, but not with thee, for thou
In ear, wit, eye, in everything art blind.
TEIRESIAS
Poor fool to utter gibes at me which all
Here present will cast back on thee ere long.
OEDIPUS
Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power
O’er me or any man who sees the sun.
TEIRESIAS
No, for thy weird is not to fall by me.
I leave to Apollo what concerns the god.
OEDIPUS
Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own?
TEIRESIAS
Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.
OEDIPUS
O wealth and empiry and skill by skill
Outwitted in the battlefield of life,
What spite and envy follow in your train!
See, for this crown the State conferred on me.
A gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown
The trusty Creon, my familiar friend,
Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned
This mountebank, this juggling charlatan,
This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone
Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind.
Say, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself
A prophet? When the riddling Sphinx was here
Why hadst thou no deliverance for this folk?
And yet the riddle was not to be solved
By guess-work but required the prophet’s art;
Wherein thou wast found lacking; neither birds
Nor sign from heaven helped thee, but _I_ came,
The simple Oedipus; _I_ stopped her mouth
By mother wit, untaught of auguries.
This is the man whom thou wouldst undermine,
In hope to reign with Creon in my stead.
Methinks that thou and thine abettor soon
Will rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out.
Thank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn
What chastisement such arrogance deserves.
CHORUS
To us it seems that both the seer and thou,
O Oedipus, have spoken angry words.
This is no time to wrangle but consult
How best we may fulfill the oracle.
TEIRESIAS
King as thou art, free speech at least is mine
To make reply; in this I am thy peer.
I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve
And ne’er can stand enrolled as Creon’s man.
Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared
To twit me with my blindness–thou hast eyes,
Yet see’st not in what misery thou art fallen,
Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate.
Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know’st it not,
And all unwitting art a double foe
To thine own kin, the living and the dead;
Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire
One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword,
Beyond our borders, and the eyes that now
See clear shall henceforward endless night.
Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach,
What crag in all Cithaeron but shall then
Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found
With what a hymeneal thou wast borne
Home, but to no fair haven, on the gale!
Aye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not
Shall set thyself and children in one line.
Flout then both Creon and my words, for none
Of mortals shall be striken worse than thou.
OEDIPUS
Must I endure this fellow’s insolence?
A murrain on thee! Get thee hence! Begone
Avaunt! and never cross my threshold more.
TEIRESIAS
I ne’er had come hadst thou not bidden me.
OEDIPUS
I know not thou wouldst utter folly, else
Long hadst thou waited to be summoned here.
TEIRESIAS
Such am I–as it seems to thee a fool,
But to the parents who begat thee, wise.
OEDIPUS
What sayest thou–“parents”? Who begat me, speak?
TEIRESIAS
This day shall be thy birth-day, and thy grave.
OEDIPUS
Thou lov’st to speak in riddles and dark words.
TEIRESIAS
In reading riddles who so skilled as thou?
OEDIPUS
Twit me with that wherein my greatness lies.
TEIRESIAS
And yet this very greatness proved thy bane.
OEDIPUS
No matter if I saved the commonwealth.
TEIRESIAS
‘Tis time I left thee. Come, boy, take me home.
OEDIPUS
Aye, take him quickly, for his presence irks
And lets me; gone, thou canst not plague me more.
TEIRESIAS
I go, but first will tell thee why I came.
Thy frown I dread not, for thou canst not harm me.
Hear then: this man whom thou hast sought to arrest
With threats and warrants this long while, the wretch
Who murdered Laius–that man is here.
He passes for an alien in the land
But soon shall prove a Theban, native born.
And yet his fortune brings him little joy;
For blind of seeing, clad in beggar’s weeds,
For purple robes, and leaning on his staff,
To a strange land he soon shall grope his way.
And of the children, inmates of his home,
He shall be proved the brother and the sire,
Of her who bare him son and husband both,
Co-partner, and assassin of his sire.
Go in and ponder this, and if thou find
That I have missed the mark, henceforth declare
I have no wit nor skill in prophecy.
[Exeunt TEIRESIAS and OEDIPUS]
