Sophocles — The Seven Tragedies

Contents — 16 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16

Part 1

ATHENA: Always, son of Laertes, have I observed you on the prowl to snatch some means of attack against your enemies. So now at the tent of Ajax by the ships where he has his post at the camp’s outer edge, I watch you for a long time as you hunt and scan his newly pressed tracks, in order to see whether he is inside or away. Your course leads you well to your goal, like that of a keen-scenting Laconian hound. For the man has just now gone in, with sweat dripping from his head and from his hands that have killed with the sword. There is no further need for you to peer inside these doors. Rather tell me what your goal is that you have shown such eagerness for, so that you may learn from her who holds the knowledge.

ODYSSEUS: Voice of Athena, dearest to me of the gods, how clearly, though you are unseen, do I hear your call and snatch its meaning in my mind, just as I would the bronze tongue of the Tyrrhenian trumpet! And now you have discerned correctly that I am circling my path on the track of a man who hates me, Ajax the shield-bearer. It is he and no other that I have been tracking so long. For tonight he has done us a deed beyond comprehension—if he is indeed the doer. We know nothing for certain, but drift in doubt. And so I of my of accord took up the burden of this search. For we recently found all the cattle, our plunder, dead—yes, slaughtered by human hand—and with them the guardians of the flocks. Now, all men lay responsibility for this crime to him. And further, a scout who had seen him bounding alone over the plain with a newly-wet sword reported to me and declared what he saw. Then immediately I rush upon his track, and sometimes I follow his signs, but sometimes I am bewildered, and cannot read whose they are. Your arrival is timely, for truly in all matters, both those of the past and those of the future, it is your hand that steers me.

ATHENA: I know it, Odysseus, and some time ago I came on the path as a lookout friendly to your hunt.

ODYSSEUS: And so, dear mistress, do I toil to good effect?

ATHENA: Know that that man is the doer of these deeds.

ODYSSEUS: Then to what end did he thrust his hand so senselessly?

ATHENA: He was mad with anger over the arms of Achilles.

ODYSSEUS: Why, then, his onslaught upon the flocks?

ATHENA: It was in your blood, he thought, that he was staining his hand.

ODYSSEUS: Then was this a plot aimed against the Greeks?

ATHENA: Yes, and he would have accomplished it, too, had I not been attentive.

ODYSSEUS: And what reckless boldness was in his mind that he dared this?

ATHENA: Under night’s cover he set out against you, by stealth and alone.

ODYSSEUS: And did he get near us? Did he reach his goal?

ATHENA: He was already at the double doors of the two generals.

ODYSSEUS: How, then, did he restrain his hand when it was eager for murder?

ATHENA: It was I who prevented him, by casting over his eyes oppressive notions of his fatal joy, and I who turned his fury aside on the flocks of sheep and the confused droves guarded by herdsmen, the spoil which you had not yet divided. Then he fell upon them and kept cutting out a slaughter of many horned beasts as he split their spines in a circle around him. At one time he thought that he was killing the two Atreidae, holding them in his very hand; at another time it was this commander, and at another that one which he attacked. And I, while the man ran about in diseased frenzy, I kept urging him on, kept hurling him into the snares of doom. Soon, when he rested from this toil, he bound together the living oxen along with with all the sheep and brought them home, as though his quarry were men, not well-horned cattle. And now he abuses them, bound together, in the house. But to you also will I show this madness openly, so that when you have seen it you may proclaim it to all the Argives. Be of good courage and stand your ground, and do not regard the man as a cause of disaster for you. I will turn away the beams of his eyes and keep them from landing on your face. You there, you who bind back your captive’s arms, I am calling you, come here! I am calling Ajax! Come out in front of the house!

ODYSSEUS: What are you doing, Athena? Do not call him out.

ATHENA: Hold your peace! Do not earn a reputation for cowardice!

ODYSSEUS: No, by the gods, let it content you that he stay inside.

Part 2

ATHENA: What is the danger? Was he not a man before?

ODYSSEUS: Yes, a man hostile to me in the past, and especially now.

ATHENA: And is not the sweetest mockery the mockery of enemies?

ODYSSEUS: I am content that he stay within his tent.

ATHENA: Do you fear to see a madman right before your eyes?

ODYSSEUS: I would not shrink from him in fear, if he were sane.

ATHENA: But he will not see you now, even though you stand nearby.

ODYSSEUS: How could that be, if he still sees with the same eyes?

ATHENA: I shall darken them, though their sight is keen.

ODYSSEUS: It is true: all is possible when a god contrives.

ATHENA: Stand silent, then, and stay where you are.

ODYSSEUS: I must stay. But I would prefer to be far from here!

ATHENA: You there, Ajax, once again I call you! Why do you show so little regard for your ally?

AJAX: Welcome, Athena! Welcome, daughter sprung from Zeus! How well have you stood by me! I will crown you with trophies of pure gold in gratitude for this quarry!

ATHENA: A fine pledge. But tell me this—have you dyed your sword well in the Greek army?

AJAX: I can make that boast. I do not deny it.

ATHENA: And have you launched your armed hand against the Atreidae?

AJAX: Yes, so that never again will they dishonor Ajax.

ATHENA: The men are dead, as I interpret your words.

AJAX: Dead they are. Now let them rob me of my arms!

Part 3

ATHENA: I see. And the son of Laertes, how does his fortune with respect to you? Has he escaped you?

AJAX: That blasted fox! You ask me where he is?

ATHENA: Yes, I do. I mean Odysseus, your adversary.

AJAX: My most pleasing prisoner, mistress, he sits inside. I do not wish him to die just yet.

ATHENA: Until you do what? Or win what greater advantage?

AJAX: Until he be bound to a pillar beneath my roof—

ATHENA: What evil, then, will you inflict on the poor man?

AJAX: —and have his back crimsoned by the lash, before he dies.

ATHENA: Do not abuse the poor man so cruelly!

AJAX: In all else, Athena, I bid you take your pleasure, but he will pay this penalty and no other.

ATHENA: Well, then, since it delights you to do so, put your arm to use; spare no portion of your plan.

AJAX: I go to my work. And I give you this commission: be always for me the close-standing ally that you have been for me today!

ATHENA: Do you see, Odysseus, how great is the strength of the gods? Whom could you have found more prudent than this man, or better able to do what the situation demanded?

ODYSSEUS: I know of no one, but in his misery I pity him all the same, even though he hates me, because he is yoked beneath a ruinous delusion—I think of my own lot no less than his. For I see that all we who live are nothing more than phantoms or fleeting shadow.

ATHENA: Therefore since you witness his fate, see that you yourself never utter an arrogant word against the gods, nor assume any swelling pride, if in the scales of fate you are weightier than another in strength of hand or in depth of ample wealth. For a day can press down all human things, and a day can raise them up. But the gods embrace men of sense and abhor the evil.

CHORUS: Son of Telamon, you who hold your throne on wave-washed Salamis near the open sea, when your fortune is fair, I rejoice with you. But whenever the stroke of Zeus, or the raging rumor of the Danaans with the clamor of their evil tongues attacks you, then I shrink with great fear and shudder in terror, like the fluttering eye of the winged dove. Just so with the passing of the night loud tumults oppressed us to our dishonor, telling how you visited the meadow wild with horses and destroyed the cattle of the Greeks, their spoil, prizes of the spear which had not yet been shared, how you killed them with flashing iron. Such are the whispered slanders that Odysseus moulds and breathes into the ears of all, and he wins much belief. For now he tells tales concerning you that easily win belief, and each hearer rejoices with spiteful scorn at your burdens more than he who told. Point your shaft at a noble spirit, and you could not miss; but if a man were to speak such things against me, he would win no belief. It is on the powerful that envy creeps. Yet the small without the great are a teetering tower of defence. For the lowly stand most upright and prosperous when allied with the great, and the great when served by less. But foolish men cannot learn good precepts in these matters beforehand. It is men of this sort that subject you to tumult, and we lack the power to repel these charges without you, O King. For when they have escaped your eye, they chatter like flocking birds. But, terrified by a mighty vulture, perhaps, if you should appear, they would quickly cower without voice in silence.

CHORUS: Was it Artemis ruler of bulls, Zeus’s daughter, that drove you, O powerful Rumor, O mother of my shame, drove you against the herds of all our people? Was she exacting retribution, perhaps, for a victory that had paid her no tribute, whether it was because she had been cheated of the glory of captured arms, or because a stag had been slain without gifts for recompense? Or can the bronze-cuirassed Lord of War have had some cause for anger arising out of an alliance of spears, and taken vengeance for the outrage by contrivance shrouded in night?

CHORUS: For never of your own heart alone, son of Telamon, would you have gone so far down the sinister path as to fall upon the flocks. When the gods send madness, it cannot but reach its target, but may Zeus and Phoebus avert the evil rumor of the Greeks! And if it is the great kings who slander you with their furtive stories, or if it is he born of the abject line of Sisyphus, do not, my king, do not win me an evil name by keeping your face still hidden in the tent by the sea.

CHORUS: Come now, up from your seat, wherever you are settled in this long-lived pause from battle and are making the flame of disaster blaze up to the sky! The violent insolence of your enemies rushes fearlessly about in the breezy glens, while the tongues of all the army cackle out a load of grief. For me, sorrow stands firmly planted.

TECMESSA: Mates of the ship of Ajax, offspring of the race that springs from the Erechtheids, the soil’s sons, cries of grief are the portion of us who care from afar for the house of Telamon. Ajax, our terrible, mighty lord of untamed power, now lies plagued by a turbid storm of disease.

Part 4

CHORUS: And what is the heavy change from the fortune of yesterday which this night has produced? Daughter of Teleutas the Phrygian, speak, since for you his spear-won mate bold Ajax maintains his love, so that with some knowledge you could suggest an explanation.

TECMESSA: Oh, how am I to tell a tale too terrible for words? Grave as death is the suffering which you will hear. By madness our glorious Ajax was seized in the night, and he has been subjected to utter disgrace. All this you may see inside his dwelling—butchered victims bathed in blood, sacrifices of no hand but his.

CHORUS: What report of the fiery warrior have you revealed to us, unbearable, nor yet escapable— a report which the great Danaans propound, which their powerful storytelling spreads! Ah, me, I shudder at the future’s advancing step. In public view the man will die because the dark sword in his frenzied hand massacred the herds and the horse-guiding herdsmen.

TECMESSA: Ah! Then it was from there, from there that he came to me with his captive flock! Of part, he cut the throats on the floor inside; some, striking their sides, he tore asunder. Then he caught up two white-footed rams and sheared off the head of one and its tongue-tip, and flung them away; the other he bound upright to a pillar, and seizing a heavy strap from a horse’s harness he flogged it with a whistling, doubled lash, while he cursed it with awful imprecations which a god, and no mortal, had taught him.

CHORUS: The time has come for each of us to veil his head and steal away on foot, or to sit and take on the swift yoke of rowing, giving her way to the sea-faring ship. So angry are the threats which the brother-kings, the sons of Atreus, speed against us! I fear to share in bitter death beneath an onslaught of stones, crushed at this man’s side, whom an untouchable fate holds in its grasp.

TECMESSA: It grips him no longer. For like a southerly wind after it has started up sharply without bright lightning he grows calm. And now in his right mind he has new pain. To look on self-made suffering, when no other has had a hand in it—this induces sharp pains.

CHORUS: But if he has stopped his madness, I have good hope that all may yet be well, since the trouble is of less account once it has passed.

TECMESSA: And which, if the choice were given you, would you choose—to distress your friends, and have joy yourself, or to share the grief of friends who grieve?

CHORUS: The twofold sorrow, lady, is certainly the greater evil.

TECMESSA: Then we are ruined now, although the plague is past.

CHORUS: What do you mean? I do not understand what you say.

TECMESSA: That man, while afflicted, found joy for himself in the dire fantasies that held him, though his presence distressed us who were sane. But now, since he has had pause and rest from the plague, he has been utterly subjected to lowly anguish, and we similarly grieve no less than before. Surely, then, these are two sorrows, instead of one?

CHORUS: Indeed, I agree, and so I fear that a blow sent by a god has hit him. How could it be otherwise, if his spirit is no lighter than when he was plagued, now that he is released?

TECMESSA: This, you must know, is how matters stand.

CHORUS: In what way did the plague first swoop down on him? Tell us who share your pain how it happened.

TECMESSA: You will hear all that took place, since you are involved. In the dead of night when the evening lamps were no longer aflame, he seized a two-edged sword and wanted to leave on an aimless foray. Then I admonished him and said, What are you doing, Ajax? Why do you set out unsummoned on this expedition, neither called by messenger, nor warned by trumpet? In fact the whole army is sleeping now. But he answered me curtly with that trite jingle: Woman, silence graces woman. And I, taking his meaning, desisted, but he rushed out alone. What happened out there, I cannot tell. But he came in with his captives hobbled together—bulls, herding dogs, and his fleecy quarry. Some he beheaded; of some he cut the twisted throat or broke the spine; others he abused in their bonds as though they were men, though falling only upon cattle. At last he darted out through the door, and dragged up words to speak to some shadow—now against the Atreidae, now about Odysseus—with many a mocking boast of all the abuse that in vengeance he had fully repaid them during his raid. After that he rushed back again into the house, and somehow by slow, painful steps he regained his reason. And as he scanned the room full of his disastrous madness, he struck his head and howled; he fell down, a wreck amid the wrecked corpses of the slaughtered sheep, and there he sat with clenched nails tightly clutching his hair. At first, and for a long while, he sat without a sound. But then he threatened me with those dreadful threats, if I did not declare all that had happened, and he demanded to know what on earth was the business he found himself in. And in my fear, friends, I told him all that had been done, as far as I knew it for certain. But he immediately groaned mournful groans, such as I had never heard from him before. For he had always taught that such wailing was for cowardly and low-hearted men. He used to grieve quietly without the sound of loud weeping, but instead moaned low like a bull. And now, prostrate in such miserable fortune, tasting no food, no drink, the man sits idly where he has fallen in the middle of the iron-slain cattle. And plainly he plans to do something terrible. Somehow his words and his laments say as much. Ah, my friends—for it was my errand to ask you this—come in and help him, if in any way you can. Men of his kind can be won over by the words of friends.

CHORUS: Tecmessa, daughter of Teleutas, terrible is your news that our lord has been possessed by his sorrows.

AJAX: Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!

TECMESSA: Soon there will be more sorrow, it seems. Did you not hear Ajax, did you not hear his resounding howl?

AJAX: Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Part 5

CHORUS: The man seems to be sick, or else to be still pained by the disease which was recently with him, since he sees its traces.

AJAX: Oh my son, my son!

TECMESSA: Ah, miserable me! Eurysaces, it is for you he calls! What can his purpose be? Where are you? I am miserable!

AJAX: Teucer! Where is Teucer? Will his raid last for ever? While I perish?

CHORUS: He seems to be sane—open the door! Perhaps merely at the sight of me he will come to a more respectable mood.

TECMESSA: There, it is open. Now you can look on this man’s deeds, and his true condition.

AJAX: Ah, good sailors, you alone of my friends who alone still abide by the true bond of friendship, see how great a wave has just now crested over and broken around me, set on by a murderous storm!

CHORUS: Ah, lady, too true, it seems, was your testimony! The fact proves that he is not sane.

AJAX: Ah, you clan staunch in maritime skill, who embarked and stroked the oar-blade upon the brine, in you, in you alone I see a defense against suffering. Come, slay me on top of these!

CHORUS: Hush! Speak words of better omen! Do not cure evil by prescribing evil; do not increase the anguish of your mad disaster.

AJAX: Do you see the bold, the strong of heart, the dauntless in battles with the enemy—do you see me now, terrible in the force of my hands against beasts unformidable? Oh, the mockery! How I have been violated!

TECMESSA: Ajax, my lord, I beg you, do not talk this way!

AJAX: Away with you! Will you not take yourself outside! Ah, me! Ah, me!

CHORUS: By the gods I plead, give way and acquire good sense!

AJAX: My rotten fortune!—I let slip from my grasp those men who were begging for punishment, and fell instead on cattle with twisted horns and fine goats, making their dark blood flow!

CHORUS: Why grieve when the deed is past recall? These things can never be but as they are.

AJAX: Ah, you who spy out all things, you ready tool of every crime, ah, son of Laertes, you filthiest sneak in all the army, I am sure you laugh loud and long for joy!

CHORUS: It is at the god’s dispensation that every man both laughs and mourns.

AJAX: Yet if only I could see him, even shattered as I am! Oh! Oh!

CHORUS: Make no big threats! Do you not see the trouble you are in?

Part 6

AJAX: O Zeus, forefather of my forebears, if only I might destroy that deep dissembler, that hateful sneak, and the two brother-kings, and finally die myself, also!

TECMESSA: When you make that prayer, pray at the same time for me that I, too, may die. What reason is there for me to live when you are dead?

AJAX: Ah, Darkness, my light! O Gloom of the underworld, to my eyes brightest-shining, take me, take me to dwell with you—yes, take me. I am no longer worthy to look for help to the race of the gods, or for any good from men, creatures of a day. No, the daughter of Zeus, the valiant goddess, abuses me to my destruction. Where, then, can a man flee? Where can I go to find rest? If my past achievements go to ruin, my friends, along with such victims as these near me, and if I am inclined to foolish plunderings, then with sword driven by both hands all the army would murder me!

TECMESSA: Ah, what misery for me that a valuable man should speak words of a sort which he would never before now have endured to speak!

AJAX: Ah! You paths of the sounding sea, you tidal caves and wooded pastures by the shore, long, long, too long indeed have you detained me here at Troy. But no more will you hold me, no more so long as I have the breath of life. Of that much let sane men be sure. O neighboring streams of Scamander, kindly to the Greeks, no more shall you look on Ajax, whose equal in the army—here I will boast— Troy has never seen come from the land of Hellas. But now deprived of honor I lie low here in the dust!

CHORUS: In truth I do not know how to restrain you, nor how to let you speak further, when you have fallen on such harsh troubles.

AJAX: Aiai! Who would ever have thought that my name would so descriptively suit my troubles? For well now may Ajax cry Aiai—yes, twice and three times. Such are the harsh troubles with which I have met. Look, I am one whose father’s prowess won him the fairest prize of all the army, whose father brought every glory home from this same land of Ida; but I, his son, who came after him to this same ground of Troy with no less might and proved the service of my hand in no meaner deeds, I am ruined as you see by dishonor from the Greeks. And yet of this much I feel sure: if Achilles lived, and had been called to award the first place in valor to any claimant of his arms, no one would have grasped them before me. But now the Atreidae have made away with them to a man without scruples and thrust away the triumphs of Ajax. And if these eyes and this warped mind had not swerved from the purpose that was mine, they would have never in this way procured votes in judgment against another man. As it was, the daughter of Zeus, the grim-eyed, unconquerable goddess, tripped me up at the instant when I was readying my hand against them, and shot me with a plague of frenzy so that I might bloody my hands in these grazers. And those men exult to have escaped me— not that I wanted their escape. But if a god sends harm, it is true that even the base man can elude the worthier. And now what shall I do, when I am plainly hated by the gods, abhorred by the Greek forces and detested by all Troy and all these plains? Shall I leave my station at the ships and the Atreidae to their own devices in order to go home across the Aegean? And how shall I face my father Telamon, when I arrive? How will he bear to look on me, when I stand before him stripped, without that supreme prize of valor for which he himself won a great crown of fame? No, I could not bear to do it! But then shall I go against the bulwark of the Trojans, attacking alone in single combats and doing some valuable service, and finally die? But, in so doing I might, I think, gladden the Atreidae. That must not happen. Some enterprise must be sought whereby I may prove to my aged father that in nature, at least, his son is not gutless. It is a stain upon a man to crave the full term of life, when he finds no variation from his ignominious troubles. What joy is there in day following day, now advancing us towards, now drawing us back from the verge of death? I would not buy at any price the man who feels the glow of empty hopes. The options for a noble man are only two: either live with honor, or make a quick and honorable death. You have heard all.

CHORUS: No man shall say that you have spoken a bastard word, Ajax, or one not bred of your own heart. Yet at least pause; dismiss these thoughts, and grant friends the power to rule your purpose.

TECMESSA: Ajax, my lord, the fortune that humans are compelled to endure is their gravest evil. I was the daughter of a free-born father mighty in wealth, if any Phrygian was. Now I am a slave, for somehow the gods so ordained, and even more so did your strong hand. Therefore, since I have come into your bed, I wish you well, and I do beg you, by the Zeus of our hearth, by your marriage-bed in which you coupled with me, do not condemn me to the cruel talk of your enemies, do not leave me to the hand of a stranger! On whatever day you die and widow me by your death, on that same day, be sure, I shall also be seized forcibly by the Greeks and, with your son, shall obtain a slave’s portion. Then one of my masters will name me bitterly, shooting me with taunts: See the concubine of Ajax, who was the mightiest man in the army. See what menial tasks she tends to, in place of such an enviable existence! Such things will men say, and so will destiny afflict me while the shame of these words will stain you and your family. Show respect to your father, whom you abandon in miserable old age, and respect your mother with her share of many years, who often prays to the gods that you may come home alive. Pity, too, my king, your son. Pity him the great sorrow which at your death you will bequeath both to him and to me, if robbed of nurturing care he must spend his days apart from you, an orphan tended by guardians who are neither family nor friends. I have nothing left to which I can look, save you, and you are the reason. Your spear ravaged my country to nothingness, and another fate has brought down my mother and father, giving them a home in Hades in their death. What homeland, then, could I have without you? What wealth? My welfare is entirely in your hands. So remember me, too. A true man should cherish remembrance, if anywhere he takes some pleasure. It is kindness that always begets kindness. But whoever lets the memory of benefits seep from him, he can no longer be a noble man.

CHORUS: Ajax, I wish that pity touched your heart as it does mine. Then you would approve her words.

AJAX: She will have approval as far as I am concerned, if only she takes heart and graciously does my bidding.

TECMESSA: Dear Ajax, I will obey you in everything.

AJAX: Then bring me my son, so that I may see him.

TECMESSA: But in my fear I released him from my keeping.

AJAX: Because of these troubles of mine? Or what do you mean?

TECMESSA: Yes, for fear that somehow the poor child would get in your way, and die.

AJAX: Yes, that would have been truly worthy of my destiny.

TECMESSA: Well, at least I took care to avert that disaster.

AJAX: I approve of your action and of your foresight.

TECMESSA: How, then, can I serve you, as things stand now?

Part 7

AJAX: Let me speak to him and see him face to face.

TECMESSA: Oh, yes—he is close by, watched by our servants.

AJAX: Then why is his presence delayed?

TECMESSA: My child, your father calls you. Bring him here, servant, whichever of you is guiding his steps.

AJAX: Is the man coming? Or has he missed your call?

TECMESSA: Here now one of the servants approaches with him.

AJAX: Lift him; lift him up here. Doubtless he will not shrink to look on this newly-shed blood, if he is indeed my true-born son and heir to his father’s manners. But he must at once be broken into his father’s harsh ways and moulded to the likeness of my nature. Ah, son, may you prove luckier than your father, but in all else like him. Then you would not prove base. Yet even now I may well envy you on this account, that you have no perception of these evils about us. Yes, life is sweetest when one lacks sense, that is, until one learns to know joy or pain. But when you come to that knowledge, then you must be sure to prove among your father’s enemies of what mettle and of what lineage you are. Meanwhile feed on light breezes, and nurse your tender life for your mother’s joy. There is no Greek—I know it for certain—who will do violence to you with hard outrages, even when you are without me. So trusty is the guard, Teucer himself, whom I will leave at your gates. He will not falter in his care for you, although now he walks a far path, busied with the hunt of enemies. O my warriors, my seafaring comrades! On you as on him, I lay this shared task of love: give my command to Teucer! Let him take this child to my home and set him before the face of Telamon, and of my mother, Eriboea, so that he may become the comfort of their age into eternity . And order him that no commissioners of games, nor he who is my destroyer, should make my arms a prize for the Greeks. No, you take this for my sake, Son, my broad shield from which you have your name. Hold it and wield it by the sturdy thong, this sevenfold, spear-proof shield! But the rest of my arms shall be my gravemates. Come, take the child right away, shut tight the doors and make no laments before the house. God, what a weepy thing is woman. Quick, close the house! It is not for a skilful doctor to moan incantations over a wound that craves the knife.

CHORUS: I am afraid when I hear this eager haste. Your tongue’s sharp edge does not please me.

TECMESSA: Ajax, my lord, what can you have in mind?

AJAX: Do not keep asking me, do not keep questioning. Self-restraint is a virtue.

TECMESSA: Ah, how I despair! Now, by your child, by the gods, I implore you, do not betray us!

AJAX: You annoy me too much. Do you not know that I no longer owe any service to the gods?

TECMESSA: Hush, no impiety!

AJAX: Speak to those who hear.

TECMESSA: You will not listen?

AJAX: Already your words have been too many.

TECMESSA: Yes, because I am afraid, my king!

AJAX: Close the doors this instant!

TECMESSA: In the name of the gods, be softened!

AJAX: You have foolish hope, I think, if you plan so late to begin schooling my temper.

Part 8

CHORUS: O famous Salamis, you, I know, have your happy seat among the waves that beat your shore, eternally conspicuous in the eyes of all men. But I, miserable, have long been delayed here, still making my bed through countless months in the camp on the fields of Ida. I am worn by time and with anxious expectation still of a journey to Hades the abhorred, the unseen.

CHORUS: And now a new struggle awaits me, ah, me!—a match with Ajax, hard to cure, sharing his tent with a madness of divine origin. It is he whom mighty in bold war you dispatched from you once far in the past. But now he is changed; he grazes his thoughts in isolated places and has been found a heavy sorrow for his friends. His hands’ former achievements, deeds of prowess supreme, have fallen without friends, without friends, before the unfriendly, miserable Atreidae.

CHORUS: Surely his mother, companion of antiquity and grey with age, when she hears that he has been afflicted with the ruin of his mind will raise a loud cry of wailing. It is not the nightingale’s piteous lament that she, unhappy, will sing. Rather in shrill-toned odes the dirge will rise, while the hollow sound of beating hands and the shredding of grey hair will fall upon her breast.

CHORUS: Yes, better hid in Hades is the man plagued by foolishness, who by the lineage from where he springs is noblest of the enduring Achaeans, yet now is constant no more in his inbred temperament, but wanders outside himself. O Telamon, unhappy father, how heavy a curse upon your son awaits your hearing, a curse which never yet has any life-portion of the heirs of Aeacus nourished but his!

AJAX: All things the long and countless years first draw from darkness, and then bury from light; and there is nothing which man should not expect: the dread power of oath is conquered, as is unyielding will. For even I, who used to be so tremendously strong—yes, like tempered iron—felt my tongue’s sharp edge emasculated by this woman’s words, and I feel the pity of leaving her a widow and the boy an orphan among my enemies. But I will go to the bathing-place and the meadows by the shore so that by purging my defilements I may escape the heavy anger of the goddess. Then I will find some isolated spot, and bury this sword of mine, most hateful weapon, digging down in the earth where none can see. Let Night and Hades keep it underground! For ever since I took into my hand this gift from Hector, my greatest enemy, I have gotten no good from the Greeks. Yes, men’s proverb is true: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and bring no good. And so hereafter I shall, first, know how to yield to the gods, and, second, learn to revere the Atreidae. They are rulers, so we must submit. How could it be otherwise? Things of awe and might submit to authority. So it is that winter with its snow-covered paths gives place to fruitful summer; night’s dark orbit makes room for day with her white horses to kindle her radiance; the blast of dreadful winds allows the groaning sea to rest; and among them all, almighty Sleep releases the fettered sleeper, and does not hold him in a perpetual grasp. And we men—must we not learn self-restraint? I, at least, will learn it, since I am newly aware that an enemy is to be hated only as far as suits one who will in turn become a friend. Similarly to a friend I would wish to give only so much help and service as suits him who will not forever remain friendly. For the masses regard the haven of comradeship as treacherous. But concerning these things it will be well. You, wife, go inside and pray to the gods that the desires of my heart be completed to the very end. Exit Tecmessa. You also, my comrades, honor my wishes just as she does, and command Teucer, when he comes, to take care of us, and to be kind to you at the same time. I am going to where my journey inexorably leads. But you do as I say, and before long, perhaps, though I now suffer, you will hear that I have found rest and peace.

CHORUS: I shiver with rapture; I soar on the wings of sudden joy! O Pan, O Pan, appear to us, sea-rover, from the stony ridge of snow-beaten Cyllene. King, dancemaker for the gods, come, so that joining with us you may set on the Nysian and the Cnosian steps, your self-taught dances. Now I want to dance. And may Apollo, lord of Delos, step over the Icarian sea and join me in his divine form, in eternal benevolence!

CHORUS: Ares has dispelled the cloud of fierce trouble from our eyes. Joy, joy! Now, Zeus, now can the white radiance of prosperous days approach our swift, sea-speeding ships, since Ajax forgets his pain anew, and has instead fully performed all prescribed sacrifices to the gods with worship and strict observance. The strong years make all things fade. And so I would not say that anything was beyond belief, when beyond our hopes, Ajax has been converted from his fury and mighty struggles against the Atreidae.

MESSENGER: Friends, my first news is this: Teucer has just now returned from the Mysian heights. He has come to the generals’ quarters mid-camp, and is being shouted at by all the Greeks at once. Recognizing him from a distance as he approached, they gathered around him and then pelted him with jeers from every side—no one held back—calling him the brother of the maniac, of the plotter against the army, and saying that he would not be able to avoid entirely losing flesh and life before their flying stones. In this way they had come to the point where swords had been plucked from sheaths and were drawn in their hands. But then the conflict, when it had nearly run its full course, was halted by the conciliatory words of the elders. But where shall I find Ajax, to tell him this? To our lord I must tell all.

CHORUS: He is not inside, but is recently departed. He has yoked a new purpose to his new mood.

MESSENGER: No! Oh, no! Too late, then, was he who sent me on this errand, or I myself came too slowly.

CHORUS: What is this urgent matter? What part of it has been neglected?

MESSENGER: Teucer declared that Ajax should not slip out of the house, until he himself arrives.

CHORUS: Well, he is departed, I repeat, bent on the purpose that is best for him—to be rid of his anger at the gods.

MESSENGER: These words betray great foolishness, if there is any wisdom in the prophecies of Calchas.

CHORUS: What does he prophesy? What knowledge of this affair do you bring?

MESSENGER: This much I know and witnessed on the spot. Leaving the royal circle of the chiefs who sat in council, Calchas separated himself from the Atreidae and put his right hand with all kindness into the hand of Teucer. The prophet then addressed him and strictly commanded him to use every possible resource to keep Ajax inside his tent for the duration of this day that now shines on us, and to prevent him from moving about if he wished ever to look on him alive. For this day alone will the anger of divine Athena lash at him. That was the prophet’s warning. Yes, the seer went on to explain, lives that have grown too proud and no longer yield good fall on grave difficulties sent from the gods, especially when someone born to man’s estate forgets that fact by thinking thoughts too high for man. And Ajax, even at the time he first set out from home, showed himself foolish, when his father advised him well. For Telamon told him, My son, seek victory in arms, but always seek it with the help of god. Then with a tall boast and foolishly he replied, Father, with the help of the gods even a worthless man might achieve victory; but I, even without that help, fully trust to bring that glory within my grasp. So much he boasted. Then once again in answer to divine Athena—at a time when she was urging him forward and telling him to turn a deadly hand against the enemy—he answered her with words terrible and blasphemous, Queen, stand beside the other Greeks; where Ajax stands, battle will never break our line. It was by such words, you must know, that he won for himself the intolerable anger of the goddess since his thoughts were too high for man. But if he survives this day, perhaps with the god’s help we may find means to save him. With those words the seer finished, and at once Teucer rose from his seat and sent me with these orders for you to follow. But if I have been cheated of success, Ajax does not live. Otherwise Calchas has no skill.

CHORUS: Poor Tecmessa, born to misery, come out and see this man and his news. The razor lies close at our throat, poised to cut off all joy.

TECMESSA: Why do you stir me from my place of rest, when I have just found peace from those relentless troubles?

CHORUS: Listen to this man, and hear the news of Ajax that he has brought us—news at which I felt sudden grief.

TECMESSA: Oh, no, what is your news, man? Surely we are not ruined?

Part 9

MESSENGER: I have no clue of your condition, but know only that, if Ajax is away, I have little hope for him.

TECMESSA: But he is away, so I am in agony to know what you mean.

MESSENGER: Teucer strictly commands that you keep Ajax under shelter of his tent and not allow him to go out alone.

TECMESSA: But where is Teucer? And why these orders?

MESSENGER: He has just now returned, and he suspects that such a departure carries death for Ajax.

TECMESSA: Oh, misery! From whom can he have learned this?

MESSENGER: From Thestor’s son, the prophet. His prophecy applies to today, when the issue is one of life or death for Ajax.

TECMESSA: Ah, me! My friends, protect me from the doom threatened by fate! Hurry, some of you, to speed Teucer’s coming; let others go to the westward bays, and others to the eastward, and there seek the man’s disastrous path. I see now that I have been deceived by my husband and cast out of the favor that I once had with him. Ah, my child, what shall I do? I must not sit idle. I too will go as far as my strength will carry me. Move, let us be quick, this is no time to sit still, if we wish to save a man who is eager for death.

CHORUS: I am ready to help, and I will show it in more than word. Speed of action and speed of foot will follow together.

AJAX: The sacrificial killer stands planted in the way that will cut most deeply—if I have the leisure for even this much reflection. First, it is the gift of Hector, that enemy-friend who was most hateful to me and most hostile to my sight; next, it is fixed in enemy soil, the land of Troy, newly-whetted on the iron-devouring stone; and finally I have planted it with scrupulous care, so that it should prove most kind to me by a speedy death. Yes, we are well equipped. And so, O Zeus, be the first to aid me, as is proper. It is no large prize that I ask you to award me. Send on my behalf some messenger with news of my downfall to Teucer, so that he may be the first to raise me once I have fallen on this sword and made it newly-wet, and so that I am not first spotted by some enemy and cast out and exposed as prey to the dogs and birds. For this much, Zeus, I appeal to you. I call also on Hermes, guide to the underworld, to lay me softly to sleep with one quick, struggle-free leap, when I have broken open my side on this sword. And I call for help to the eternal maidens who eternally attend to all sufferings among mortals, the dread, far-striding Erinyes, asking them to learn how my miserable life is destroyed by the Atreidae. And may they seize those wicked men with most wicked destruction, just as they see me . Come, you swift and punishing Erinyes, devour all the assembled army and spare nothing! And you, Helios, whose chariot-wheels climb the steep sky, when you see the land of my fathers, draw in your rein spread with gold and tell my disasters and my fate to my aged father and to the unhappy woman who nursed me. Poor mother! Indeed, I think, when she hears this news, she will sing a song of loud wailing throughout the entire city. But it is not for me to weep in vain like this. No, the deed must quickly have its beginning. O Death, Death, come now and lay your eyes on me! And yet I will meet you also in that other world and there address you. But you, beam of the present bright day, I salute you and the Sun in his chariot for the last time and never again. O light! O sacred soil of my own Salamis, firm seat of my father’s hearth! O famous Athens, and your race kindred to mine! And you, springs and rivers of this land—and you plains of Troy I salute you also—farewell, you who have nurtured me! This is the last word that Ajax speaks to you. The rest he will tell to the shades in Hades.

FIRST SEMICHORUS: Toil follows toil yielding toil! Where, where have I not trudged? And still no place can say that I have shared its secret. Listen! A sudden thud!

SECOND SEMICHORUS: We made it, we shipmates of your voyage.

SEMICHORUS 1: What news, then?

SEMICHORUS 2: All the westward flank of the ships has been scoured for tracks.

SEMICHORUS 1: And did you find anything?

SEMICHORUS 2: Only an abundance of toil. There was nothing more to see.

SEMICHORUS 1: Neither, as a matter of fact, has the man been seen along the path that faces the shafts of the morning sun.

CHORUS: Who, then, can guide me? What toiling fisherman, busy about his sleepless hunt, what nymph of the Olympian heights or of the streams that flow toward Bosporus, can say whether she has anywhere seen the wanderings of fierce-hearted Ajax? It is cruel that I, who have roamed with such great toil, cannot come near him with a fair course, but fail to see where the enfeebled man is.

TECMESSA: Ah, me, ah, me!

CHORUS: Whose cry broke from that nearby grove?

Part 10

TECMESSA: Ah, misery!

CHORUS: There, I see his unfortunate young bride, who was the prize of his spear, Tecmessa, dissolved in that pitiful wailing.

TECMESSA: I am lost, destroyed, razed to the ground, my friends!

CHORUS: What is it?

TECMESSA: Here is our Ajax—his blood newly shed, he lies folded around the sword, burying it.

CHORUS: Ah, no! Our homecoming is lost! Ah, my king, you have killed me, the comrade of your voyage! Unhappy man—broken-hearted woman!

TECMESSA: His condition demands that we cry aiai.

CHORUS: But by whose hand can the ill-fated man have contrived this end?

TECMESSA: He did it with his own hand; it is obvious. This sword which he planted in the ground and on which he fell convicts him.

CHORUS: Ah, what blind folly I have displayed! All alone, then, you bled, unguarded by your friends! And I took no care, so entirely dull was I, so totally stupid. Where, where lies inflexible Ajax, whose name means anguish?

TECMESSA: No, he is not to be looked at! I will cover him over entirely with this enfolding shroud, since no one—no one, that is, who loves him—could bear to see him spurt the darkened gore of his self-inflicted slaughter up his nostrils and out of the bloody gash. Ah, what shall I do? What loved one is there to lift you in his arms? Where is Teucer? How timely would be his arrival, if he would but come to compose the corpse of his brother here! Ah, unlucky Ajax, from so great a height you are fallen so low! Even among your enemies you are worthy of mourning!

CHORUS: You were bound, poor man, with that unbending heart you were bound, it seems, to fulfill a harsh destiny of limitless toils! So wild to my ears were the words of hatred which in your fierce mood you moaned against the Atreidae with such deadly passion. True it is that that moment was a potent source of sorrows, when the arms were made the prize for a contest in the skills of warfare!

TECMESSA: Ah! Ah!

CHORUS: True anguish, I know, pierces your heart.

TECMESSA: Ah! Ah, me!

CHORUS: I do not wonder, lady, that you wail and wail again, when you have just lost one so loved.

TECMESSA: It is for you to analyze my troubles, but for me to feel them too fully.

CHORUS: I must agree.

TECMESSA: Oh, my son, to what a heavy yoke of slavery we advance! What cruel task-masters stand over us!

CHORUS: Ah, the deeds of the two ruthless Atreidae which you name in our present grief would be unthinkable! May the gods hold them back!

Part 11

TECMESSA: These events that you see would not have happened as they have without the will of the gods.

CHORUS: Yes, they have brought upon us a burden too heavy to bear.

TECMESSA: Yet what suffering the divine daughter of Zeus, fierce Pallas, engenders for Odysseus’ sake!

CHORUS: No doubt the much-enduring hero exults in his dark soul and mocks in loud laughter at these frenzied sorrows—what shame!— and with him, when they hear the news, will laugh the royal brothers, the Atreidae.

TECMESSA: Then let them mock and rejoice at this man’s misery. Perhaps, even though they did not cherish him while he lived, they will lament his death, when they meet with the difficulties of war. Men of crooked judgment do not know what good they have in their hands until they have thrown it away. His death is more bitter to me than it is sweet to the Greeks; but in any case to Ajax himself it is a joy, since he has accomplished all that he desired to get—his longed-for death. So why should they exult over him? He died before the gods, not at all before them—no! And so let Odysseus toss his insults in empty glee. For them Ajax is no more; for me he is gone, abandoning me to anguish and mourning.

TEUCER: Ah! Ah, no!

CHORUS: Quiet—I think I hear the voice of Teucer striking a note that points to this disaster.

TEUCER: Beloved Ajax, brother whose face was so dear to me, have you truly fared as the mighty rumor says?

CHORUS: He is dead, Teucer. Take it as fact.

TEUCER: Then I am destroyed by my heavy fortune!

CHORUS: When things stand as they do—

TEUCER: Ah, misery, misery!

CHORUS: —you have cause to mourn.

TEUCER: O rash passion!

CHORUS: Yes, Teucer, far too rash.

TEUCER: Ah, misery—what about the man’s child? Where in all of Troy can I find him?

CHORUS: He is alone near the tent.

TEUCER: Then bring him here right away, so that we may prevent some enemy from snatching him away, as a hunter snatches a cub from a lioness and leaves her barren! Go quickly; give me your help! It is the habit of men everywhere to laugh in triumph over the dead when they are mere corpses on the ground.

CHORUS: Yes, while still alive, Teucer, Ajax ordered you to care for the child, just as you are in fact doing.

TEUCER: This sight is truly most painful to me of all that my eyes have seen. And the journey truly loathsome to my heart above all other journeys is this one that I have just now made while pursuing and scouting out your footsteps, dearest Ajax, once I learned of your fate! For a swift rumor about you, as if sent from some god, passed throughout all the Greek army, telling that you were dead and gone. I heard the rumor while still far away from you, and I groaned quietly in sadness. But now that I see its truth, my heart is utterly shattered! Oh, god! Come, uncover him; let me see the worst. The corpse of Ajax is uncovered. O face painful to look upon and full of cruel boldness, what a full crop of sorrows you have sown for me in your death! Where can I go? What people will receive me, when I have failed to help you in your troubles? No doubt Telamon, your father and mine, will likely greet me with a smile and kind words, when I return without you. Yes, of course he will—a man who, even when enjoying good fortune, tends not to smile more brightly than before! What will a man like him leave unsaid? What insult will he forego against the bastard offspring of his spear’s war-prize, against your cowardly, unmanly betrayer, dear Ajax, or better yet, your treacherous betrayer with designs to govern your domain and your house after your death? So will he insult me; he is a man quick to anger, severe in old age, and his rage seeks quarrels without cause. And in the end I shall be thrust out of our land, and cast off, branded by his taunts as a slave instead of a freeman. These are my prospects at home. At Troy, on the other hand, my enemies are many, while I have few things to help me. All this have I gained from your death! Ah, me, what shall I do? How shall I draw your poor corpse off the sharp tooth of this gleaming sword, the murderer who, it seems, made you breathe your last? Now do you see how in time Hector, though dead, was to destroy you? By the gods, note the fortune of this mortal pair. First Hector with the very warrior’s belt given to him by Ajax was lashed to the chariot-rail and shredded without end, until his life fled with his breath. Now Ajax here had this gift from Hector, and by this he has perished in his deadly fall. Was it not the Fury who forged this blade, was not that belt the product of Hades, the grim artificer? I, for my part, would affirm that these happenings and all happenings ever are designed by the gods for men. But if there is anyone in whose judgment my words are unacceptable, let him cherish his own thoughts, as I do mine.

Part 12

CHORUS: Do not go on at length, but consider how you will bury him and what you will next say. For I see our enemy approaching, and chances are that he comes to mock at our sorrows, like one who would do us harm.

TEUCER: What man of the army do you see?

CHORUS: Menelaus, the beneficiary of this expedition.

TEUCER: I see him; he is not hard to recognize when near.

MENELAUS: You there, I tell you not to lift that corpse for burial, but leave it where it lies.

TEUCER: Why do you waste your breath on this arrogant command?

MENELAUS: It conveys my decree, and the decree of the army’s supreme ruler.

TEUCER: Would you mind, then, telling me what reason you pretend?

MENELAUS: This—that when we had hoped we were bringing Ajax from home to be an ally and a friend for the Greeks, we found him on closer examination to be an enemy worse than the Phrygians, since he plotted the murder of the entire army and marched by night against us in order to take us with his spear. And if some god had not smothered this attempt, we would have been allotted the fate which he now has, and we would be dead and lie prostrate by an ignoble doom, while he would be living. But now a god has turned his outrage aside, so that it fell on the sheep and cattle. For this reason there is no man so powerful that he will be able to entomb the corpse of Ajax. Instead he shall be cast forth somewhere on the yellow sand to become forage for the birds of the seashore. So then do not inflame the terrible force of your spirit. If we were unable to master him while he lived, in any case in death, at least, we shall rule him despite your opposition and control him by force of our hands. For while he lived, there never was a time when he would obey my commands. Now it is, in truth, the mark of a base nature when a commoner does not think it right to obey those who stand over him. Never can the laws maintain a prosperous course in a city where fear has no fixed place, nor can a camp be ruled any more with moderation, if it lacks the guarding force of fear and reverence. A man, though he grow his body great and mighty, must expect to fall, even from a light blow. Whoever knows fear and shame both, you can be certain that he has found his salvation; but where there is license to attack others and act at will, do not doubt that such a State, though she has run before a favoring wind, will eventually sink with time into the depths. No, let me see fear, too, established, where fear is fitting; let us not think that we can act on our desires without paying the price in pain. These things come by turns. He was once the hot attacker, now it is my hour to glory. And so I warn you not to bury him, so that you can avoid falling into your own grave.

CHORUS: Menelaus, after laying down wise precepts, do not then violate the dead.

TEUCER: Never again, my fellow Salaminians, will I be amazed if some nobody by birth does wrong, when those who are reputed to be born of noble blood employ such wrongful sentiments in their arguments. Come, tell me from the first once more—do you really say that you brought Ajax here to the Greeks as an ally personally recruited by you? Did he not sail of his own accord? As his own master? On what grounds are you his commander? On what grounds have you a right to kingship over the men whom he brought from home? It was as Sparta’s king that you came, not as master over us. Nowhere was it established among your lawful powers that you should order him any more than he you. You sailed here under the command of others, not as a supreme commander who might at any time exercise authority over Ajax. No, rule the troops you rule, and use your reverend words to punish them! But this man, whether you or the other general forbid it, I will lay in the grave as justice demands, and I will not fear your tongue. It was not at all for your wife’s sake that Ajax made this expedition, as did those toil-worn drudges. No, it was for the sake of the oath by which he had sworn, and not at all for you, since it was not his habit to value nobodies. And so when you come here again, bring more heralds, and the leader of the expedition, too. Your bluster could not make me turn to notice you, so long as you are what you are.

CHORUS: Again, I say, in these troubles I cannot approve of such a tone. Harsh words sting, however just they are.

MENELAUS: The bowman seems to feel no little grandeur.

TEUCER: I do, since it is no lowly skill that I possess.

MENELAUS: How you would boast, if you had a shield!

TEUCER: Even without a shield I would be a match for you fully armed.

MENELAUS: What a tongue you have! What dreadful anger it feeds!

TEUCER: When right is with him, a man’s thoughts may be grand.

MENELAUS: What, is it right that the man who murdered me should prosper?

TEUCER: Murdered you? It is truly a strange happening, if in fact you live after being killed.

Part 13

MENELAUS: A god rescued me. So far as that corpse is concerned, I am in Hades.

TEUCER: Then since it was the gods who saved you, do not dishonor the gods.

MENELAUS: What, would I find fault with divine law?

TEUCER: Yes, if by your presence here you prevent burial of the dead.

MENELAUS: Prevent it I do, since he was at war with me and I with him. Burial in such a case would not be right.

TEUCER: What do you mean? Did Ajax ever stand forth publicly to war with you?

MENELAUS: He hated me as I hated him, and you knew it, too.

TEUCER: Yes, he hated you because you had been caught fixing the votes in order to rob him.

MENELAUS: At the hands of the jurymen, not mine, he suffered that loss.

TEUCER: You could make a thousand stealthy crimes look pretty.

MENELAUS: That sentiment leads to pain for someone I know.

TEUCER: The pain will be no greater, I think, than that which we will inflict.

MENELAUS: I will tell you once and for all—there is to be no burial for him.

TEUCER: And hear my reply—he shall be buried immediately.

MENELAUS: Once I saw a bold-tongued man who had urged sailors to set sail during wintertime. Yet in him you could have found no voice when the worst of the storm was upon him. No, hidden beneath his cloak he allowed the crew to trample on him at will. And so it is with you and your raging speech—perhaps a great storm, even if its blast comes from a small cloud, will extinguish your shouting.

TEUCER: Yes, and I have seen a man stuffed with foolishness who exulted in his neighbor’s misfortunes. It turned out that a man like me and of similar temperament stared at him and said, Man, do not wrong the dead; for, if you do, rest assured that you will come to harm. So he warned the misguided man before him. Take note—I see him now, and I think that he is no one but you. Have I spoken in riddles?

MENELAUS: I will go—it would be a disgrace to have it known that I argue when I have the power to use force.

TEUCER: Leave then! The worst disgrace for me is that I should listen to a fool’s empty chatter.

CHORUS: A trial of this great discord will soon come about. But you, Teucer, with all the speed you can muster, be quick to seek a hollow grave for Ajax, where he shall establish his dank tomb, a constant memorial for mortals.

TEUCER: And now just in time his son and his wife approach to arrange the burial of the pitiable corpse. Come here, nephew. Take your place near him, and grasp in supplication your father, your begetter. Kneel and pray for help, with locks of hair in your hand from me, her, and thirdly you; they are the suppliant’s only resource. But if any soldier from the army should tear you by violence from this body, then for his wickedness may he be wickedly cast out of his country and get no burial, but be severed at the root with all his race, just as I shear this lock. Take it, Nephew, and keep it safe. Let no one move you, but kneel there and cling to the dead. And you there, do not stand idly by like women, not men. Help defend us until I return, when I have seen to a grave for him, though all the world forbids it.

Part 14

CHORUS: Which will be the last year? When will the sum of the years of our many wanderings stop bringing upon me the unending doom of toilful spear-battles throughout broad Troy, the cause of sorrow and of shame for Greece ?

CHORUS: If only that man had first passed into the depths of the sky or into Hades, the common home of all, before he taught the Greeks the shared plague of Ares’ detested arms! Ah, those toils of his invention, which produced so many more toils! Look how that man has ravaged humanity!

CHORUS: No delight in garlands or deep wine-cups did that man provide me, no sweet din of flutes, that miserable man, or pleasing rest in the night. And from love—god!—from love he has totally barred me. Here I lie uncared for, while heavy dews constantly wet my hair, damp reminders of joyless Troy .

CHORUS: In the past bold Ajax was always my bulwark against night’s terrors and flying missiles. But now he has become an offering consecrated to a malignant divinity. What joy, then, what delight awaits me anymore? O to be where the wooded wave-washed cape fences off the deep sea, to be beneath Sunium’s jutting plateau, so that we might salute sacred Athens!

TEUCER: Here I am! I hurried back when I saw the supreme commander, Agamemnon, rapidly approaching. It is plain to me that he will let his clumsy tongue fly.

AGAMEMNON: So it is you, they tell me, who dared open your mouth wide to make fierce threats against us—and are you still unpunished? Yes, I mean you—you, the captive slave’s son. No doubt if you were born from a noble mother, your talk would reach the sky and you would proudly strut about, when now it is the case that, though you are a nobody and a nothing, you have stood up for this other nothing lying here, and have vowed that we came out with no authority either as admirals or as generals to rule the Greeks or you. No, as an autonomous ruler, you say, Ajax set sail. Does it not shame me that I hear these proud words from slavish mouths? What was the man whom you shout about with such arrogance? Where did he advance, or where did he stand his ground, where I did not do the same? Have the Greeks, then, no other men but him? To our own harm, it seems, we announced to the Greeks the contests for the arms of Achilles, if on all sides we are accounted corrupt because of Teucer, and if it will never satisfy you Salaminians, even when you are defeated, to accept the verdict which satisfied the majority of the judges. But instead you will always no doubt aim your slanderous arrows at us, or treacherously lash at our backs when you fall behind us in the race. Yet in a place where such ways prevail, there could be no settled order for any law, if we are to thrust the rightful winners aside and bring those in the rear up to the front ranks. These tendencies must be checked. It is not the stout, broad-shouldered men that are the steadiest allies. No, it is the wise who prevail in every engagement. A broad-backed ox is kept straight on the road all the same when only a small whip directs him. And a dose of this very medicine, I foresee, will find you before long, unless you gain a little good sense. He no longer exists, but is already a shade, yet still you boldly insult us and give your tongue too much freedom. Restrain yourself, I say. Recall your birth, your nature. Bring someone else here—a man who is freeborn—who can plead your cause before me in your place. For when you speak, I no longer understand— I do not know your barbarian language.

CHORUS: If only you both had the sense to exercise self-restraint! There is no better advice that I could give you two.

TEUCER: My, how quickly gratitude to the dead seeps away from men and is found to have turned to betrayal, since this man no longer offers even the slightest praise in remembrance of you, Ajax, even though it was for his sake you toiled so often in battle, offering your own life to the spear! No, your assistance is dead and gone, all flung aside! Full and foolish talker, do you no longer remember anything of the time when you were trapped inside your defenses, when you were all but destroyed in the turn of the battle and he, he alone came and saved you at the moment when the flames were already blazing around the decks at your ships’ sterns and Hector was leaping high over the trench towards the vessels? Who averted that? Was it not Ajax who did it, the one who, you say, nowhere set foot where you were not? Well, do you grant that he did his duty to you there? And what about when another time, all alone, he confronted Hector in single combat according to the fall of the lots, and not at anyone’s command? The lot which he cast in was not the kind to flee the challenge; it was no lump of moist earth, but one which would be the first to leap lightly from the crested helmet! It was this man who did those deeds, and I, the slave, the son of the barbarian mother, was at his side.

Pitiful creature, how can you be so blind as to argue the way you do? Are you not aware of the fact that your father’s father Pelops long ago was a barbarian, a Phrygian? That Atreus, your own begetter, set before his brother a most unholy feast made from the flesh of his brother’s children? And you yourself were born from a Cretan mother, whose father found a stranger straddling her and who was consigned by him to be prey for the mute fish. So being of such a kind, can you reproach a man like me for my lineage? I am the son of Telamon, who won my mother for his consort as prize for valor supreme in the army. And she was the daughter of Laomedon, of royal blood, and it was as the flower of the spoil that Alcmena’s son gave her to Telamon. Thus nobly born as I am from two noble parents, could I disgrace my own flesh and blood, whom even as he lies here subdued by such massive troubles, you, making your pronouncements without a blush of shame, would thrust out without burial? Now consider this well: wherever you cast him away, with him you will also cast our three corpses. It is right for me to die before all men’s eyes while I am toiling in his cause, rather than for your wife—or should I say your brother’s? With this in mind, then, look not to my safety, but to yours instead, since if you cause me any grief at all, you will soon wish that you had been more timid than bold when confronting me.

CHORUS: Lord Odysseus, you arrive at the right time, if mediation, not division, is your purpose in coming.

ODYSSEUS: What is the trouble, friends? From far off I heard shouting from the Atreidae over this brave man’s corpse.

AGAMEMNON: Is it not because we, Lord Odysseus, have long had to hear the worst, most shameful language from this man?

ODYSSEUS: How so? I can pardon a man a retaliatory barrage of abuse if another has insulted him.

AGAMEMNON: I insulted him, since his conduct toward me was of the same stripe.

ODYSSEUS: And what did he do that harmed you?

AGAMEMNON: He declares that he will not leave this corpse without due burial, but will entomb it in spite of me.

ODYSSEUS: Then may a friend speak the truth, and still remain your helpmate no less than before?

AGAMEMNON: Speak. Otherwise I would be less than sane, since I count you my greatest friend among all the Greeks.

ODYSSEUS: Listen, then. In the name of the gods, do not let yourself so ruthlessly cast this man out unburied. Do not in any way let the violence of your hatred overcome you so much that you trample justice under foot. To me, too, this man was once the most hostile enemy in the army from the day on which I beat him for possession of Achilles’ arms. Yet for all that he was hostile towards me, I would not dishonor him in return or refuse to admit that in all our Greek force at Troy he was, in my view, the best and bravest, excepting Achilles. It would not be just, then, that he should be dishonored by you. It is not he, but the laws given by the gods that you would damage. When a good man is dead, there is no justice in doing him harm, not even if you hate him.

AGAMEMNON: You, Odysseus—do you champion him against me in this battle?

Part 15

ODYSSEUS: I do, though I did hate him, when it was honorable for me to hate.

AGAMEMNON: But should you not also trample him now that he is dead?

ODYSSEUS: Do not take delight, son of Atreus, in that superiority which brings no honor.

AGAMEMNON: Reverence, I tell you, is not easily practiced by the autocrat.

ODYSSEUS: But it is easy to grant dispensations to friends when they advise well.

AGAMEMNON: A good man should listen to those in charge.

ODYSSEUS: Stop! Your power is victorious when you surrender to your friends.

AGAMEMNON: Remember to what sort of man you show this kindness!

ODYSSEUS: The man was once my enemy, yes, but he was also noble.

AGAMEMNON: Why do you do this? Why do you so respect an enemy’s corpse?

ODYSSEUS: I yield to his excellence much more than his hostility.

AGAMEMNON: Men who act as you do are the unstable sort in humankind.

ODYSSEUS: Quite the majority of men, I assure you, are friendly at one time, and bitter at another.

AGAMEMNON: So then, are these the type of friends that you recommend we make?

ODYSSEUS: It is not my habit to recommend an inflexible spirit.

AGAMEMNON: You will make us appear to be cowards today.

ODYSSEUS: On the contrary, we will be men of justice in the eyes of all the Greeks.

AGAMEMNON: Then do you truly urge me to allow the burying of the dead?

ODYSSEUS: Yes, for I too shall come to that necessity.

AGAMEMNON: How true it is that in all things alike each man works for himself!

Part 16

ODYSSEUS: And for whom should I work more than for myself?

AGAMEMNON: It must be called your doing then, not mine.

ODYSSEUS: However you do it, in all respects you will at least prove beneficent.

AGAMEMNON: In any case, be quite certain that to you I would grant a larger favor than this. To that man, however, as on earth, so below I give my hatred. But you can do what you will.

CHORUS: Whoever denies, Odysseus, that you were born wise in judgment is a total fool since you have shown it just now.

ODYSSEUS: And now I announce that from this point on I am ready to be Teucer’s friend as much as I was once his enemy. And I would like to join in the burying of your dead and share your labors, omitting no service which mortals should render to their best and bravest warriors.

TEUCER: Good Odysseus, I have only praise for your words. You have greatly belied my fears. Of all the Greeks you were his deadliest enemy, and yet you alone have stood by him with helping hand and did not come here and allow yourself in life to violate the dead Ajax ruthlessly, as did the crazed general who came, since he and his brother wanted to cast out the outraged corpse without burial. Therefore may the Father supreme on Olympus above us, and the unforgetting Fury and Justice the Fulfiller destroy them for their wickedness with wicked deaths, just as they sought to cast this man out with unmerited, outrageous mistreatment. But you, progeny of aged Laertes, I hesitate to permit you to touch the corpse in burial, lest I so offend the dead. In all other tasks do indeed be our partner. And if you wish to bring any soldier of the army with you, he shall be welcome. For the rest, I will make all things ready. But you, Odysseus, know that to us you have been a good and noble friend.

ODYSSEUS: It was my wish to help, but if it is not pleasing to you that I should assist here, I accept your decision and depart.

TEUCER: Enough. Already the interval has been long drawn out. Come, hurry some of you to dig the hollow grave; others erect the cauldron wrapped in fire on its high stand for prompt preparation of the ritual cleansing. Let another company bring from the tent the finery which he wore in battle beneath his shield. And you, too, child, with such strength as you have lay a loving hand upon your father and help me to lighten his body; for his channels are still warm and spray upwards the dark force of his spirit. Come, come everyone who claims to be our friend, start forward and move on, laboring in service to this man of perfect excellence. To a nobler man such service has never yet been rendered .

CHORUS: Many things, I tell you, can be known through mortal eyes; but before he sees it happening, no one can foretell the future, or what his fate will be.

Contents — 15 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15

Part 1

ANTIGONE: Ismene, my sister, true child of my own mother, do you know any evil out of all the evils bequeathed by Oedipus that Zeus will not fulfil for the two of us in our lifetime? There is nothing—no pain, no ruin, no shame, nor dishonor—that I have not seen in your sufferings and mine. And now what is this new edict that they say the general has just decreed to all the city? Do you know anything? Have you heard? Or does it escape you that evils from our enemies are on the march against our friends?

ISMENE: To me no word of our friends, Antigone, either bringing joy or bringing pain has come since we two were robbed of our two brothers who died in one day by a double blow. And since the Argive army has fled during this night, I have learned nothing further, whether better fortune is mine, or further ruin.

ANTIGONE: I knew it well, so I was trying to bring you outside the courtyard gates to this end, that you alone might hear.

ISMENE: Hear what? It is clear that you are brooding on some dark news.

ANTIGONE: Why not? Has not Creon destined our brothers, the one to honored burial, the other to unburied shame? Eteocles, they say, with due observance of right and custom, he has laid in the earth for his honor among the dead below. As for the poor corpse of Polyneices, however, they say that an edict has been published to the townsmen that no one shall bury him or mourn him, but instead leave him unwept, unentombed, for the birds a pleasing store as they look to satisfy their hunger. Such, it is said, is the edict that the good Creon has laid down for you and for me—yes, for me—and it is said that he is coming here to proclaim it for the certain knowledge of those who do not already know. They say that he does not conduct this business lightly, but whoever performs any of these rites, for him the fate appointed is death by public stoning among the entire city. This is how things stand for you, and so you will soon show your nature, whether you are noble-minded, or the corrupt daughter of a noble line.

ISMENE: Poor sister, if things have come to this, what would I profit by loosening or tightening this knot?

ANTIGONE: Consider whether you will share the toil and the task.

ISMENE: What are you hazarding? What do you intend?

ANTIGONE: Will you join your hand to mine in order to lift his corpse?

ISMENE: You plan to bury him—when it is forbidden to the city?

ANTIGONE: Yes, he is my brother, and yours too, even if you wish it otherwise. I will never be convicted of betraying him.

ISMENE: Hard girl! Even when Creon has forbidden it?

ANTIGONE: No, he has no right to keep me from my own.

ISMENE: Ah, no! Think, sister, how our father perished in hatred and infamy, when, because of the crimes that he himself detected, he smashed both his eyes with self-blinding hand; then his mother-wife, two names in one, with a twisted noose destroyed her life; lastly, our two brothers in a single day, both unhappy murderers of their own flesh and blood, worked with mutual hands their common doom. And now we, in turn—we two who have been left all alone—consider how much more miserably we will be destroyed, if in defiance of the law we transgress against an autocrat’s decree or his powers. No, we must remember, first, that ours is a woman’s nature, and accordingly not suited to battles against men; and next, that we are ruled by the more powerful, so that we must obey in these things and in things even more stinging. I, therefore, will ask those below for pardon, since I am forced to this, and will obey those who have come to authority. It is foolish to do what is fruitless.

ANTIGONE: I would not encourage you—no, nor, even if you were willing later, would I welcome you as my partner in this action. No, be the sort that pleases you. I will bury him—it would honor me to die while doing that. I shall rest with him, loved one with loved one, a pious criminal. For the time is greater that I must serve the dead than the living, since in that world I will rest forever. But if you so choose, continue to dishonor what the gods in honor have established.

ISMENE: I do them no dishonor. But to act in violation of the citizens’ will—of that I am by nature incapable.

ANTIGONE: You can make that your pretext! Regardless, I will go now to heap a tomb over the brother I love.

ISMENE: Oh no, unhappy sister! I fear for you!

ANTIGONE: Do not tremble for me. Straighten out your own destiny.

ISMENE: Then at least disclose the deed to no one before you do it. Conceal it, instead, in secrecy—and so, too, will I.

Part 2

ANTIGONE: Go on! Denounce it! You will be far more hated for your silence, if you fail to proclaim these things to everyone.

ISMENE: You have a hot heart for chilling deeds.

ANTIGONE: I know that I please those whom I am most bound to please.

ISMENE: Yes, if you will also have the power. But you crave the impossible.

ANTIGONE: Why then, when my strength fails, I will have finished.

ISMENE: An impossible hunt should not be tried in the first place.

ANTIGONE: If you mean that, you will have my hatred, and you will be subject to punishment as the enemy of the dead. But leave me and the foolish plan I have authored to suffer this terrible thing, for I will not suffer anything so terrible that my death will lack honor.

ISMENE: Go, then, if you so decide. And of this be sure: though your path is foolish, to your loved ones your love is straight and true. Exit Antigone on the spectators’ left. Ismene exits into the palace.

CHORUS: Shaft of the sun, fairest light of all that have dawned on Thebes of the seven gates, you have shone forth at last, eye of golden day, advancing over Dirce’s streams! You have goaded with a sharper bit the warrior of the white shield, who came from Argos in full armor, driving him to headlong retreat.

CHORUS: He set out against our land because of the strife-filled claims of Polyneices, and like a screaming eagle he flew over into our land, covered by his snow-white wing, with a mass of weapons and crested helmets.

CHORUS: He paused above our dwellings; he gaped around our sevenfold portals with spears thirsting for blood; but he left before his jaws were ever glutted with our gore, or before the Fire-god’s pine-fed flame had seized our crown of towers. So fierce was the crash of battle swelling about his back, a match too hard to win for the rival of the dragon.

CHORUS: For Zeus detests above all the boasts of a proud tongue. And when he saw them advancing in a swollen flood, arrogant their clanging gold, he dashed with brandished fire one who was already starting to shout victory when he had reached our ramparts.

CHORUS: Staggered, he fell to the earth with a crash, torch in hand, a man possessed by the frenzy of the mad attack, who just now was raging against us with the blasts of his tempestuous hate. But his threats did not fare as he had hoped, and to the other enemies mighty Ares dispensed each their own dooms with hard blows, Ares, our mighty ally at the turning-point.

CHORUS: For the seven captains, stationed against an equal number at the seven gates, left behind their brazen arms in tribute to Zeus the turner of battle—all but the accursed pair who, born of one father and one mother, set against each other their spears, both victorious, and who now share in a common death.

CHORUS: But since Victory whose name is glory has come to us, smiling in joy equal to the joy of chariot-rich Thebes, let us make for ourselves forgetfulness after the recent wars, and visit all the temples of the gods with night-long dance and song. And may Bacchus, who shakes the earth of Thebes, rule our dancing!

CHORUS: But look, the king of the land is coming here, Creon, the son of Menoeceus, our new ruler in accordance with the new circumstances fated by the gods. What policy is he setting in motion, that he has proposed this special conference of elders, and summoned it by a general mandate?

CREON: My fellow citizens! First, the gods, after tossing the fate of our city on wild waves, have once more righted it. Second, I have ordered you through my messengers to come here apart from all the rest, because I knew, first of all, how constant was your reverence for the power of the throne of Laius; how, again, you were reverent, when Oedipus was guiding our city; and lastly, how, when he was dead, you still maintained loyal thoughts towards his children. Since, then, these latter have fallen in one day by a twofold doom—each striking, each struck, both with the stain of a brother’s murder—I now possess all the power and the throne according to my kinship with the dead. Now, it is impossible to know fully any man’s character, will, or judgment, until he has been proved by the test of rule and law-giving. For if anyone who directs the entire city does not cling to the best and wisest plans, but because of some fear keeps his lips locked, then, in my judgment, he is and has long been the most cowardly traitor. And if any man thinks a friend more important than his fatherland, that man, I say, is of no account. Zeus, god who sees all things always, be my witness— I would not be silent if I saw ruin, instead of safety, marching upon the citizens. Nor would I ever make a man who is hostile to my country a friend to myself, because I know this, that our country is the ship that bears us safe, and that only when we sail her on a straight course can we make true friends. Such are the rules by which I strengthen this city. Akin to these is the edict which I have now published to the citizenry concerning the sons of Oedipus: Eteocles, who fell fighting in behalf of our city and who excelled all in battle, they shall entomb and heap up every sacred offering that descends to the noblest of the dead below. But as for his brother, Polyneices, I mean, who on his return from exile wanted to burn to the ground the city of his fathers and his race’s gods, and wanted to feed on kindred blood and lead the remnant into slavery—it has been proclaimed to the city that no one shall give him funeral honors or lamentation, but all must leave him unburied and a sight of shame, with his body there for birds and dogs to eat. This is my will, and never will I allow the traitor to stand in honor before the just. But whoever has good will to Thebes, he shall be honored by me in death as in life.

CHORUS: That is your will, Creon, towards this city’s enemy and its friend. And the power is yours, I believe, to make use of every law whatsoever, both concerning the dead and all us who live.

CREON: See, then, that you be guardians of my commands.

CHORUS: Lay the weight of this task on some younger man.

Part 3

CREON: That is not what I meant—the guards for the corpse are already in place.

CHORUS: Then what is this other command that you would give?

CREON: That you not give way to the breakers of my commands.

CHORUS: There is no one so foolish as to crave death.

CREON: I assure you, that is the wage for disobedience. Yet by just the hope of it, money has many times corrupted men.

GUARD: My king, I will not say that I arrive breathless because of speed, or from the action of a swift foot. For often I brought myself to a stop because of my thoughts, and wheeled round in my path to return. My mind was telling me many things: Fool, why do you go to where your arrival will mean your punishment? Idiot, are you dallying again? If Creon learns it from another, must you not suffer for it? So debating, I made my way unhurriedly, slow, and thus a short road was made long. At last, however, the view prevailed that I should come here—to you. Even if my report brings no good, still will I tell you, since I come with a good grip on one hope, that I can suffer nothing except what is my fate.

CREON: And what is it that so disheartens you?

GUARD: I want to tell you first about myself—I did not do the deed, nor did I see the doer, so it would be wrong that I should come to any harm.

CREON: Like a bowman you aim well at your target from a distance, and all around you hedge yourself off well from the deed. It is clear that you have some unheard-of thing to tell.

GUARD: That I do, for terrible news imposes great hesitation.

CREON: Then tell it, will you, and so unburdened go away?

GUARD: Well, here it is. The corpse—some one has just given it burial and disappeared after sprinkling thirsty dust on the flesh and performing the other rites that piety demands.

CREON: What are you saying? What man dared do this?

GUARD: I do not know. For there was no scar of a pickax to be seen there, no earth thrown up by a mattock. The ground was hard and dry, unbroken, not rolled over by wheels. The doer was someone who left no trace. When the first day-watchman showed it to us, a discomforting amazement fell on us all. The dead man was veiled from us—not shut within a tomb, but a light cover of dust was on him, as if put there by the hand of one who shunned a curse. And no sign was visible that any beast of prey or any dog had approached or torn him. Then evil words flew thick and loud among us, guard accusing guard. It would even have come to blows in the end, nor was there anyone there to prevent it: every man was the culprit, and no one was plainly guilty, while all disclaimed knowledge of the act. We were ready to take red-hot iron in our hands, to walk through fire and to swear oaths by the gods that we had neither done the deed, nor shared knowledge of the planning or the doing. At last, when our investigating got us nowhere, someone spoke up and made us all bend our faces in fear towards the earth. For we did not know how we could argue with him, nor yet prosper, if we did what he said. His argument was that the deed must be reported to you and not hidden. This view prevailed, and so it was that the lot doomed miserable me to win this prize. So here I stand, as unwelcome to you as I am unwilling, I well know. For no man delights in the bearer of bad news.

CHORUS: My king, my thoughts have long been deliberating whether this deed is somehow the work of gods?

CREON: Quiet, before your words truly fill me with rage, so that you not be found at the same time foolish as well as old. You say what is intolerable when you claim that the gods have concern for that corpse. Was it in high esteem for his benefactions that they sought to hide him, when he had come to burn their columned shrines, their sacred treasures and their land, and scatter its laws to the winds? Or do you see the gods honoring the wicked? It cannot be. No! From the very first certain men of the city were chafing at this edict and muttering against me, tossing their heads in secret, and they did not keep their necks duly under the yoke in submission to me. By those men, I am certain, they were led astray and bribed to do this deed. Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This destroys cities, this drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest minds to set themselves to works of shame, this teaches people to practise villainies, and to know every act of unholiness. But all the men who did this job for hire have made sure that, sooner or later, they shall suffer the punishment. Now, as Zeus still has my reverence, know this well— I tell you on my oath. If you do not find the very hand that made this burial, and reveal him before my eyes, mere death shall not suffice for you, not before, hung up alive, you have made this outrage plain, so that hereafter you may thieve with better knowledge of where your money should be received from, and learn that it is best not to be fond of money-making from any and every source. For you will find that ill-gotten gains bring more men to ruin than to safety.

GUARD: Will you allow me to speak? Or shall I just turn and go?

CREON: Do you not know even now how much your voice sickens me?

GUARD: Is the pain in your ears, or in your soul?

CREON: And why would you define the seat of my pain?

Part 4

GUARD: He who did it hurts your heart, but I, your ears.

CREON: God! How plain it is that you are a born babbler.

GUARD: Perhaps, but never the author of this action.

CREON: Yes, and what is more, you sold your life for silver.

GUARD: Ah! It is truly sad when the judge judges wrong .

CREON: Expound on judgment as you will. But, if you fail to show me the perpetrators of these crimes, you will avow that money basely earned wreaks sorrows. Exit Creon.

GUARD: Well, may the man be found! That would be best. But, whether he be caught or not—for fortune must decide that—I assure you that you will not see me come here again. Saved just now beyond hope and belief, I owe the gods great thanks. Exit the Guard.

CHORUS: Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man. This power spans the sea, even when it surges white before the gales of the south-wind, and makes a path under swells that threaten to engulf him. Earth, too, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, he wears away to his own ends, turning the soil with the offspring of horses as the plows weave to and fro year after year.

CHORUS: The light-hearted tribe of birds and the clans of wild beasts and the sea-brood of the deep he snares in the meshes of his twisted nets, and he leads them captive, very-skilled man. He masters by his arts the beast who dwells in the wilds and roams the hills. He tames the shaggy-maned horse, putting the yoke upon its neck, and tames the tireless mountain bull.

CHORUS: Speech and thought fast as the wind and the moods that give order to a city he has taught himself, and how to flee the arrows of the inhospitable frost under clear skies and the arrows of the storming rain. He has resource for everything. Lacking resource in nothing he strides towards what must come. From Death alone he shall procure no escape, but from baffling diseases he has devised flights.

CHORUS: Possessing resourceful skill, a subtlety beyond expectation he moves now to evil, now to good. When he honors the laws of the land and the justice of the gods to which he is bound by oath, his city prospers. But banned from his city is he who, thanks to his rashness, couples with disgrace. Never may he share my home, never think my thoughts, who does these things!

CHORUS: What marvel sent by the gods is this?—I am bewildered! I know her. How can I deny that this girl is Antigone? O unhappy child of your unhappy father, of Oedipus! What can this mean? What! Surely they are not bringing you captive for disobeying the King’s laws and being caught in lunacy?

GUARD: Here is she, the one who did the deed. We caught this one burying him. Where is Creon?

CHORUS: There, he is coming from the house again at our need.

CREON: What is it? What has happened that makes my coming timely?

GUARD: My king, there is nothing that a man can rightly swear he will not do. For second thought belies one’s first intent. I could have vowed that I would not ever come here again, because of your threats by which I had just been storm-tossed. But since this joy that exceeds and oversteps my hopes can be compared in fulness to no other pleasure, I am back—though it is contrary to my sworn oath— bringing this girl who was caught giving burial honors to the dead. This time there was no casting of lots. No, this piece of luck has fallen to me, and me alone. And now, my king, as it pleases you, take her yourself, question her and convict her. But justice would see me released free and clear from this trouble.

CREON: Your prisoner here—how and where did you take her?

GUARD: She was burying the man. You know all there is to tell.

CREON: Are you clear and sure about what you are saying?

GUARD: I am. I saw her burying the corpse that you had forbidden to bury. Is that plain and sufficient?

Part 5

CREON: And how was she observed? How taken in the act?

GUARD: It happened like this. When we had come to the place with those fierce threats of yours still in our ears, we swept away all the dust that covered the corpse and bared the damp body well. We then sat down on the brow of the hill to windward, fleeing the smell from him, lest it strike us. Each man was wide awake and kept his neighbor alert with torrents of threats, if any one should be careless of this task. So time passed, until the disk of the sun stood bright in mid-sky and the heat began to burn. And then suddenly a whirlwind lifted from the earth a storm of dust, a trouble in the sky, and it filled the plain, marring all the foliage of its woods. Soon the wide air was choked with it. We closed our eyes, and endured the plague from the gods. When, after a long while, this storm had passed, the girl was seen, and she wailed aloud with the sharp cry of a grieving bird, as when inside her empty nest she sees the bed stripped of its nestlings. So she, too, when she saw the corpse bare, broke into a cry of lamentation and cursed with harsh curses those who had done it. Immediately she took thirsty dust in her hands, and from a pitcher of beaten bronze held high she crowned the dead with thrice-poured libations. We rushed forward when we saw it, and at once closed upon our quarry, who was not at all dismayed. We then charged her with her past and present doings, but she made no denial of anything—at once to my joy and to my pain. For to have escaped from trouble one’s self gives the greatest joy, but it stings to lead friends to evil. Naturally, though, all such things are of less account to me than my own safety.

CREON: You, you with your face bent to the ground, do you admit, or deny that you did this?

ANTIGONE: I declare it and make no denial.

CREON: You can take yourself wherever you please, free and clear of a heavy charge. Exit Guard.

You, however, tell me—not at length, but briefly—did you know that an edict had forbidden this?

ANTIGONE: I knew it. How could I not? It was public.

CREON: And even so you dared overstep that law?

ANTIGONE: Yes, since it was not Zeus that published me that edict, and since not of that kind are the laws which Justice who dwells with the gods below established among men. Nor did I think that your decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes given us by the gods. For their life is not of today or yesterday, but for all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth. Not for fear of any man’s pride was I about to owe a penalty to the gods for breaking these. Die I must, that I knew well (how could I not?). That is true even without your edicts. But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain. When anyone lives as I do, surrounded by evils, how can he not carry off gain by dying? So for me to meet this doom is a grief of no account. But if I had endured that my mother’s son should in death lie an unburied corpse, that would have grieved me. Yet for this, I am not grieved. And if my present actions are foolish in your sight, it may be that it is a fool who accuses me of folly.

CHORUS: She shows herself the wild offspring of a wild father, and does not know how to bend before troubles.

CREON: Yet remember that over-hard spirits most often collapse. It is the stiffest iron, baked to utter hardness in the fire, that you most often see snapped and shivered. And I have witnessed horses with great spirit disciplined by a small bit. For there is no place for pride, when one is his neighbors’ slave. This girl was already practiced in outrage when she overstepped the published laws. And, that done, this now is a second outrage, that she glories in it and exults in her deed. In truth, then, I am no man, but she is, if this victory rests with her and brings no penalty. No! Whether she is my sister’s child, or nearer to me in blood than any of my kin that worship Zeus at the altar of our house, she and her sister will not escape a doom most harsh. For in truth I charge that other with an equal share in the plotting of this burial. Call her out! I saw her inside just now, raving, and not in control of her wits. Before the deed, the mind frequently is convicted of stealthy crimes when conspirators are plotting depravity in the dark. But, truly, I detest it, too, when one who has been caught in treachery then seeks to make the crime a glory.

ANTIGONE: What more do you want than to capture and kill me?

CREON: I want nothing else. Having that, I have everything.

ANTIGONE: Why then do you wait? In none of your maxims is there anything that pleases me—and may there never be! Similarly to you as well my views must be displeasing. And yet, how could I have won a nobler glory than by giving burial to my own brother? All here would admit that they approve, if fear did not grip their tongues. But tyranny, blest with so much else, has the power to do and say whatever it pleases.

CREON: You alone out of all these Thebans see it that way.

ANTIGONE: They do, too, but for you they hold their tongues.

CREON: Are you not ashamed that your beliefs differ from theirs?

ANTIGONE: No, there is nothing shameful in respecting your own flesh and blood.

CREON: Was not he your brother too, who died in the opposite cause?

ANTIGONE: A brother by the same mother and the same father.

Part 6

CREON: Why, then, do you pay a service that is disrespectful to him?

ANTIGONE: The dead man will not support you in that.

CREON: Yes, he will, if you honor him equally with the wicked one.

ANTIGONE: It was his brother, not his slave, who died.

CREON: But he died ravaging this land, while he fell in its defense.

ANTIGONE: Hades craves these rites, nevertheless.

CREON: But the good man craves a portion not equal to the evil’s.

ANTIGONE: Who knows but that these actions are pure to those below?

CREON: You do not love someone you have hated, not even after death.

ANTIGONE: It is not my nature to join in hate, but in love.

CREON: Then, go down to hell and love them if you must. While I live, no woman will rule me.

CHORUS: Look, here comes Ismene from the palace, shedding the tears of a loving sister. A cloud over her eyes mars her red-flushed face, and it breaks into rain on her comely cheek.

CREON: You who were lurking like a viper in my own house and secretly gulping up my life’s blood, while I was oblivious that I was nurturing two plagues, two revolutions against my throne—tell me now, will you also affirm your share in this burial, or will you forswear all knowledge of it?

ISMENE: I performed the deed—as long as she concurs—and I share and carry the burden of guilt.

ANTIGONE: No, justice will not permit you to do this, since you were not willing to help with the deed, nor did I give you a part in it.

ISMENE: But now with this sea of troubles around you, I am not ashamed to sail in a sea of suffering at your side.

ANTIGONE: As to whose deed it is, Hades and the dead are witnesses. A friend in words is not the type of friend I love.

ISMENE: No, sister, do not strip me of death’s honor, but let me die with you and make due consecration to the dead.

ANTIGONE: Do not share my death. Do not claim deeds to which you did not put your hand. My death will suffice.

ISMENE: And how can I cherish life, once I am deprived of you?

Part 7

ANTIGONE: Ask Creon. Your concern is for him.

ISMENE: Why do you torture me like this, when it does not help you?

ANTIGONE: No, if I mock you, it is to my own pain that I do so.

ISMENE: Tell me, how can I help you, even now?

ANTIGONE: Save yourself. I do not grudge your escape.

ISMENE: Ah, misery! Will I fall short of sharing your fate?

ANTIGONE: Your choice was to live, it was mine to die.

ISMENE: At least your choice was not made without my protests.

ANTIGONE: One world approved your wisdom, another approved mine.

ISMENE: Nevertheless, the offense is identical for both of us.

ANTIGONE: Take heart! You live. But my life has long been in Death’s hands so that I might serve the dead.

CREON: One of these maidens, I declare, has just revealed her foolishness; the other has displayed it from the moment of her birth.

ISMENE: Yes, Creon. Whatever amount of reason nature may have given them does not remain with those in dire straits, but goes astray.

CREON: Yours did, I know, when you chose dire actions with dire allies.

ISMENE: What life would there be for me alone, without her presence?

CREON: Do not speak of her presence. She lives no longer.

ISMENE: What? You will kill your own son’s bride?

CREON: Why not? There are other fields for him to plough.

ISMENE: But not fitted to him as she was.

CREON: I abhor an evil wife for my son.

Part 8

ANTIGONE: Haemon, dearest! How your father wrongs you!

CREON: Enough! Enough of you and of your marriage!

CHORUS: Will you really cheat your son of this girl?

CREON: Death it is who will end these bridals for me.

CHORUS: Then it seems that it is resolved that she will die.

CREON: Resolved, yes, for you and by me. To the two Attendants. No more delay! Servants, take them inside! Hereafter they must be women, and not left at large. For it is known that even the brave seek to flee, when they see Death now closing on their life. Exeunt Attendants, guarding Antigone and Ismene. Creon remains.

CHORUS: Blest are those whose days have not tasted of evil. For when a house has once been shaken by the gods, no form of ruin is lacking, but it spreads over the bulk of the race, just as, when the surge is driven over the darkness of the deep by the fierce breath of Thracian sea-winds, it rolls up the black sand from the depths, and the wind-beaten headlands that front the blows of the storm give out a mournful roar.

CHORUS: I see that the ancient sorrows of the house of the Labdacids are heaped upon the sorrows of the dead. Each generation does not set its race free, but some god hurls it down and the race has no release. For now that dazzling ray of hope that had been spread over the last roots in the house of Oedipus—that hope, in its turn, the blood-stained dust of the gods infernal and mindlessness in speech and frenzy at the mind cuts down.

CHORUS: Your power, great Zeus—what human overstepping can check it? Yours is power that neither Sleep, the all-ensnaring, nor the untiring months of the gods can defeat. Unaged through time, you rule by your power and dwell thereby in the brilliant splendor of Olympus. And through the future, both near and distant, as through the past, shall this law prevail: nothing that is vast comes to the life of mortals without ruin.

CHORUS: See how that hope whose wanderings are so wide truly is a benefit to many men, but to an equal number it is a false lure of light-headed desires. The deception comes to one who is wholly unawares until he burns his foot on a hot fire. For with wisdom did someone once reveal the maxim, now famous, that evil at one time or another seems good, to him whose mind a god leads to ruin. But for the briefest moment such a man fares free of destruction.

CHORUS: But here is Haemon, the last of your offspring. Does he come grieving for the doom of Antigone, his promised bride, and bitter for the deceived hope of their marriage?

CREON: We will soon know better than seers could tell us.—My son, can it be that after hearing the final judgment concerning your betrothed, you have come in rage against your father? Or do I have your loyalty, act how I may?

HAEMON: Father, I am yours, and you keep me upright with precepts good for me—precepts I shall follow. No marriage will be deemed by me more important than your good guidance.

CREON: Yes, my son, this is the spirit you should maintain in your heart—to stand behind your father’s will in all things. It is for this that men pray: to sire and raise in their homes children who are obedient, that they may requite their father’s enemy with evil and honor his friend, just as their father does. But the man who begets unhelpful children—what would you say that he has sown except miseries for himself and abundant exultation for his enemies? Never, then, my son, banish your reason for pleasure on account of a woman, knowing that this embrace soon becomes cold and brittle—an evil woman to share your bed and home. For what wound could strike deeper than a false friend? No, spit her out as if she were an enemy, let her go find a husband in Hades. For since I caught her alone of all the city in open defiance, I will not make myself a liar to my city. I will kill her. So let her call on Zeus who protects kindred blood. If I am to foster my own kin to spurn order, surely I will do the same for outsiders. For whoever shows his excellence in the case of his own household will be found righteous in his city as well. But if anyone oversteps and does violence to the laws, or thinks to dictate to those in power, such a one will never win praise from me. No, whomever the city may appoint, that man must be obeyed in matters small and great and in matters just and unjust. And I would feel confident that such a man would be a fine ruler no less than a good and willing subject, and that beneath a hail of spears he would stand his ground where posted, a loyal and brave comrade in the battle line. But there is no evil worse than disobedience. This destroys cities; this overturns homes; this breaks the ranks of allied spears into headlong rout. But the lives of men who prosper upright, of these obedience has saved the greatest part. Therefore we must defend those who respect order, and in no way can we let a woman defeat us. It is better to fall from power, if it is fated, by a man’s hand, than that we be called weaker than women.

CHORUS: To us, unless our years have stolen our wit, you seem to say what you say wisely.

HAEMON: Father, the gods implant reason in men, the highest of all things that we call our own. For my part, to state how you are wrong to say those things is beyond my power and my desire, although another man, too, might have a useful thought. In any case, it is my natural duty to watch on your behalf all that men say, or do, or find to blame. For dread of your glance forbids the ordinary citizen to speak such words as would offend your ear. But I can hear these murmurs in the dark, how the city moans for this girl, saying: No woman ever merited death less— none ever died so shamefully for deeds so glorious as hers, who, when her own brother had fallen in bloody battle, would not leave him unburied to be devoured by savage dogs, or by any bird. Does she not deserve to receive golden honor? Such is the rumor shrouded in darkness that silently spreads. For me, father, no treasure is more precious than your prosperity. What, indeed, is a nobler ornament for children than the fair fame of a thriving father, or for a father than that of his children? Do not, then, bear one mood only in yourself: do not think that your word and no other, must be right. For if any man thinks that he alone is wise—that in speech or in mind he has no peer—such a soul, when laid open, is always found empty. No, even when a man is wise, it brings him no shame to learn many things, and not to be too rigid. You see how the trees that stand beside the torrential streams created by a winter storm yield to it and save their branches, while the stiff and rigid perish root and all? And in the same way the pilot who keeps the sheet of his sail taut and never slackens it, upsets his boat, and voyages thereafter with his decking underwater. Father, give way and allow a change from your rage. For if even from me, a younger man, a worthy thought may be supplied, by far the best thing, I believe, would be for men to be all-wise by nature. Otherwise—since most often it does not turn out that way—it is good to learn in addition from those who advise you well.

CHORUS: My king, it is right, if he speaks something appropriate, that you should learn from him and that you, in turn, Haemon, should learn from your father. On both sides there have been wise words.

CREON: Men of my age—are we, then, to be schooled in wisdom by men of his?

HAEMON: Not in anything that is not right. But if I am young, you should look to my conduct, not to my years.

CREON: Is it worthy conduct to honor disrupters?

Part 9

HAEMON: I could not urge anyone to show respect for the wicked.

CREON: And is she not in the grasp of that disease?

HAEMON: All the people of this city of Thebes deny it.

CREON: Shall Thebes prescribe to me how I must rule?

HAEMON: See, there, how you have spoken so much like a child.

CREON: Am I to rule this land by the will of another than myself?

HAEMON: That is no city, which belongs to one man.

CREON: Does not the city by tradition belong to the man in power?

HAEMON: You would make a fine monarch in a desert.

CREON: This boy seems to be fighting on the side of the woman.

HAEMON: If you are a woman, for, to be sure, my concern is for you.

CREON: You traitor, attacking your father, accusing him!

HAEMON: Because I see you making a mistake and committing injustice.

CREON: Am I making a mistake when I respect my own prerogatives?

HAEMON: Yes. You do not respect them, when you trample on the gods’ honors.

CREON: Polluted creature, submitting to a woman!

HAEMON: You will never catch me submitting to shamelessness.

CREON: You do. Your every word, after all, pleads her case.

HAEMON: And yours, and mine, and that of gods below.

CREON: You can never marry her, not while she is still alive.

Part 10

HAEMON: Then she will die, and in death destroy another.

CREON: What! Does your audacity run to open threats?

HAEMON: How is it a threat to speak against empty plans?

CREON: You will regret your unwise instructions in wisdom.

HAEMON: If you were not my father, I would have called you insane.

CREON: You woman’s slave, do not try to cajole me.

HAEMON: Do you want to have your say and then have done without a reply?

CREON: Is that so? By Olympus above—know this well—you will have no joy for taunting me over and above your censures. Bring out that hated thing, so that with him looking on she may die right now in her bridegroom’s presence and at his side!

HAEMON: No, not at my side will she die—do not ever imagine it. Nor shall you ever look at me and set eyes on my face again. Indulge in your madness now with whomever of your friends can endure it. Exit Haemon.

CHORUS: The man is gone, King Creon, in anger and haste. A young mind is fierce when stung.

CREON: Let him do—no!—let him plan something more immense than befits a man. Farewell to him! Still he will not save these two girls from death.

CHORUS: Then the pair of them, you really intend to kill them both?

CREON: Not the one who did not put her hands to the burial. You are right.

CHORUS: And by what mode of death do you mean to kill the other?

CREON: I will take her where the path is deserted, unvisited by men, and entomb her alive in a rocky vault, setting out a ration of food, but only as much as piety requires so that all the city may escape defilement. And praying there to Hades, the only god she worships, perhaps she will obtain immunity from death, or else will learn, at last, even this late, that it is fruitless labor to revere the dead. Exit Creon.

CHORUS: Love, the unconquered in battle, Love, you who descend upon riches, and watch the night through on a girl’s soft cheek, you roam over the sea and among the homes of men in the wilds. Neither can any immortal escape you, nor any man whose life lasts for a day. He who has known you is driven to madness.

CHORUS: You seize the minds of just men and drag them to injustice, to their ruin. You it is who have incited this conflict of men whose flesh and blood are one. But victory belongs to radiant Desire swelling from the eyes of the sweet-bedded bride. Desire sits enthroned in power beside the mighty laws. For in all this divine Aphrodite plays her irresistible game.

CHORUS: But now, witnessing this, I too am carried beyond the bounds of loyalty. The power fails me to keep back my streaming tears any longer, when I see Antigone making her way to the chamber where all are laid to rest, now her bridal chamber.

ANTIGONE: Citizens of my fatherland, see me setting out on my last journey, looking at my last sunlight, and never again. No, Hades who lays all to rest leads me living to Acheron’s shore, though I have not had my due portion of the chant that brings the bride, nor has any hymn been mine for the crowning of marriage. Instead the lord of Acheron will be my groom.

CHORUS: Then in glory and with praise you depart to that deep place of the dead, neither struck by wasting sickness, nor having won the wages of the sword. No, guided by your own laws and still alive, unlike any mortal before, you will descend to Hades.

Part 11

ANTIGONE: I have heard with my own ears how our Phrygian guest, the daughter of Tantalus, perished in so much suffering on steep Sipylus—how, like clinging ivy, the sprouting stone subdued her. And the rains, as men tell, do not leave her melting form, nor does the snow, but beneath her weeping lids she dampens her collar. Most like hers is the god-sent fate that leads me to my rest.

CHORUS: Yet she was a goddess, as you know, and the offspring of gods, while we are mortals and mortal-born. Still it is a great thing for a woman who has died to have it said of her that she shared the lot of the godlike in her life, and afterwards, in death.

ANTIGONE: Ah, you mock me! In the name of our fathers’ gods, why do you not wait to abuse me until after I have gone, and not to my face, O my city, and you, her wealthy citizens? Ah, spring of Dirce, and you holy ground of Thebes whose chariots are many, you, at least, will bear me witness how unwept by loved ones, and by what laws I go to the rock-closed prison of my unheard-of tomb! Ah, misery! I have no home among men or with the shades, no home with the living or with the dead.

CHORUS: You have rushed headlong to the far limits of daring, and against the high throne of Justice you have fallen, my daughter, fallen heavily. But in this ordeal you are paying for some paternal crime.

ANTIGONE: You have touched on my most bitter thought and moved my ever-renewed pity for my father and for the entire doom ordained for us, the famed house of Labdacus. Oh, the horrors of our mother’s bed! Oh, the slumbers of the wretched mother at the side of her own son, my own father! What manner of parents gave me my miserable being! It is to them that I go like this, accursed and unwed, to share their home. Ah, my brother, the marriage you made was doomed, and by dying you killed me still alive!

CHORUS: Your pious action shows a certain reverence, but an offence against power can no way be tolerated by him who has power in his keeping. Your self-willed disposition is what has destroyed you.

ANTIGONE: Unwept, unfriended, without marriage-song, I am led in misery on this journey that cannot be put off. No longer is it permitted me, unhappy girl, to look up at this sacred eye of the burning sun. But for my fate no tear is shed, no friend moans in sorrow.

CREON: Do you not know that dirges and wailing before death would never be given up, if it were allowed to make them freely? Take her away—now! And when you have enshrouded her, as I proclaimed, in her covered tomb, leave her alone, deserted—let her decide whether she wishes to die or to live entombed in such a home. It makes no difference, since our hands are clean so far as regards this girl. But no matter what, she will be stripped of her home here above.

ANTIGONE: Tomb, bridal-chamber, deep-dug eternal prison where I go to find my own, whom in the greatest numbers destruction has seized and Persephone has welcomed among the dead! Last of them all and in by far the most shameful circumstances, I will descend, even before the fated term of my life is spent. But I cherish strong hopes that I will arrive welcome to my father, and pleasant to you, Mother, and welcome, dear brother, to you. For, when each of you died, with my own hands I washed and dressed you and poured drink-offerings at your graves. But now, Polyneices, it is for tending your corpse that I win such reward as this. What law of the gods have I transgressed? Why should I look to the gods anymore? What ally should I call out to, when by my reverence I have earned a name for irreverence? Well, then, if these events please the gods, once I have suffered my doom I will come to know my guilt. But if the guilt lies with my judges, I could wish for them no greater evils than they inflict unjustly on me.

CHORUS: Still the same tempest of the soul grips this girl with the same fierce gusts.

CREON: Then because of this her guards will have reason to lament their slowness.

ANTIGONE: Ah, no! That command verges close on death.

CREON: I cannot console you with any hope that your doom is not to be fulfilled in that way.

ANTIGONE: O city of my fathers, land of Thebes, and you gods, our ancestors! I am led away now; there is no more delay! Look at me, you who are Thebes’ lords—look at the only remaining daughter of the house of your kings. See what I suffer, and at whose hands, because I revered reverence! Antigone is led away by the guards.

CHORUS: So too endured Danae in her beauty to change the light of the sky for brass-bound walls, and in that chamber, both burial and bridal, she was held in strict confinement. And yet was she of esteemed lineage, my daughter, and guarded a deposit of the seed of Zeus that had fallen in a golden rain. But dreadful is the mysterious power of fate—there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by towered city, or dark, sea-beaten ships.

CHORUS: And Dryas’s son, the Edonian king swift to rage, was tamed in recompense for his frenzied insults, when, by the will of Dionysus, he was shut in a rocky prison. There the fierce and swelling force of his madness trickled away. That man came to know the god whom in his frenzy he had provoked with mockeries. For he had sought to quell the god-inspired women and the Bacchanalian fire, and he angered the Muses who love the flute.

CHORUS: And by the waters of the Dark Rocks, the waters of the twofold sea, are the shores of Bosporus and the Thracian city Salmydessus, where Ares, neighbor of that city, saw the accursed, blinding wound inflicted on the two sons of Phineus by his savage wife. It was a wound that brought darkness to the hollows, making them crave vengeance for the eyes she crushed with her bloody hands and with her shuttle for a dagger.

CHORUS: Wasting away in their misery, they bewailed their miserable suffering and their birth from their mother stripped of her marriage. But she traced her descent from the ancient line of the Erechtheids, and in far-distant caves she was raised amidst her father’s gusts. She was the child of Boreas, running swift as horses over the steep hills, a daughter of gods. Yet she, too, was assailed by the long-lived Fates, my child.

TEIRESIAS: Princes of Thebes, we have come on a shared journey, two scouting the way by the eyes of one. For this is the method of travel for the blind, using a guide.

CREON: What is it, old Teiresias? What is your news?

Part 12

TEIRESIAS: I will tell you. You, obey the seer.

CREON: It was not my habit before, at any rate, to stand apart from your will.

TEIRESIAS: Therefore you captained this city on an upright course.

CREON: I have felt and can attest your benefits.

TEIRESIAS: Realize that once more now you are poised on fortune’s razor-edge.

CREON: What do you mean? I shudder to hear you!

TEIRESIAS: You will understand, when you hear the signs revealed by my art. As I took my place on my old seat of augury where all birds regularly gather for me, I heard an unintelligible voice among them: they were screaming in dire frenzy that made their language foreign to me. I realized that they were ripping each other with their talons, murderously—the rush of their wings did not lack meaning. Quickly, in fear, I tried burnt-sacrifice on a duly-kindled altar, but from my offerings Hephaestus did not blaze. Instead juice that had sweated from the thigh-flesh trickled out onto the embers and smoked and sputtered; the gall was scattered high up in the air; and the streaming thighs lay bared of the fat that had been wrapped around them. Such was the failure of the rites that yielded no sign, as I learned from this boy. For he is my guide, as I am guide to others. And it is your will that is the source of the sickness now afflicting the city. For the altars of our city and our hearths have one and all been tainted by the birds and dogs with the carrion taken from the sadly fallen son of Oedipus. And so the gods no more accept prayer and sacrifice at our hands, or the burning of thigh-meat, nor does any bird sound out clear signs in its shrill cries, for they have tasted the fatness of a slain man’s blood. Think, therefore, on these things, my son. All men are liable to err. But when an error is made, that man is no longer unwise or unblessed who heals the evil into which he has fallen and does not remain stubborn. Self-will, we know, invites the charge of foolishness. Concede the claim of the dead. Do not kick at the fallen. What prowess is it to kill the dead all over again? I have considered for your good, and what I advise is good. The sweetest thing is to learn from a good advisor when his advice is to your profit.

CREON: Old man, you all shoot your arrows at me, like archers at their mark, and I am not safe even from the plottings of the seer’s divine art, but by their tribe I have long been bought and sold and made their merchandise. Turn your profits, make your deals for the white gold of Sardis and the gold of India, if it pleases you, but you shall not cover that man with a grave, not even if the eagles of Zeus wish to snatch and carry him to be devoured at the god’s throne. No, not even then, for fear of that defilement will I permit his burial, since I know with certainty that no mortal has the power to defile the gods. But even the exceedingly clever, old Teiresias, falls with a shameful fall, when they couch shameful thoughts in fine phrasing for profit’s sake.

TEIRESIAS: Alas! Does any man know, does any consider—

CREON: What is this? What universal truth are you announcing?

TEIRESIAS: —by how much the most precious of our possessions is the power to reason wisely?

CREON: By as much, I think, as senselessness is the greatest affliction.

TEIRESIAS: Yet you came into being full of that disease.

CREON: I have no desire to trade insults with the seer.

TEIRESIAS: Yet that is what you do in saying that I prophesy falsely.

CREON: Yes, for the prophet-clan was ever fond of money.

TEIRESIAS: And the race sprung from tyrants loves shameful gain.

CREON: Do you know that you ramble so about your king?

TEIRESIAS: I am aware, since through me you have saved this city.

CREON: You are a wise seer, but fond of doing injustice.

Part 13

TEIRESIAS: You will stir me to utter the dire secret in my soul.

CREON: Out with it! But only if it is not for gain that you speak it.

TEIRESIAS: Indeed, I think I speak without mention of gain—where you are concerned.

CREON: Be certain that you will not trade in my will.

TEIRESIAS: Then know, yes, know it well! You will not live through many more courses of the sun’s swift chariot, before you will give in return one sprung from your own loins, a corpse in requital for corpses. For you have thrust below one of those of the upper air and irreverently lodged a living soul in the grave, while you detain in this world that which belongs to the infernal gods, a corpse unburied, unmourned, unholy. In the dead you have no part, nor do the gods above, but in this you do them violence. For these crimes the avenging destroyers, the Furies of Hades and of the gods, lie in ambush for you, waiting to seize you in these same sufferings. And look closely if I tell you this with a silvered palm. A time not long to be delayed will reveal in your house wailing over men and over women. All the cities are stirred up in hostility, whose mangled corpses the dogs, or the wild beasts or some winged bird buried, carrying an unholy stench to the city that held each man’s hearth. There, now, are arrows for your heart, since you provoke me, launched at you, archer-like, in my anger. They fly true—you cannot run from their burning sting. Boy, lead me home, so that he may launch his rage against younger men, and learn to keep a quieter tongue and a better mind within his breast than he now bears. Exit Teiresias.

CHORUS: The man is gone, my king, leaving dire prophecies behind. And for all the time that I have had this hair on my head, now white, once dark, I know that he has never been a false prophet to our city.

CREON: I, too, know it well, and my mind is troubled. To yield is terrible, but, to resist, to strike my pride with ruin—this, too, inspires terror.

CHORUS: The moment, Creon, requires that you reason wisely.

CREON: What should I do, then? Speak, and I will obey.

CHORUS: Go and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then raise a tomb for the unburied dead.

CREON: And you recommend this? You think that I should yield?

CHORUS: Yes, my king, and with all possible speed. For harms sent from the gods swiftly cut short the follies of men.

CREON: Ah, it is a struggle, but I depart from my heart’s resolve and obey. We must not wage vain wars with necessity.

CHORUS: Go, do these things and do not leave their performance to others.

CREON: Right away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of you! Take axes in your hands, and hurry to that place there in view! But since my judgment has taken this turn, I will be there to set her free, as I myself confined her. I am held by the fear that it is best to keep the established laws to life’s very end.

CHORUS: God of many names, glory of the Cadmeian bride and offspring of loud-thundering Zeus, you who watch over far-famed Italy and reign in the valleys of Eleusinian Deo where all find welcome! O Bacchus, denizen of Thebes, the mother-city of your Bacchants, dweller by the wet stream of Ismenus on the soil of the sowing of the savage dragon’s teeth!

CHORUS: The smoky glare of torches sees you above the cliffs of the twin peaks, where the Corycian nymphs move inspired by your godhead, and Castalia’s stream sees you, too. The ivy-mantled slopes of Nysa’s hills and the shore green with many-clustered vines send you, when accompanied by the cries of your divine words, you visit the avenues of Thebes.

CHORUS: Thebes of all cities you hold foremost in honor, together with your lightning-struck mother. And now when the whole city is held subject to a violent plague, come, we ask, with purifying feet over steep Parnassus, or over the groaning straits!

CHORUS: O Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus, appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver!

MESSENGER: Neighbors of the house of Cadmus and of Amphion, there is no station of human life that I would ever praise or blame as being settled. Fortune sets upright and Fortune sinks the lucky and unlucky from day to day, and no one can prophesy to men concerning the order that has just been established. For Creon, as I saw it, was once blest: he had saved this land of Cadmus from its enemies; and having won sole and total dominion in the land, he guided it on a straight course and flourished in his noble crop of children. And now all this has been lost. When a man has forfeited his pleasures, I do not reckon his existence as life, but consider him just a breathing corpse. Heap up riches in your house, if you wish! Live with a tyrant’s pomp! But if there is no joy along with all of that, I would not pay even the shadow of smoke for all the rest, compared with joy.

Part 14

CHORUS: What is this new grief for our princes that you have come to report?

MESSENGER: They are dead, and the living are guilty of the deaths.

CHORUS: Who is the murderer? Who the murdered? Tell us.

MESSENGER: Haemon is dead—his blood was shed by no strange hand.

CHORUS: Was it his father’s, or his own ?

MESSENGER: He did it by his own, enraged with his father for the murder.

CHORUS: Ah, prophet, how true, then, you have proved your word!

MESSENGER: Knowing that these things are so, you must consider the rest.

CHORUS: Wait, I see the unhappy Eurydice, Creon’s wife, nearby. She comes from the house either knowing of her son, or merely by chance.

EURYDICE: People of Thebes, I heard your words as I was on my way to the gates to address divine Pallas with my prayers. At one and the same time I was loosening the bolts of the gate to open it, and the sound of a blow to our house struck my ear. In terror I sank back into the arms of my handmaids, and my senses fled. But repeat what your news was, for I shall hear it with ears that are no strangers to sorrow.

MESSENGER: Dear mistress, I will tell what I witnessed and leave no word of the truth unspoken. For what good would it do that should I soothe you with words in which I must later be found false? The truth is always best. I attended your husband as his guide to the furthest part of the plain, where unpitied the body of Polyneices, torn by dogs, still lay. After we had prayed to the goddess of the roads and to Pluto to restrain their anger in mercy, we washed him with pure washing, and with freshly-plucked boughs we burned what remains there were. Lastly we heaped a high-mounded tomb of his native earth. Afterwards we turned away to enter the maiden’s stoney-bedded bridal chamber, the caverned mansion of Hades’ bride. From a distance, one of us servants heard a voice of loud wailing near that bride’s unwept bed and came to tell our master Creon. And as the King moved closer and closer, obscure signs rising from a bitter cry surrounded him— he groaned and said in bitter lament, Ah, misery, am I now the prophet of evil? Am I going on the path most lined with grief of all that I have walked before? My son’s voice greets me. Go, my servants, hurry closer, and when you have reached the tomb, enter the opening where the stones of the mound have been torn away, up to the cell’s very mouth. See if it is Haemon’s voice that I recognize, or if I am cheated by the gods.

This search, at our desperate master’s word, we went to make, and in the furthest part of the tomb we saw her hanging by the neck, fastened by a halter of fine linen threads, while he was embracing her with arms thrown around her waist, bewailing the loss of his bride to the spirits below, as well as his father’s deeds, and his grief-filled marriage. But his father, when he saw him, cried aloud with a dreadful cry and went in and called to him with a voice of wailing: Ah, unhappy boy, what have you done! What plan have you seized on? By what misfortune have you lost your reason? Come out, my son, I pray you, I beg you! But the boy glared at him with savage eyes, spat in his face, and without a word in response drew his twin-edged sword. As his father rushed out in flight, he missed his aim. Then the ill-fated boy was enraged with himself and straightway stretched himself over his sword and drove it, half its length, into his side. Still conscious, he clasped the maiden in his faint embrace, and, as he gasped, he shot onto her pale cheek a swift stream of oozing blood. Corpse enfolding corpse he lay, having won his marriage rites, poor boy, not here, but in Hades’ palace, and having shown to mankind by how much the failure to reason wisely is the most severe of all afflictions assigned to man. Eurydice departs into the house.

CHORUS: What would you infer from this? The lady has turned back and gone without a word, either for good or for evil.

MESSENGER: I, too, am startled. Still I am nourished by the hope that at the grave news of her son she thinks it unworthy to make her laments before the city, but in the shelter of her home will set her handmaids to mourn the house’s grief. For she is not unhabituated to discretion, that she should err.

CHORUS: I do not know. But to me, in any case, a silence too strict seems to promise trouble just as much as a fruitless abundance of weeping.

MESSENGER: I will find out whether she is not, in fact, hiding some repressed plan in the darkness of her passionate heart. I will go in, since you are right—in an excess of silence, too, there may be trouble. Exit Messenger.

CHORUS: Look, here is the King himself approaching, his hands grasping a monument plainly signing that his—if we may say it—and no one else’s, was the madness of this error.

CREON: Ah, the blunders of an unthinking mind, blunders of rigidity, yielding death! Oh, you witnesses of the killers and the killed, both of one family! What misery arises from my reasonings! Haemon, you have died after a young life, youngest and last of my sons! O God! You have departed not by your foolishness, but by my own!

CHORUS: Ah, how late you seem to see the right!

CREON: God, I have mastered the bitter lesson! But then, then, I think, some god struck me on my head with a crushing weight, and drove me into savage paths, —ah!—and overthrew my joy to be trampled on! Ah, the labors men must toil through!

Part 15

MESSENGER: My master, you have come, I think, like one whose hands are not empty, but who has a ready store: first, you carry that burden visible in your arms; second, you will soon look upon further sufferings inside your house.

CREON: What worse suffering is still to follow upon these sufferings?

MESSENGER: Your wife is dead, true mother of that corpse, poor lady, by wounds newly cut.

CREON: O harbor of Hades, hard to purify! Why, why do you ruin me? Herald of evil, of grief, what word do you say? Ah, you have done in a dead man anew! What are you saying, boy? What is this you report to me God no!—what new slaughter, my wife’s doom, is heaped upon this ruin?

CHORUS: The sight is at hand. It is no longer hidden inside.

CREON: Ah, misery! There I see a new, a second evil! What destiny, ah, what, can still await me? I have just now taken my son in my arms, and now I see another corpse before me! Oh, tormented mother! Oh, my son!

MESSENGER: By the altar, with a sharp-whetted sword, she struck until her eyes went slack and dark. Before that she bewailed the noble fate of Megareus who died earlier, and then the fate of this boy, and also, with her last breath, she called down evil fortune upon you, the slayer of her sons.

CREON: Ah, no! I tremble with fear. Why does no one strike me full on my chest with a two-edged sword? I am miserable—ah—and bathed in miserable anguish!

MESSENGER: Yes, because you were accused of responsibility for both this son’s death, and the other’s, by her whose corpse you see.

CREON: What was the manner of the violent deed by which she departed?

MESSENGER: Her own hand struck her to the heart upon learning her son’s sharply-lamented fate.

CREON: Ah this guilt can never be fastened onto any other mortal so as to remove my own! It was I, yes, I, who killed you, I the wretch. I admit the truth. Lead me away, my servants, lead me from here with all haste, who am no more than a dead man!

CHORUS: The course you recommend is to your gain, if there can be gain amidst evil. What is briefest is best, when trouble lies at your feet.

CREON: Let it come, let it appear, that fairest of fates for me, that brings my final day, the fate supreme! Oh, let it come, so that I may never see tomorrow’s light!

CHORUS: These things are in the future. We must see to present affairs. Fulfillment of these things rests in the hands where it should rest.

CREON: All that I crave was summed in that prayer.

CHORUS: Then pray no more; for mortals have no release from destined misfortune.

CREON: Lead me away, I beg you, a rash, useless man. I have murdered you, son, unwittingly, and you, too, my wife—the misery! I do not know which way I should look, or where I should seek support. All is amiss that is in my hands, and, again, a crushing fate has leapt upon my head.

CHORUS: Wisdom is provided as the chief part of happiness, and our dealings with the gods must be in no way unholy. The great words of arrogant men have to make repayment with great blows, and in old age teach wisdom.

Contents — 22 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21
22. Part 22

Part 1

PAEDAGOGUS: Son of him who once commanded our forces at Troy, son of Agamemnon!—now you may survey all that your heart has desired for so long. There is the ancient Argos of your yearning, that consecrated land from which the gad-fly drove the daughter of Inachus; there, Orestes, is the Lycean market place, named from the wolf-slaying god; there on the left is Hera’s famous temple; and in this place to which we have come, know that you see Mycenae, the rich in gold, and here the house of Pelops’ heirs, so often stained with bloodshed. Long ago from here, away from the murder of your father, I carried you for her whose blood is yours, your sister, and saved you and reared you up to manhood to be the avenger of your murdered father. Now, therefore, Orestes, and you, best of allies, Pylades, our plan of action must be quickly laid; for look, already the sun’s bright ray is stirring the birds’ songs into clarity, and the kindly darkness of the stars is spent. Before, then, anyone comes out from the house, we must make our plans, since we are at the point where it is no longer opportune to hesitate, but it is the moment for action.

ORESTES: True friend and follower, how well you prove your loyalty to our house! Just as a thoroughbred mount, even if advanced in years, does not lose courage in danger, but pricks up his ears, so you speed us forward and follow in the first ranks. I will tell you, then, what I have determined. Listen closely to my words and correct me, if I miss the mark in any way.When I went to the Pythian oracle to learn how I might avenge my father on his murderers, Phoebus gave me the commandment which you will now hear: that alone, and by stealth, without the aid of arms or large numbers, I should carry off my right hand’s just slaughters. Accordingly, since I received this divine declaration, you must go into that house there when opportunity gives you entrance, and learn all that is happening, so that you may report to us out of sure knowledge. Your age and the lapse of time will prevent them from recognizing you; they will never suspect who you are with that silvered hair. Let your story be that you are a Phocian stranger sent by Phanoteus, since he is the greatest of their allies. Tell them, and affirm it with your oath, that Orestes has perished by a fatal chance, hurled at the Pythian games from his speeding chariot. Let that be the substance of your message. Meanwhile, we will first crown my father’s tomb as the god ordered with libations and the luxuriant tribute of a severed lock; then we will return here, bearing in our hands an urn of hammered bronze —now hidden, as you no doubt know, in the brushwood—so that we may gladden them with the false tidings that this body of mine exists no more, but has been consumed with fire and reduced to ashes. How does it hurt me, when by feigned death I find true life and win renown? No word is ill-omened, I trust, if it yields gain. For often before now I have seen clever men die in false report; then, when they return home, they are held in greater honor. And so for myself I trust that as a result of this rumor I, too, shall live, shining down like a star upon my enemies.But you, O my fatherland and native gods of my soil, receive me with good fortune in this journey, and you also, house of my ancestors, since I come by divine mandate to cleanse you as justice demands. Do not dismiss me from this land in dishonor, but grant that I may rule over my possessions and restore my house!I have said enough. Go now, old one, and take care to watch over your task. The two of us will depart; for so opportunity bids, chief ruler of every enterprise for men.

ELECTRA: ah, me, ah, joyless me!

PAEDAGOGUS: Listen, my son; from the doors of the house, I think, came the sound of some serving girl moaning inside.

ORESTES: Can it be my joyless Electra? Shall we remain here and listen to her cries?

PAEDAGOGUS: No, no; before all else, let us strive to obey the commands of Loxias and from them make a fair beginning by pouring libations to your father. For such actions bring victory within our grasp and give us mastery in all our doings. Exeunt Paedagogus on the spectators left, Orestes and Pylades on the right.

ELECTRA: O you pure sunlight, and you air, light’s equal partner over earth, how often have you heard the chords of my laments and the thudding blows against this bloodied breast at the time of gloomy night’s leaving off! My accursed bed in that house of suffering there knows well already how I observe my night-long rites—how often I bewail my miserable father, whom bloody Ares did not welcome with deadly gifts in a foreign land, but my mother and her bedfellow Aegisthus split his head with murderous axe, just as woodmen chop an oak. And for this crime no pitying cry bursts from any lips but mine, when you, Father, have died a death so cruel and so deserving of pity!

But never will I end from cries and bitter lamentation, while I look on the stars’ glistening flashes or on this light of day. No, like the nightingale, slayer of her offspring, I will wail without ceasing, and cry aloud to all here at the doors of my father. O House of Hades and Persephone! O Hermes of the shades! O potent Curse, and you fearsome daughters of the gods, the Erinyes, who take note when a life is unjustly taken, when a marriage-bed is thievishly dishonored, come, help me, bring vengeance for the murder of my father and send me my brother. I no longer have the strength to hold up alone against the load of grief that crushes me.

CHORUS: Ah, Electra, child of a most wretched mother, why are you always wasting away in this unsated mourning for Agamemnon, who long ago was godlessly ensnared in your false mother’s wiles and betrayed by her corrupt hand? May the one who did that perish, if I may speak such a curse without breaking the gods’ laws.

ELECTRA: Ah, noble-hearted girls, you have come to relieve me in my troubles. I know and feel it: it does not escape me. Still I cannot leave this task undone, nor abandon this mourning for my poor father. Ah, friends whose love responds to mine in every mood, allow me to rave as I am, oh, please, I beg you!

CHORUS: But never by weeping nor by prayer will you resurrect your father from the pool of Hades which receives all men. No, by grieving without end and beyond due limits you will find cureless misery and your own ruin; in these actions there is no deliverance from evils. Tell us, why do you pursue such suffering?

ELECTRA: Foolish is the child who forgets a parent’s piteous death. No, closer to my heart is the mourner who eternally wails, Itys, Itys, that bird mad with grief, the messenger of Zeus. Ah, all-suffering Niobe, you I count divine, since you weep forever in your rocky tomb!

CHORUS: Not to you alone of mortals, my daughter, has sorrow come, though you face it with less restraint than those girls inside, Chrysothemis and Iphianassa, whose parents and blood you share. They still live, as he, too, lives, sorrowing in his secluded youth, yet happy in that this famous realm of the Mycenaeans shall one day receive him as a noble lord, if with the blessing of Zeus’s escort he, Orestes, returns to this land.

ELECTRA: Yes, I await him with unwearied longing, as I walk my sad path from day to day childless and unwed, bathed in tears, bearing that endless doom of evils. But he forgets all that he has suffered and learned. What message comes to me that is not proven false? He constantly desires to be with us, but though he desires it, he does not choose to appear.

CHORUS: Courage, my daughter, courage; Zeus in the sky is still mighty, and he sees and rules all. Leave your oversharp anger to him; be neither excessively hostile to those you hate, nor forgetful of them, since Time is a god who brings ease. Neither the son of Agamemnon, who dwells by Crisa’s cattle-feeding shore nor the god who reigns beside Acheron is unmindful of you.

ELECTRA: But the best part of life has passed away leaving me in hopelessness, and I have no strength left. I waste away without children and have no loving husband to champion me, but like some despised foreign slave, I serve in the halls of my father, wrapped in shabby garments and standing to eat scanty meals.

CHORUS: Mournful was the voice heard at his return, and mournful the voice amidst your father’s reclining banquet when the straight, swift blow of the bronze-jawed axe was sped against him. Deceit was the plotter, Lust the slayer, two dread parents of a dreadful phantom, whether it was god or mortal that did this deed.

ELECTRA: O that hated day, hated beyond all that have come to me; O that night, the terrible grief of that unutterable feast, the shameless death-strokes my father saw from their twin hands, hands which took my life captive by treachery, which cast me to ruin! May the great god of Olympus create for them sufferings in penalty, and may they never have enjoyment of their splendor since they have committed such crimes!

CHORUS: Be advised to say no more; do you not see by what actions under the present circumstances you plunge so shamefully into self-made miseries? You have far excelled in achieving misfortune, ever breeding wars in your hardhearted soul. But such strife should not be pushed into a conflict with the powerful.

ELECTRA: I have been forced to it, forced by a terrible compulsion. I know my own passion; it does not escape me; but, under such terrible compulsion, I will not restrain these disastrous cries of frenzy, so long as life is in me. Who indeed, my noble friends, who that keeps what is appropriate in mind, would think any word of comfort right for my ears? Let me be, let me be, my comforters! For these ills will be reckoned with those which have no cure; I will never know a respite from my pains, or the sum of this wailing.

Part 2

CHORUS: It is nevertheless with goodwill, like a true-hearted mother, that I dissuade you from begetting misery upon miseries.

ELECTRA: But what limit has nature begot for my affliction? Tell me, how can it be right to neglect the dead? Has such a seed been sown in any mortal? May I never have such men’s esteem; never, when I am close to prosperity, may I dwell in ease, hindering the wings of shrill lamentation so as to deprive my begetter of his honors!For if the dead is to lie a wretch, merely dust and nothingness, while his slayers do not pay back to him blood for blood in penalty, then shame and reverence will vanish from all humanity.

CHORUS: I came, my child, mindful of your interests no less than my own. But if what I say is wrong, let your way prevail; for united we will follow you.

ELECTRA: I am ashamed, my friends, if you judge me too intolerant with my many laments; but, since rough compulsion forces me to act this way, forgive me. How indeed could any woman of noble nature not act, when she sees her father’s sufferings as I see them day and night continually, and flourishing rather than fading? First, everything to do with the mother who bore me has become most hateful towards me; next, in my own home I live with my father’s murderers; they rule over me and from them equally I either have or do without.And then think what manner of days I pass, when I see Aegisthus sitting on my father’s throne; when I look on him wearing the very robes which my father wore and pouring libations at the hearth where he killed him; and when I see the chief outrage of them all, the murderer in my father’s bed at my wretched mother’s side, if I must call her mother, even though she shares her bed with that man. So hardened is she that she joins with this polluter, fearing no Erinys. No, as if laughing at her deeds, having found the day on which in the past she treacherously killed my father, she celebrates it with dance and song, and in monthly rites she sacrifices sheep to the gods who worked her deliverance.

But I, as I joylessly witness it, cry out, waste away in the house and bewail the unholy feast named after my father, in solitary weeping. For I cannot even grieve to the full extent which would please my heart, since this lady, who is in fact no lady, loudly reproaches me with such shameless taunts as these: Wicked and hateful girl, have you alone lost your father,and is no one else in the world grieving? May your death be harsh, and may the gods below never free you from your current mourning. Just so she abuses me, except when she gets word that Orestes is coming. Then, infuriated, she comes up to me and cries;—Have you not brought this upon me? Is this not your doing, since you stole Orestes from my hands and secretly sent him away? Yes—but rest assured that you will be justly punished. Like this she barks, and in agreement her glorious bridegroom by her side urges her on—that total impotent, that utter plague who fights his battles with the help of women. But my heart is broken by my suffering as I constantly wait for Orestes to come and end these troubles. For the perpetual imminence of his actions has eradicated every hope that I could conceive. In such a state of affairs, then, friends, there is no room for self-restraint or for reverence. Rather, in these dire straits there is much need to pursue a dire course.

CHORUS: Tell me, is Aegisthus nearby as you speak these words to us, or has he left the house?

ELECTRA: He is gone, to be sure. Do not think that I would have come to the doors, if he were nearby. He happens now to be in the country.

CHORUS: Might I converse with you more boldly, if this is so?

ELECTRA: He is not here, so question me. What is it you want?

CHORUS: I ask you, then, what report can you give of your brother? Will he come soon, or is he delaying? I wish to know.

ELECTRA: He says he will come, but although he promises he never does what he says.

CHORUS: True, a man will hesitate on the verge of a great undertaking.

ELECTRA: And yet I saved him with no hesitation.

CHORUS: Take heart: he is noble enough to stand by his friends.

ELECTRA: I believe it; otherwise I would not have remained alive so long.

CHORUS: Say no more now, since I see your sister coming from the house, Chrysothemis, offspring of the same father and mother. In her hands are sepulchral offerings, such as are customary for those in the world below.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: What is this speech of yours, sister, which you have come forth yet again to speak at the public doors? Will you not learn with any lapse of time to end your vain indulgence in futile anger? Yet this much I know—that I myself am saddened by our present circumstances; indeed so much so that, could I find the strength, I would bare my feelings towards them. But now, in these evil times I think it best to navigate with shortened sail so that I may not seem to be on the attack, when I am unable to cause harm. I wish that your own conduct were the same! Nevertheless, right is on the side which you favor, not on that which I advise. But if I am to live the life of the freeborn, those in power must be obeyed in all things.

ELECTRA: It is strange, indeed, that you, the daughter of our father from whom you grew, should forget him and instead show concern for your mother! All your admonitions to me have been taught by her; you speak no word of your own. So now take your choice: be imprudent, or be prudent, but forgetful of your friends. You have just said that if could you find the strength, you would show your hatred of them; yet, when I am doing my utmost to avenge our father, you do not work with me, but seek to deflect your sister from her deed.Does this not add cowardice to our miseries? Therefore instruct me, or rather learn from me what gain there might be for me if I ended my lamentation. Am I not now alive? Miserably so, I know, but well enough for me. And I hurt them, and thereby affix an honorable tribute to the dead, in case those in that world can enjoy it and feel gratitude. But you, who tell me of your hatred, hate in word alone, while by your behavior you unite with the murderers of our father. I, however, would never yield to them, not even if one of them were to bring to me the gifts in which you now glory. Let yours be the richly-spread table and superabundant lifestyle. As for me, let my sustenance be only that I do not wound my own conscience—I do not covet such privilege as yours and neither would you, if you had self-control. But now, when you could be called the child of the noblest father among men, be called instead your mother’s daughter, for in this way your corruptness will be evident to the greatest number as you betray your dead father and your true friends.

CHORUS: Away with anger, for the gods’ sake! There is advantage for both of you in what is urged, if you, Electra, would learn to implement her advice, and she, again, yours.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: For my part, friends, I am not at all unaccustomed to her insults, nor would I have mentioned this, if I had not heard that the greatest disaster is now rushing down on her, one which will restrain her from her long mourning.

Part 3

ELECTRA: Come then, name this terror! If you can tell me of anything worse than my present condition, I would resist no more.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I will tell you all that I know. If you will not cease from your mourning, they intend to send you where you will never look upon the sun’s brilliance, but passing your life in a covered chamber beyond this land’s borders you will make hymns of your calamity. Think on this, and do not blame me later, when you suffer. Now is the time to think wisely.

ELECTRA: Have they in fact decided to do this to me?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: They certainly have, as soon as Aegisthus comes home.

ELECTRA: Then for this, may he arrive quickly!

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Troubled girl, what curse are you laying on yourself?

ELECTRA: That he may come, if he plans to do any of what you said.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: So that you may suffer? In what way? Where are your wits?

ELECTRA: So that I may fly as far as possible from you all.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Have you no care for the life you lead now?

ELECTRA: oh, yes, my life is so wondrously fine.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: It would be, if only you learned good sense.

ELECTRA: Do not teach me to betray my friends.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I do not, but to bend before the strong.

ELECTRA: Keep your flattery to yourself; it is not in my character.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Regardless, it brings no honor to fall through senselessness.

ELECTRA: I will fall, if need be, while honoring my father.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: But our father, I know, pardons me for this.

ELECTRA: It is for cowards to commend such sentiments.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: So you will not be persuaded to agree with me?

Part 4

ELECTRA: No, indeed; may I not yet be so devoid of intelligence.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Then I will move on to where I was sent.

ELECTRA: And where is it that you go? For whom do you take these offerings to be burned?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Mother sends me with funeral libations for our father.

ELECTRA: What are you saying? For her deadliest enemy?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Whom she herself killed, no doubt you wanted to say this as well.

ELECTRA: What friend persuaded her? Whose idea was it?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: The cause, I think, was fear induced by some vision in the night.

ELECTRA: My father’s Gods! Stand with me now at last!

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Do you find something heartening in this terror?

ELECTRA: If you would tell me the vision, then I could answer.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I know no more than a small part of the story.

ELECTRA: Tell me that, anyway; a small tale has often before now tripped men up, or set them upright.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: It is said that she saw the father of you and of me restored to the sunlight and to her company once more. Then he took the scepter— once his own, but now carried by Aegisthus—and planted it at the hearth. From it branched upward a flourishing limb, by which the whole land of the Mycenaeans was overshadowed. Such was the tale that I heard told by one who was present when she revealed her dream to the Sun-god. More than this I do not know, except that she sent me by reason of this fear of hers. Now, I beg you by our ancestral gods, obey me, and do not fall in your senselessness! If you reject me now, it is in misery that you will next seek me out.

ELECTRA: Dear sister, let none of these offerings in your hands touch the tomb. For neither divine law nor piety allows you to dedicate funeral gifts or bring libations to our father from his hateful wife. No! To the winds with them! Or cover them in a deep, dusty hole, where not one of them will ever come near our father’s resting place. Rather let these treasures be preserved for her below when she dies. Were she not by nature the most audacious of all women, she would never at all have tried to pour these ill-willed offerings to the man she killed. Consider whether you believe that the dead in his tomb will welcome this tribute with affection towards her, by whose hand he died dishonored and was mutilated like an enemy? She, who, as if to wash herself clean, wiped off the bloodstains on his head? Surely you do not believe that your bringing these things will absolve her of the murder?It is not possible. No, be rid of them. Give him instead a lock of your hair’s ends, cut from your own head, and from wretched me, too, give these gifts, poor as they are, though all I have. Take this hair, not glossy with unguents, and this girdle, decked with no rich ornament. Then fall down and pray that he himself may come in kindness to us from the world below, a helper against our enemies; and that young Orestes may live to set his foot upon our enemies in superior might, so that hereafter we may crown our father’s tomb with wealthier hands than those with which we honor him now.I think, yes, I think that he too had some part in sending her these appalling dreams. Still, sister, do yourself this service and help me, and him, too, that most beloved of all men, who rests in Hades’ domain, our shared father.

CHORUS: The girl’s advice is pious; you, dear friend, will do what she says, if you are wise.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I will. In regard to a just deed, it is unreasonable for two people to argue, but reasonable to jump to action. But, by the gods, my friends, when I attempt this task, let me have your silence, since if my mother hears of it, I believe that this attempt which I will dare shall in the end cause me bitterness. Exit Chrysothemis on the spectators’ right.

CHORUS: If I am not a deranged prophet and one who lacks wise judgments, Justice, the sender of the omen, will come, winning the just victory of her hands’ might. She will come in pursuit before long, my child. Courage is mine, since I heard just now of this sweet-blowing dream. Never does the lord of the Hellenes, your producer forget, nor does the axe of long ago forget, striking with bronze on its jaws, which in most shameless disgrace annihilated him.

CHORUS: She, too, will come, she of many hands and many feet who lurks in her terrible ambush, the bronze-shod Erinys. For an unwed, unbetrothed passion for a marriage polluted by murder seized the pair, though divine law forbade it to them. Therefore I am confident that the portent—a wonder which I will never blame—will draw near to the criminals and conspirators. To be sure, mortal prophecy from fearful dreams or divine signs exists no more, if this vision of the night does not find due fulfillment.

CHORUS: O chariot-race of Pelops long ago, source of many a sorrow, what disaster you have brought upon this land! For ever since Myrtilus sank to rest beneath the waves, hurled to utter destruction from his golden chariot in disgraceful outrage, from that time to this, outrage and its many sorrows were never yet gone from this house.

Part 5

CLYTAEMNESTRA: You run loose again, it seems, since Aegisthus is not here, who used always to keep you at least from coming out to the gates and shaming your family. But now, since he is absent, you pay me no mind. And yet you have said of me often and to many listeners that I am a rash and unjust tyrant, who violently abuse you and yours. But it is not I who do violence; I only return the insults that I so often hear from you. Your father—this and nothing else is your constant pretext—was slain by me. Yes, by me. I know it well. I make no denial. Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind. For this father of yours whom you constantly bewail alone of all the Greeks had the heart to sacrifice your own blood, your sister, to the gods—he, who, when sowing his seed, felt none of the pains I did when I gave birth.Come, tell me now, why, or to please whom, did he sacrifice her? To please the Argives, you will say? No, they had no right to kill my daughter. Or, if indeed it was for the sake of his brother Menelaus that he killed my child, was he not to pay me the penalty for that? Did Menelaus not have two children, who should in fairness have died instead of my daughter, since the father and mother from whom they were sprung had caused that voyage? Did Hades have some greater desire to feast on my offspring than on hers? Or had all love of the children of my womb been abandoned by their accursed father, while love for the children of Menelaus filled him? Were these not the marks of a thoughtless and malicious parent? I think so, even if I differ from your judgment. So, too, would the dead girl speak, if she could find a voice. For myself, then, I view the past without dismay; but if you think my attitude criminal, see that your own judgment is just before you blame your neighbor.

ELECTRA: This time, at least, you cannot say that I first gave you cause for upset and thereby provoked such words from you. But, if you will permit me, I would gladly declare the truth, on behalf of my dead father and my sister alike.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Certainly I permit you; and if you always addressed me in such a tone, you would not be difficult to listen to.

ELECTRA: Then I will speak. You admit that you killed my father. What statement could be more shameful still than that, whether you did it justly or not? But I will demonstrate to you that you did not justly kill him. No, the persuasion of that wicked man with whom you now sleep dragged you to it.Ask the huntress Artemis what wrong she punished when she stayed the frequent winds at Aulis; or I will tell you, since we may not learn from her. My father, as I have heard, was once hunting in the grove of the goddess, when his footfall flushed a dappled and antlered stag; he shot it, and chanced to make a certain boast concerning its slaughter. Angered by this, Leto’s daughter detained the Greeks so that in requital for the beast’s life my father should sacrifice his own daughter. So it was that she was sacrificed, since the fleet had no other release, neither homeward nor to Troy. For that reason, under fierce constraint and with much resistance, at last he sacrificed her—but it was not for the sake of Menelaus.But suppose—for I will make your own plea—suppose that the motive of his deed was to benefit his brother. Should you have killed him because of that? Under what sort of law? See that by laying down such a law for men, you do not lay down trouble and remorse for yourself. For, if we are to take blood for blood, you surely would be the first to die, if you were to meet with justice.But consider whether this pretext is any excuse at all. For tell me, if you please, what crime it is that you requite by doing the most shameless deeds of all: sharing your bed with that blood-guilty one, with whom you first destroyed my father and now bear his children while you have cast out the earlier born, the pious offspring of a pious marriage? How can I commend these deeds? Or will you claim that this, too, is recompense for your daughter? No, it is a shameful plea, if you so plead, for there is nothing noble in marrying an enemy for a daughter’s sake. But no, I can hardly even admonish you, when your every cry is that I slander my mother. I think, rather, that you are no less a mistress to me than a mother; so lowly is the life that I live, ever beset with miseries come from you and your consort. And your other child, the exile who scarcely escaped your hand, poor Orestes, wastes away his unhappy life. You have often accused me of rearing him to punish your crime, and I would have done so, if I could, you may be sure. As far as he is concerned, you can denounce me to all as disloyal, if you like, or loud-mouthed, or impudent. For if my nature is familiar with such wrongdoings, I hardly bring disgrace upon your nature.

CHORUS: I see her breathing fury; but whether justice is with her, her concern for this I see no longer.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: And what manner of concern should I use against her, who has abused her mother like this at her mature age? Do you not think that she would go forward to any deed without shame?

ELECTRA: Now be assured that I do feel shame for it, though I seem not to you. I know that my behavior is unsuited to my age and inappropriate. But then the enmity I get from you and your behavior compel me with harsh necessity to do this; for reprehensible deeds are learned from reprehensible examples.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: You shameless creature! Truly I and my speech and my deeds give you too much to talk about.

ELECTRA: The words are yours, not mine; for yours are the deeds, and they find their own expression.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Now by our mistress Artemis, you shall not escape the consequences of this audacity once Aegisthus returns.

ELECTRA: You see? You are driven to rage and, even though you grant me free speech, you have no patience to listen.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Will you not allow me to sacrifice without ominous shouting, when I have permitted you to say anything and everything you wished?

ELECTRA: I allow it; I exhort you to it: sacrifice! But do not blame my voice, for I would not say another word.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Raise then, my attendant, the offerings of many fruits, so that I may uplift my prayers for release from my present fears to this image of our King. Please, O Phoebus our defender, may you now listen to my prayer, though it is muffled; for I do not make my plea among friends, nor does it suit me to unfold it all to the light while she stands near me, lest by her malice and a cry of her clamorous tongue she sow reckless rumors through the whole city. Nevertheless, hear me thus, since in this way I will speak. That vision which I saw last night in ambiguous dreams—if its appearance was to my good, grant, Lycean king, that it be fulfilled; but if to my harm, then hurl it back upon those who would harm me. And if any are plotting to eject me by treachery from my present prosperity, do not permit them. Rather grant that living forever unharmed as I am I may govern the house of the sons of Atreus and their throne, sharing prosperous days with the friends who share them now, and with those of my children who feel no enmity or bitterness towards me. O Lycean Apollo, hear these prayers with favor, and grant them to us all just as we ask! As for all my other prayers, though I am silent, I judge that you, a god, must know them, since it is appropriate that Zeus’s children see all.

PAEDAGOGUS: Foreign ladies, how might I know for certain if this be the palace of the king Aegisthus?

CHORUS: This is the palace, stranger; you yourself have guessed correctly.

PAEDAGOGUS: And am I on target when I surmise that this lady is his wife? She is indeed regal to look upon.

CHORUS: Exactly right; this is she before you.

PAEDAGOGUS: Greetings, royal lady! I bring happy news to you and to Aegisthus from a friend.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: I welcome your greeting; but I would like first to know who may have sent you.

Part 6

PAEDAGOGUS: Phanoteus the Phocian provided me the weighty task.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: And what is it, sir? Tell me. Coming from a friend you will bring, I know, a kindly message.

PAEDAGOGUS: Orestes is dead, to put it briefly.

ELECTRA: Oh, miserable me! My ruin comes today!

CLYTAEMNESTRA: What, friend? What did you say? Do not listen to her!

PAEDAGOGUS: I said, and say again, Orestes is dead.

ELECTRA: This is my wretched end! I am no more!

CLYTAEMNESTRA: You, go about your business! But you, sir, tell me exactly in what manner he was destroyed.

PAEDAGOGUS: I was sent for that purpose, and will tell you all. Having gone to the shrine which is Greece’s common glory in order to compete for Delphi’s prizes and having heard the herald’s loud summons to the foot-race, the first contest, he entered the lists, a brilliant form, a wonder in the eyes of all there. When he had finished the race at the point where it began, he went out with the glorious honor of victory. To say the most with the least words, I do not know the man whose deeds and triumphs have matched his. But this one thing you must know: in all the contests that the judges announced, he carried away the prize, and men deemed him happy as often as the herald proclaimed him an Argive, by name Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who once marshalled Greece’s famous expedition.So far Orestes fared as I described. But when a god sends harm, not even the strong man can escape. For on another day, when with the rising sun there was held the race of the swift-footed horses, he entered it along with many charioteers. One was an Achaean, one from Sparta; two masters of yoked cars were Libyans; Orestes, driving Thessalian mares, came fifth among them; the sixth was from Aetolia, with chestnut colts; a Magnesian was the seventh; the eighth, with white horses, was of Aenian stock; the ninth hailed from Athens, built of gods; there was a Boeotian too, making the tenth chariot. They took their stations where the appointed umpires placed them by lot and ranged the cars. Then at the sound of the bronze trumpet, they started. All shouted to their horses, and shook the reins in their hands; the whole course was filled with the clatter of rattling chariots; and the dust flew upward. All of them in a confused throng kept plying their goads unsparingly, so that one of them might pass the wheel-hubs and the snorting steeds of his rivals; for both at their backs and at their rolling wheels the breath of the horses foamed and smattered. Orestes, driving close to the near edge of the turning-post, almost grazed it with his wheel each time and, giving rein to the trace-horse on the right, he checked the horse on the inner side. To this point, all the chariots still stood upright. But then the Aenian’s hard-mouthed colts carried him out of control as they passed out of the turn from the sixth into the seventh lap and dashed their foreheads against the rig of the Barcaean. Next, as a result of this one mishap, the cars kept smashing and colliding with each other, and the whole race-ground of Crisa swelled with shipwrecked chariots.

Seeing this, the clever charioteer from Athens drew aside and paused, allowing the equestrian flood to pass in mid-crest. Orestes was driving last, keeping his horses behind, as his trust was in the race’s end. But when he sees that the Athenian is alone left in, he sends a shrill cry ringing through the ears of his swift colts, and gives chase. Bringing yoke level with yoke the two of them raced, first one man, then the other, showing his head in front of the other’s chariot. Up to now the ill-fated Orestes had driven upright safely through every circuit, upright in his upright car. But then he slackened his left rein while the horse was turning and unwittingly struck the edge of the pillar, breaking the axle-box in two. He spilled forward over the chariot-rail and was caught in the trim reins, and as he fell to the ground, his colts were scattered into the middle of the course.But when the crowd saw that he had fallen from the chariot, a cry of pity went up for the young man who had done such deeds and was allotted such bad fortune—now dashed against the earth, now tossed with his feet to the sky until the charioteers with difficulty reigned in the gallop of his horses and freed him, so covered with blood that no friend who saw it would have known the pitiful corpse. Immediately they burned him on a pyre, and chosen men of Phocis now bring the sad dust of that mighty form in a small urn of bronze, so that he may find due burial in his fatherland.Such is my story—it is grievous even to hear, but for us witnesses who looked on, it was the greatest of sorrows that these eyes have seen.

CHORUS: Oh, sorrow! It seems now that all the stock of our ancient masters has been leveled clean down to the roots.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: O Zeus, how shall I name this news—fortunate? Or terrible, but beneficial? It is a bitter thing, when by my own misery I preserve my life.

PAEDAGOGUS: Why are you so despondent, lady, at my news?

CLYTAEMNESTRA: There is a terrible power in motherhood; a mother may be wronged, but she can feel no hate for those whom she bore.

PAEDAGOGUS: Then it seems that we have come in vain.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: No, not in vain; how can you say in vain when you have brought me sure proofs of his death? He sprang from my own life, yet deserting my breast and my nurture he became a fugitive, completely alien from me. And me, once he left this land, he saw no more; but, charging me with the murder of his father, he made terrible threats, so that neither by night nor by day could sweet sleep cover me, but the imminent moment made me live always as if I were about to die. Now, however, since today I am rid of terror of him and of this girl—that greater plague who shared my home while consuming undiluted my life-blood—now, I think, for all her threats, I shall pass my days in peace.

ELECTRA: Ah, what misery! Now, indeed, Orestes, I must mourn your misfortune, since even dead as you are you are abused by this woman, your mother! Is it not just fine?

CLYTAEMNESTRA: You certainly are not, but he is fine as he is.

ELECTRA: Listen to her, Nemesis of the recently departed!

CLYTAEMNESTRA: She has heard who should be heard, and has ordained well.

Part 7

ELECTRA: Abuse us! Fortune is with you today.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: You and Orestes will not stop me, then, will you?

ELECTRA: It is we who are stopped; we cannot stop you.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Your coming, sir, deserves large recompense, if you have stopped her clamorous tongue.

PAEDAGOGUS: Then I would take my leave, if all is well.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Not so; your welcome would then be unworthy of me, and of my ally who sent you. No, come in. Leave her out here to shout out loud her misfortunes and those of her friends. Clytaemnestra and the Paedagogus enter the house.

ELECTRA: What do you think? Does it seem to you that she, poor woman, wept and wailed terribly, like a grieving, anguished woman, over her son thus destroyed? No, she left us with a laugh! Ah, miserable me! Dearest Orestes, how your death has destroyed me! For your passing has torn from my heart the only hopes which still were mine: that you would live to return some day as the avenger of our father, and also of me in my misery. But now, where shall I turn? I am alone, cheated of you, as of my father. Hereafter I must be a slave again among those I most hate, my father’s murderers. Am I not in a fine way? But at least in the time remaining me I will never enter the house to dwell with them. No, lying down at these gates, without a friend, I shall wither away my days. Therefore, if anyone in the house be angry, let him kill me. It is a favor, if I die, but a pain, if I live. I desire life no more.

CHORUS: Where are the thunderbolts of Zeus, or where the shining Sun, if they look upon these things and quietly cover them over?

ELECTRA: Ah, me, ah, me!

CHORUS: My child, why do you weep?

ELECTRA: Oh!

CHORUS: Give no cry of bad omen!

ELECTRA: You will break my heart!

CHORUS: How do you mean?

ELECTRA: If you suggest that I keep hope for those who have surely passed to Hades, you will trample even harder upon me as I waste away.

CHORUS: No, for I know that the prince Amphiaraus was ensnared by a woman’s chain of gold and swallowed up. And now beneath the earth—

ELECTRA: ah, me, ah, me!

CHORUS: —He reigns supreme with the wits of the living.

ELECTRA: ah, me!

CHORUS: ah, me, indeed! For the murderess—

Part 8

ELECTRA: Was slain.

CHORUS: Yes.

ELECTRA: I know it; I know it. For a champion arose to avenge the grieving dead. But for me no champion remains: he who yet remained has been snatched clean away.

CHORUS: Unhappy are you, unhappy your destiny!

ELECTRA: How well I know that, all too well, with my life swept through all the months by abundant terrors and horrors!

CHORUS: We have witnessed the events for which you mourn.

ELECTRA: Cease, then, to divert me from it, since no longer—

CHORUS: What do you say?

ELECTRA: —Since I no longer have hope in my brother, the seed of our shared noble line, to aid me.

CHORUS: Nature ordains death as the destiny of all mortals.

ELECTRA: What, a death like the one which that ill-fated one died beneath a race of swift hooves, entangled in the cutting, dragging reins?

CHORUS: The mutilation is beyond thought!

ELECTRA: Yes, so it is, when in foreign soil, without being tended by my hands—

CHORUS: Ah, no!

ELECTRA: —he has been buried not receiving from me either burial or lamentation.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I am pursued by joy, dear sister, and I disregard seemliness in order to come with speed. I bring joyful news to relieve your former troubles and grief.

ELECTRA: And from where could you find help for my sufferings, when no cure for them can be imagined?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Orestes is with us—know this from my lips—plainly visible, just as you see me now.

ELECTRA: What, are you insane, poor girl? Do you laugh at my sorrows and your own?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: No, by our father’s hearth, I do not speak in mockery. I tell you that he truly is with us.

Part 9

ELECTRA: Ah, miserable girl! And from whom on earth have you heard this tale, which you believe so lightly?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I have it on my own knowledge, no one else’s; I have seen clear proofs.

ELECTRA: What have you seen, poor girl, to warrant your belief? What did you see, that you are warmed by this unquenchable fire?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Now, for the gods’ love, listen, so that you may know the rest from me before deciding whether I am sane or foolish.

ELECTRA: Speak on, then, if you find pleasure in speaking.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Well, I will tell you all that I have seen. When I came to Father’s ancestral tomb, I saw that streams of milk had recently flowed from the top of the mound and that his sepulchre was encircled with garlands of all flowers that grow. I was astonished at the sight, and peered about lest somehow someone should approach close to me. But when I perceived that all the place was in stillness, I crept nearer to the tomb, and on the mound’s edge I saw a lock of hair, freshly severed.And the very moment I see it—ah me!—a familiar image rushes into my mind, and I feel that I am looking at a token of him whom I most love, Orestes. Then I lift it in my hands and make no sound of bad omen, but the tears of joy straightaway fill my eyes. Even now I know well, just as I knew then, that this fair tribute has come from no one but him. Whom else does that tomb concern, save me and you? And I did not make those offerings, I know, nor did you. How could you, when you cannot leave this house even to worship the gods without later regretting it? Nor, again, does our mother’s heart incline to do such deeds, nor could she have done so without our knowledge. No, these offerings are from Orestes! Come, dear sister, have courage! Not always does the same fortune, it is true, attend the same individuals. Ours was once to be despised, but today, perhaps, will seal the promise of much good.

ELECTRA: Oh, what foolishness! How I have been pitying you!

CHRYSOTHEMIS: What, is my news unpleasing to you?

ELECTRA: You do not know where on earth or into what dreams you wander.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: How could I not know what I have plainly seen?

ELECTRA: He is dead, poor girl, and your salvation by him is gone. Do not look to him.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Ah, miserable me! From whom have you heard this?

ELECTRA: From the man who was present when he perished.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: And where is he? Amazement steals over my mind.

ELECTRA: He is inside, a welcome guest, not unpleasing to our mother.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Ah, misery! Who, then, can have made those ample offerings to my father’s tomb?

ELECTRA: Most likely, I think, someone placed those gifts in memory of the dead Orestes.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Oh, my misfortune! And I was hurrying here with such joyous nows, ignorant after all of our downfall. But now that I have arrived, I find fresh sorrows added to the old!

ELECTRA: So it stands with you. Yet if you will be persuaded by me, you will lighten the load of our present trouble.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: How can I ever raise the dead back to life?

Part 10

ELECTRA: That is not what I meant; I was not born so foolish.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: What do you urge, then, of those things that I am capable of doing?

ELECTRA: That you be brave in executing what I recommend.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: If any good can be done, I will not refuse.

ELECTRA: Remember, nothing succeeds without toil.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I know it, and I will share your burden with all my power.

ELECTRA: Hear, then, in what way I have decided to take action. As for the support of friends, you yourself doubtless know that we have none. Hades has taken our friends away, and we two are left alone. I, so long as I heard that my brother still lived and prospered, had hopes that he would yet come to avenge the murder of our father. But now that he is no more, I look next to you and ask that you not flinch from aiding me, your sister, to slay our father’s murderer, Aegisthus. There—I can have no secrets from you anymore.How long will you wait in indifference? What hope is left standing, to which your eyes can turn? Now you are right to complain that you are robbed of possession of your father’s estate; now you may mourn that you have advanced this far in years without wedded love or bridal song. And do not cling to hopes that you will ever meet with such joys. The man, Aegisthus, is not so unthinking as ever to permit that offspring should shoot up from you or from me either to be a certain bane for himself. But if you will follow my plans, first you will win praise for piety from our dead father below, and from our brother, too; next, you shall be called hereafter free, just as you were born, and shall find a worthy marriage. For noble natures draw the gaze of all.Then do you not see what fair fame you will procure for yourself and for me, by obeying me? What citizen or stranger when he sees us will not greet us with praises such as these: Behold these two sisters, my friends! They saved their father’s house, and at a time when their foes were firmly established, they took their lives in their hands and administered bloodshed! Worthy of love is this pair, worthy of reverence from all. At festivals, and wherever the citizenry is assembled, let these two be honored by all men for their manly courage. Thus will every one speak of us, so that in life and in death our glory shall not fail.Come, dear sister, be persuaded! Toil with our father, share the burden of your brother, put an end to my troubles and an end to yours, keeping in mind that a shameful life brings shame upon the noble-born.

CHORUS: In a crisis such as this, forethought is an ally both to those who speak and those who listen.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Yes, I agree. And before she spoke, my friends, if she were blessed with a sound mind, she would have remembered caution, even as she does not now. Where can you have turned your eyes, that you arm yourself with such rashness and call me to serve beneath you? Do you not see? Your nature is a woman’s, not a man’s, and the strength of your hand is less than that of your adversaries. And their fortune prospers day by day, while ours ebbs and comes to nothing. Who, then, plotting to subdue such a man, would escape destruction unharmed? See to it that, badly as we fare now, we do not acquire greater evil, if any one hears this talk of yours. It brings us no relief or benefit, if after winning fair fame we die an ignominious death. For death is not the most odious thing; it is rather craving death, but lacking the means to die. No, I plead with you, before we are utterly, totally destroyed and before we leave our house desolate, restrain your rage! I will take care that your words remain secret and harmless for you. You in turn must get hold of good sense at long last and yield to the powerful since you have no strength.

CHORUS: Listen to her. There is no better gain for mortals to win than foresight and a prudent mind.

ELECTRA: You have said nothing unexpected. Well I knew that you would reject what I proposed. But the deed must be done with my own hand, by me and me alone. I certainly will not leave it unaccomplished.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Ah! If only you had had such resolve on the day of our father’s death! Then you would have accomplished everything!

ELECTRA: My nature was the same then, but my mind was less ripe.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Strive to keep your mind that way through all your life.

ELECTRA: You make these admonitions like one who will not assist me.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I will not, for he who sets hand to the deed is likely also to suffer disaster.

ELECTRA: I admire you for your prudence. For your cowardice I hate you.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: I will listen no less calmly when you praise me.

ELECTRA: Never fear to suffer that from me, at least.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: There is time enough in the future to decide that.

Part 11

ELECTRA: Leave! You have no power to help.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: No, I have it, but you lack the ability to listen and learn.

ELECTRA: Go, reveal everything to your mother!

CHRYSOTHEMIS: But, again, I do not hate you with so great a hate.

ELECTRA: Yet know at least to what dishonor you drive me.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Dishonor, no! It is forethought for you.

ELECTRA: Am I bound, then, to follow your rule of right?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Yes, for when you are sensible, then at that time you shall lead the both of us.

ELECTRA: How terrible it is that one who speaks so well should be so wrong!

CHRYSOTHEMIS: You have well described the fault to which you devotedly cling.

ELECTRA: What? Do you think that my words are not the words of Justice?

CHRYSOTHEMIS: But sometimes even Justice herself causes harm.

ELECTRA: I do not care to live where that attitude is lawful.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Well, if you must do this, you will commend me yet.

ELECTRA: And do it I will, not a bit disturbed by you.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Is this true? You will not reconsider your plan?

ELECTRA: No, for no enemy is more damaging than bad advice.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: You seem to agree with nothing that I say.

ELECTRA: My resolve is not new, but long since fixed.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Then I will go. You cannot be brought to approve my words, nor I your conduct.

Part 12

ELECTRA: No, go inside. I will never come after you, even though you may strongly desire it, since it is great folly even to attempt a useless quest.

CHRYSOTHEMIS: Well, if you seem to think straight in your own eyes, may you go on thinking so. Eventually, when you have fallen into trouble, you will approve my advice. Exit Chrysothemis into the house.

CHORUS: Why, though we see the birds above, most thoughtful creatures, taking care for the sustenance of those from whom they derived life and enjoyment, why do we not pay these debts in like measure? No, by the lightning-flash of Zeus, by Themis throned in the sky, we are not long unpunished. O Voice of the underworld that reaches to mortals, shout for me a piteous cry to the sons of Atreus below. Carry the reproaches not appropriate to my dancing!

CHORUS: Tell them the affairs of their house, how it is now diseased; how among his children, double-sided strife has overwhelmed their loving manner. Electra, betrayed, braves the storm alone. In misery she bewails her father’s fate without pause, like the all-grieving nightingale. She cares not at all about death, but is ready for that eternal blindness, could she but subdue the double Erinys of her house. Who could grow to be so noble a daughter of so noble a father?

CHORUS: None of the good willingly clouds his fair repute and becomes nameless by leading a corrupt life, my child. Similarly, you, too, have chosen a lifetime of shared mourning and have armed against dishonor, so that you might win in one breath a twofold praise as wise, and as the best of daughters.

CHORUS: May I yet see you live exalted in might and wealth above your enemies by as much as you now dwell beneath their hand! For I have found you enjoying no prosperous estate, yet for observance of nature’s highest laws you win the noblest prize by your reverence toward Zeus.

ORESTES: Ladies, have we been directed aright, and are we on the right path to our goal?

CHORUS: What do you seek? What desire brings you here?

ORESTES: I have long been searching for the home of Aegisthus.

CHORUS: Well, you have found it, and your guide is blameless.

ORESTES: Which of you, then, would tell those inside of the long-desired presence of us travelers?

CHORUS: She will, if the nearest in kin should announce it.

ORESTES: Go, lady, enter and make it known that certain men of Phocis seek Aegisthus.

ELECTRA: Ah, miserable me! Surely you do not bring proof positive of that rumor which we heard?

ORESTES: I know nothing of your rumor; but the aged Strophius ordered me to give report of Orestes.

ELECTRA: What is it, sir? Ah, how fear creeps over me!

ORESTES: We come bearing his scanty remains in a small urn, as you see.

ELECTRA: Oh, the misery! Here, at last, my eyes look for certain, it seems, upon that grievous burden in your hand.

ORESTES: If your tears are for any of Orestes’ tribulations, know that this vessel is his body’s home.

ELECTRA: Ah, sir, if this urn indeed contains him, then allow me, by the gods, to take it in my hands, so that I may weep and wail, not for these ashes alone, but for myself and for all our house with them!

Part 13

ORESTES: Take it and give it to her, whoever she may be. For she asks this for herself not as if with hostile intent, but like one who is his friend, or a kinswoman by blood. The urn is placed in Electra’s hands.

ELECTRA: Memorial of him whom I loved best on earth, sole remnant of Orestes’ vitality! How contrary to the hopes with which I sent you away do I receive you back! Now I raise your nothingness in my hands; but then, my child, you were radiant, when I sent you away from home! Would that I had first abandoned life, before, stealing you away with these hands, I sent you to a strange land and rescued you from death, in order that you might have lain dead on that same day and had your share in the tomb of our father!But now, an exile from home and fatherland, you have perished miserably, far from your sister. Ah, me, these loving hands have not washed or decked your corpse, nor taken up their sad burden from the all-consuming pyre, as was proper. No! At the hands of strangers, poor Orestes, you have been tended, and so have come to us, a small bulk in a small urn.Ah, I grieve at the uselessness of my nursing long ago, the service that I often bestowed on you in sweet labor! For you were never your mother’s darling so much as mine, nor was any in the house your nurse but I, and by you I was ever called sister. But now all this has vanished in a day with your death. Like a whirlwind you have swept everything away with you. Our father is gone; I am dead because of you; you yourself are dead and gone; our enemies laugh at us; and our mother, who is no mother, raves with joy. Unknown to her, you often sent me messages about her, saying that you yourself would appear for vengeance. But our evil fortune, yours and mine, has torn all that away, and has sent you back to me in this state, ash and a useless shade in place of your beloved form.

ah, me, ah, me! O pitiable body! Alas, dear one sent on a most dire journey, how you have destroyed me, destroyed me indeed, my brother! Therefore accept me into this abode of yours—me, a nothing, into your nothingness,—so that I may dwell with you hereafter below. For when you were on earth, we shared equally, and now I wish to die and not to be left out of your grave, since I see that the dead are relieved of pain.

CHORUS: Remember, Electra, you are the child of a mortal father, and Orestes was mortal. Therefore do not grieve too much. Death is a debt which all of us must pay.

ORESTES: Ah, what shall I say? I am at a loss. To what words can I turn? I no longer have the strength to master my tongue!

ELECTRA: What has troubled you? Why did you say that?

ORESTES: Is this the illustrious form of Electra?

ELECTRA: It is, though in a very wretched state.

ORESTES: What pity, then, for this miserable fortune!

ELECTRA: Surely, stranger, you are not saddened like this on my account?

ORESTES: O frame dishonorably, godlessly wasted!

ELECTRA: Those ills of which you speak, stranger, are none other’s than mine.

ORESTES: Ah, pity for your unwed, ill-fated life!

ELECTRA: Why, stranger, do you stare and grieve in this way?

ORESTES: How I knew nothing, it seems, of my own sorrows!

ELECTRA: What that has been said made you realize this?

ORESTES: It was the sight of you conspicuous in your many sufferings.

ELECTRA: And yet you see but a few of my troubles.

ORESTES: And how could there be any more odious to look on than these?

ELECTRA: Because I share house and table with the murderers.

Part 14

ORESTES: Whose murderers? Where lies the guilt at which you point?

ELECTRA: The murderers of my father. And, further, I am forced to slave for them.

ORESTES: Who is it that binds you with this compulsion?

ELECTRA: She is called my mother, but in no respect is she like a mother.

ORESTES: How does she do it? By violence or by inflicting hardship?

ELECTRA: By violence and hardships and all manner of evil.

ORESTES: And is there no one to help, or to prevent it?

ELECTRA: No one. The one I had, his ashes you have put before me.

ORESTES: Unfortunate girl, how seeing you stirs my pity!

ELECTRA: Then know that you are the first who ever pitied me.

ORESTES: Yes, for I alone have come and been pained by your troubles .

ELECTRA: Surely you are not some unknown kinsman?

ORESTES: I would tell you, if these women bear you goodwill.

ELECTRA: Indeed they do, so you will speak to trustworthy companions.

ORESTES: Give up this urn, then, and you shall know everything.

ELECTRA: No, by the gods, do not do this to me, stranger!

ORESTES: Do as I say, and you will never be mistaken.

ELECTRA: No, I beg you, do not rip from me what I hold most dear!

ORESTES: You must not keep it.

ELECTRA: Ah, what misery I will have because of you, Orestes, if I am robbed of your burial!

Part 15

ORESTES: Hush! No ill-omened words! You have no right to grieve.

ELECTRA: How is it not right for me to grieve for my dead brother?

ORESTES: It is not proper for you to speak of him as you do.

ELECTRA: Am I so without rights in the dead?

ORESTES: You are without rights in nothing; but this burial is not your concern.

ELECTRA: Yes it is, if these are the remains of Orestes that I hold.

ORESTES: They are not his, except inasmuch as fiction alone contrives to make them so. He gently takes the urn from her.

ELECTRA: And where is that sufferer’s tomb?

ORESTES: There is none; the living have no tomb.

ELECTRA: What are you saying, boy?

ORESTES: Nothing that is untrue.

ELECTRA: The man is alive?

ORESTES: If there is life in me.

ELECTRA: What? Are you he?

ORESTES: Look at this signet, once our father’s, and know if I speak the truth.

ELECTRA: O blissful day!

ORESTES: Blissful, I am your witness!

ELECTRA: Is this your voice?

ORESTES: Hear it from no other.

ELECTRA: Do I hold you in my arms?

Part 16

ORESTES: May you hold me so always hereafter!

ELECTRA: Ah, dear friends and fellow-citizens, see Orestes here, who was dead by design, and now by design has come safely home!

CHORUS: We see him, daughter, and for this happy turn of fortune a tear of joy trickles from our eyes.

ELECTRA: O seed, seed of the person to me most dear, you have just now come, you have come, and have found and seen her whom your heart desired!

ORESTES: I am with you; but keep silence and wait.

ELECTRA: What do you mean?

ORESTES: It is better to be silent so that no one inside may hear.

ELECTRA: No, by ever-virgin Artemis, I will never think it right to tremble before eternally house-bound women, that useless burden on the ground!

ORESTES: Yes, but remember that Ares dwells in women, too. You know this well by experience, I believe.

ELECTRA: oh, no! ah, me! You have reminded me of my sorrow, one which by its nature cannot be veiled, cannot be done away with, cannot be forgotten!

ORESTES: I know this, too; but when occasion prompts, we must recall those crimes.

ELECTRA: Each moment of all time, as it comes, would be a proper occasion for me to make these just complaints. Scarcely now have I had my lips set free.

ORESTES: Yes, I agree; therefore guard your freedom.

ELECTRA: What must I do?

ORESTES: When it is inopportune, do not want to speak too much.

ELECTRA: No, who could exchange due silence for speech, when you have appeared? For now my eyes have seen you, beyond all thought and hope!

ORESTES: You saw me when the gods moved me to come. [...]

ELECTRA: You have told me of a grace higher still than the first, if a god brought you to our house; I acknowledge in it the work of the divine.

ORESTES: On the one hand I hesitate to curb your gladness, but on the other I fear that you may be overwhelmed by too much joy.

ELECTRA: O you who, after such a long time, saw fit to make your most happy journey and appear to me, do not, now that you have seen me in all my misery—

Part 17

ORESTES: What should I not do?—

ELECTRA: —Do not rob me of the comfort of your face; do not force me to forego it!

ORESTES: I would be angry, indeed, if I saw another attempt it.

ELECTRA: You give your consent?

ORESTES: Why would I not?

ELECTRA: My friends, I heard a voice that I could never have hoped to hear; nor could I have restrained my emotion in silence and without a cry, when I heard it. ah, me! But now I have you. You have appeared with that dear face, which I could never, even in misery, forget.

ORESTES: Spare all superfluous words, and inform me neither of our mother’s wickedness, nor how Aegisthus drains the wealth of our father’s house—what part he pours on the ground and what he squanders at random. For the story would preclude you from the opportunity afforded by the moment. Instead tell me that which will suit our present circumstances: where, either openly or in ambush, we may put an end to our enemies’ laughter by means of my coming. Make sure that our mother does not discover you by your radiant face, when we two have gone into the house. Rather, make lament, as if for the feigned disaster. For when we succeed, then there will be opportunity to rejoice and exult in freedom.

ELECTRA: Brother, be assured that my conduct will be as pleases you, since all my joy derives from you, and is not my own. Nor would I consent to win a great good for myself at the cost of the slightest pain to you. For in doing so I would not honorably support the divine power that attends us now.But you know how matters stand here. I do not doubt it. You must have heard that Aegisthus is away from home, but that our mother is inside. And never fear that she will ever see my face lit up with smiles. My old hatred of her has been welded to my heart, and since I have seen you, for very joy I will never cease to weep. How indeed could I stop when I have seen you come home on this one day first as dead, and then in life? What you have done to me is inconceivable—so much so that, if my father were to return to me alive, I would no longer think it a portent, but would believe that I truly saw him. Therefore now that you have come to me by such a path, command me as your spirit bids you. For had I been alone, I would not have failed in one of two things: a noble salvation, or a noble destruction.

ORESTES: Silence! I hear someone walking inside as if to come out.

ELECTRA: Go in, strangers, especially since you bring a thing which no one could either turn away from these doors, or rejoice at receiving.

PAEDAGOGUS: Utterly foolish and senseless children! Are you weary of your lives, or is there no wit inborn in you, that you do not see how you stand not on the brink, but in the very midst of immense danger? Had I not long kept watch at these doors, your doings would have been in the house before your bodies. But as it was, I put myself the task of averting that. Be done now with your long speeches and this insatiable shouting for joy, and go inside. In dealings of this sort delay is harmful, but the time is ripe for being done.

ORESTES: Then how will things inside stand when I enter?

PAEDAGOGUS: All is well. The fact is that no one will know you.

ORESTES: You have reported me as dead, I presume?

PAEDAGOGUS: Know that here you are a man numbered with the shades.

ORESTES: Do they rejoice, then, at the news? Or what do they say?

PAEDAGOGUS: I will tell when all is completed. Meanwhile, all is favorable for us on their part, even that which is not favorable.

ELECTRA: Who is this, brother? By the gods, tell me.

ORESTES: Do you not know who he is?

ELECTRA: No, nor can I imagine.

Part 18

ORESTES: Do you not know the man to whose hands you gave me once?

ELECTRA: What man? What do you mean?

ORESTES: I mean him, by whose hands and through your forethought I was secretly conveyed away to Phocian soil.

ELECTRA: Is this he in whom alone out of many I once found a true ally at the time of our father’s murder?

ORESTES: This is he; question me no further.

ELECTRA: O joyous day! O sole preserver of Agamemnon’s house, how did you come here? Are you indeed the man who saved my brother and myself from many sorrows? O dearest hands, O messenger whose feet were kindly servants! How could you be with me so long and remain unknown, without giving a ray of illumination, but instead afflicting me with stories, while possessed of sweetest reality? Welcome, Father, for it is a father that I seem to behold! Welcome, and know that in one day I have hated you and loved you as no man ever before!

PAEDAGOGUS: That is enough, I think. As for the recounting of intervening events, many are the circling nights and an equal number of days which will reveal them to you clearly, Electra.

And this is my advice to you two, since you stand there: now is your opportunity to act, now Clytaemnestra is alone, now no man is inside. But if you pause, consider that you will have to fight both those inside and others mightier and better skilled.

ORESTES: Pylades, in no way does our task call any longer for many words, but rather demands that we enter the house immediately, after first adoring the shrines of my father’s gods, the keepers of these gates. Orestes and Pylades enter the house, followed by the Paedagogus. Electra remains outside.

ELECTRA: King Apollo! Hear them with favor, and hear me besides, who so often have come before your altar with hands rich in such gifts as I could obtain! And now, O Lycean Apollo, with what means I have I pray to you, I supplicate you, I implore you, be our ready champion in these designs, and show what rewards the gods bestow on humans in return for their impiety! Exit Electra, into the house.

CHORUS: Behold how Ares stalks onward, breathing bloody vengeance that is hard to oppose. Just now have the hunters of wicked crimes passed beneath that roof there, the hounds which none may flee. And so not long shall the vision of my soul hang in suspense.

CHORUS: The champion of the spirits infernal is ushered on guileful feet into the house, the rich, ancestral palace of his father, and he bears keen-edged death in his hands. Maia’s son Hermes, who has shrouded the guile in darkness, leads him right to his goal and delays no longer.

ELECTRA: My dearest friends, in a moment the men will do the deed. But wait in silence.

CHORUS: How do they fare? What are they doing now?

ELECTRA: She is decking the urn for burial; the two of them stand close to her.

CHORUS: And why have you hurried out?

ELECTRA: To guard against Aegisthus entering before we are aware.

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Oh! Oh! Our house is empty of friends and filled with murderers!

ELECTRA: Someone shouts inside. Do you not hear, friends?

CHORUS: I heard, ah, me, sounds unfit to be heard, and I shudder!

Part 19

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Ah, misery! Aegisthus, where, where are you?

ELECTRA: Look, once more someone cries out!

CLYTAEMNESTRA: My son, my son, have pity on your mother!

ELECTRA: Why? You had none for him, nor for the father that begot him.

CHORUS: Wretched city, wretched race, now the fate that has held you day by day perishes—it perishes!

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Oh, I am wounded!

ELECTRA: Stab her doubly, if you can!

CLYTAEMNESTRA: Ah, wounded again!

ELECTRA: Would that Aegisthus, too, were wounded!

CHORUS: The curses bring fulfillment: those who are buried live. For men long dead are draining their killers’ blood in a stream of requital.

CHORUS: And now they are here! The red hand drips with sacrifice to Ares, and I cannot blame the deed.

ELECTRA: Orestes, what happened?

ORESTES: All is well within the house, if Apollo’s oracle spoke well.

ELECTRA: The miserable woman is dead?

ORESTES: Have no more fear that your haughty mother will ever again trample on your rights.

CHORUS: Quiet! For I see Aegisthus in plain sight.

ELECTRA: You, young men, get back inside!

ORESTES: Where do you see the man?

ELECTRA: He is at our mercy walking from the suburb, full of joy.

CHORUS: Go with all speed to the vestibule, so that, just as your first task prospered, so this one again may prosper now.

Part 20

ORESTES: Have courage. We will accomplish it.

ELECTRA: Hurry, then, to wherever you wish.

ORESTES: See, I am gone.

ELECTRA: Things here will be my concern. Exeunt Orestes and Pylades, into the house.

CHORUS: It would be well to whisper into this man’s ear some few words of seeming gentleness, so that he may rush blindly upon his trial before Justice.

AEGISTHUS: Which of you can tell me where those Phocian strangers are, who are said to have brought report for us that Orestes passed away amidst the shipwrecked chariots? You, you I ask, yes, you, who were in former days so bold. It seems to me that this concerns you most, so you must know best, and can best tell me.

ELECTRA: I do know. How could I not? Otherwise I would be an alien to the fortune of my nearest kinsmen.

AEGISTHUS: Where, then, may the strangers be? Tell me.

ELECTRA: Inside. They have found a way to the heart of their hostess.

AEGISTHUS: Have they in fact reported him truly dead?

ELECTRA: No, not reported only. They have shown him.

AEGISTHUS: Then I can identify the corpse myself?

ELECTRA: You can, indeed, though it is no enviable sight.

AEGISTHUS: You have indeed given me a joyful greeting, beyond your custom.

ELECTRA: May joy be yours, if joy is what you find in these things.

AEGISTHUS: Silence, I say, and throw wide the gates for all Mycenaeans and Argives to see, so that, if any one of them were once buoyed by empty hopes in this man, now by seeing his corpse, he may welcome my bit in his mouth, instead of waiting until my punishment makes him grow wits by force!

ELECTRA: All will be done on my part. Time has given me the sense to comply with the stronger.

AEGISTHUS: O Zeus, I see an image which could not have fallen without divine spite—but, if Nemesis attend what I say, let it be unsaid! To Orestes. Undo the coverings from his eyes, so that our kinship, at least, may receive due mourning from me also.

ORESTES: Lift the veil yourself. It is not for me, but for you to look upon these remains and greet them kindly.

AEGISTHUS: You advise well, and I will obey you. To Electra. But you, call Clytaemnestra for me, if she is at home.

Part 21

ORESTES: She is near you; do not look elsewhere.

AEGISTHUS: O, what sight is this!

ORESTES: Why so scared? Is the face so strange?

AEGISTHUS: Who are the men into whose nets I have miserably fallen?

ORESTES: Do you not perceive how you have long been addressing the living in terms suited to the dead?

AEGISTHUS: Ah, I read the riddle! It cannot be that this is not Orestes who speaks to me!

ORESTES: And, though so good a prophet, were you deceived so long?

AEGISTHUS: Oh, I am destroyed, undone! Yet allow me to speak just a little.

ELECTRA: By the gods, brother, do not allow him to speak any more or to plead at length! When mortals are embroiled in misfortunes, how can one who is to die benefit from lapse of time? No, kill him as quickly as you can, and throw his corpse to the creatures from whom his kind should have burial, throw it far from our sight! For in my eyes this alone can bring us release from the misery of the past.

ORESTES: To Aegisthus. Go in, and quickly. Words are not at stake here, but your life.

AEGISTHUS: Why take me into the house? If this deed is just, what need is there of darkness? Why is your hand not quick to strike?

ORESTES: Do not give orders, but go to where you struck down my father, so that in that very place you may die.

AEGISTHUS: Is this dwelling doomed to see all the sufferings of us descendants of Pelops, both now and in time to come?

ORESTES: Yours, at least. I am for you a consummate prophet in these matters.

AEGISTHUS: The skill you boast about did not belong to your father.

ORESTES: You bandy words, and our going is delayed. Move forward!

AEGISTHUS: You lead.

ORESTES: You must go first.

AEGISTHUS: Lest I escape you?

ORESTES: No, lest you die in a manner which pleases you. I must be sure that your death is bitter for you. This just penalty ought to come straightaway upon all who would break the laws: the penalty of death. Then wrongdoing would not abound.

Part 22

CHORUS: O seed of Atreus, through how many sufferings have you sprouted up at last in freedom, fulfilled by this day’s enterprise!

Contents — 23 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21
22. Part 22
23. Part 23

Part 1

OEDIPUS: My children, latest-born wards of old Cadmus, why do you sit before me like this with wreathed branches of suppliants, while the city reeks with incense, rings with prayers for health and cries of woe? I thought it unbefitting, my children, to hear these things from the mouths of others, and have come here myself, I, Oedipus renowned by all. Tell me, then, venerable old man—since it is proper that you speak for these—in what mood you sit here, one of fear or of desire? Be sure that I will gladly give you all my help. I would be hard-hearted indeed if I did not pity such suppliants as these.

PRIEST OF ZEUS: Oedipus, ruler of my land, you see the age of those who sit on your altars—some, nestlings still too tender for flight, others, bowed with age, priests, like me of Zeus, and some, these here, the chosen youth. The rest of the folk sit with wreathed branches in the market-place, and before the shrines of Pallas, and where Ismenus gives answer by fire. For the city, as you yourself see, is now sorely vexed, and can no longer lift her head from beneath the angry waves of death. A blight has fallen on the fruitful blossoms of the land, the herds among the pastures, the barren pangs of women. And the flaming god, the malign plague, has swooped upon us, and ravages the town: he lays waste to the house of Cadmus, but enriches Hades with groans and tears. It is not because we rank you with the gods that I and these children are suppliants at your hearth, but because we deem you the first among men in life’s common fortunes and in dealings with the divinities: when you came to the city of the Cadmeans, you freed us from the tax that we rendered to the hard songstress, and that when you knew no more than anyone else, nor had you been taught, but rather by the assistance of a god, as the story goes, you uplifted our life. Now, Oedipus, king glorious in our eyes, we, your suppliants, beseech you to find some defence for us, whether you hear it from some divine omen, or learn of it from some mortal. For I see that the outcome of the councils of experienced men most often have effect. On, best of mortals, uplift our state! On, guard your fame, since now this land calls you savior on account of your former zeal. Let us not remember of your reign that we were first restored and then cast down: lift this state so that it falls no more! With good omen you provided us that past happiness: show yourself the same now too, since if you are to rule this land just as you do now, it is better to be lord of men than of a wasteland. Neither walled town nor ship is anything, if it is empty and no men dwell within.

OEDIPUS: My piteous children, I know quite well the desires with which you have come: I know well that you all are sick, and though you are sick I know well that there is not one of you who is as sick as I. Your pain comes on each of you for himself alone, and for no other, but my soul is in pain at once for the city, for myself, and for you. Thus you are not awakening me from sleep: no, be sure that I have wept many tears, wandered far and wide in my thought. I have made use of the only remedy which I could find after close consideration: I sent my relative Creon, Menoeceus’ son, to Apollo’s Pythian residence to learn what we might do or say to protect this city. And now, when the lapse of days is reckoned, I am troubled about what he is doing, for he has been away an unreasonably long time beyond what is fitting. But when he arrives, I would be no true man if did not perform all that the god reveals.

PRIEST: You have spoken opportunely, since at this time these people here indicate that Creon is drawing near.

OEDIPUS: Lord Apollo, may he come to us in the brightness of saving fortune, even as his face is bright!

PRIEST: He seems to bring comfort, since otherwise he would not be coming crowned so thickly with berry-laden bay.

OEDIPUS: We will soon know: he is within hearing-range. Prince, my kinsman, child of Menoeceus, what news have you brought us from the god?

CREON: Good news. I tell you that even troubles hard to bear will end in perfect peace if they find the right issue.

OEDIPUS: But what is the oracle ? So far, your words neither encourage nor frighten me.

CREON: If you want to hear in the presence of these people, I am ready to speak: otherwise we can go inside.

OEDIPUS: Speak to all. The sorrow that I bear for these is more than for my own life.

CREON: I will tell you what I heard from the god. Phoebus our lord clearly commands us to drive out the defilement which he said was harbored in this land, and not to nourish it so that it cannot be healed.

OEDIPUS: With what sort of purification? What is the manner of the misfortune?

CREON: By banishing the man, or by paying back bloodshed with bloodshed, since it is this blood which brings the tempest on our city.

OEDIPUS: And who is the man whose fate he thus reveals?

CREON: Laius, my lord, was the leader of our land before you assumed control of this state.

OEDIPUS: I know it well—by hearsay, for I never saw him.

CREON: He was slain, and the god now bids us to take vengeance on his murderers, whoever they are.

OEDIPUS: Where on earth are they? Where shall the dim track of this old crime be found?

CREON: In this land, the god said. What is sought for can be caught; only that which is not watched escapes.

Part 2

OEDIPUS: Was it in the house, or in the field, or on foreign soil that Laius met his bloody end?

CREON: He left our land, as he said, on a mission to Delphi. And once he had set forth, he never again returned.

OEDIPUS: And was there none to tell? Was there no travelling companion who saw the deed, from whom tidings might have been gained, and used?

CREON: All perished, save one who fled in fear, and he could tell with assurance only one thing of all that he saw.

OEDIPUS: And what was that? One thing might hold the clue to many, if we could only get a small beginning for hope.

CREON: He said that robbers fell upon them, not one man alone, but with a great force.

OEDIPUS: How then, unless some intrigue had been worked with bribes from here in Thebes, would the robbers have been so bold?

CREON: Such things were surmised. But once Laius was slain no avenger arose in the midst of our troubles.

OEDIPUS: But when royalty had fallen in this way, what trouble prevented a full search?

CREON: The riddling Sphinx had forced us to let things that were obscure go, and to investigate the pressing trouble.

OEDIPUS: I will start afresh, and once more make dark things plain. Worthily has Phoebus Apollo—and worthily have you—bestowed this care on behalf of the dead. And so, as is fitting, you will find me allied with you in seeking vengeance for this land, and for the god as well. I will dispel this taint not on behalf of far-off friends, but for my own benefit. For whoever killed Laius might wish to take vengeance on me also with a hand as fierce. Avenging Laius, therefore, I serve myself. Come, my children, as quickly as possible rise from the altar-steps, and lift these suppliant boughs. Let someone summon here Cadmus’ people, warning them that I will leave nothing untried. For with the god’s help our good fortune—or our ruin—will be made certain.

PRIEST: My children, let us rise. What we came to seek, this man promises of his own accord. And may Phoebus, who sent these oracles, come to us as savior and deliverer from the pestilence.

CHORUS: O sweetly-speaking message of Zeus, in what spirit have you come to glorious Thebes from golden Pytho? I am on the rack, terror shakes my soul, O Delian healer to whom wild cries rise, in holy fear of you, wondering what debt you will extract from me, perhaps unknown before, perhaps renewed with the revolving years. Tell me, immortal Voice, child of golden Hope.

CHORUS: First I call on you, daughter of Zeus, immortal Athena, and on your sister, Artemis, guardian of our earth, who sits on her glorious throne above the circle of our market-place, and on far-shooting Apollo: oh shine forth for me, my three-fold help against death! If ever before you drove a fiery pest from our borders to stop ruin rushing upon our city, come now also!

CHORUS: Alas, countless are the sorrows I bear. A plague is on all our people, and thought can find no weapon for defense. The fruits of the glorious earth do not grow; by no birth of offspring do women surmount the pangs in which they shriek. You can see life after life speed away, like a bird on the wing, swifter than irresistible fire, to the shore of the western god.

CHORUS: With such deaths, past numbering, the city perishes. Unpitied, her children lie on the ground, spreading pestilence, with no one to mourn them. Meanwhile young wives and grey-haired mothers raise a wail at the steps of the altars, some here, some there, and groan in supplication for their terrible woes. The prayers to the Healer ring clear, and with them the voice of lamentation. For which things, golden daughter of Zeus, send us the bright face of comfort.

CHORUS: Grant that the fierce god of death, who now without the bronze of shields, though among cries like those of battle, wraps me in the flames of his onset, may turn his back in speedy flight from our land, borne by a favorable wind to the great chamber of Amphitrite, or to the Thracian waves, those waters where none find haven. For if night leaves anything undone in the working of destruction, day follows to accomplish it. You who wield the powers of fiery lightning, Zeus our father, slay him beneath your thunder-bolt.

CHORUS: Lycean Lord, would that the shafts from your bent bow’s string of woven gold might go forth in their might, our champions in the face of the foe, and the flashing fires of Artemis too, with which she darts through the Lycian hills. I call him whose locks are bound with gold, who is named with the name of this land, ruddy Bacchus to whom Bacchants cry, to draw near with the blaze of his shining torch, our ally against the god unhonored among the gods.

OEDIPUS: You pray. And in answer to your prayer, if you will give a loyal reception to my words and minister to your own disease, you may hope to find help and relief from woes. These words I will speak publicly, as one who was a stranger to the report, a stranger to the deed. I would not go far on the trail if I were tracing it alone, without a clue. But as it is—since it was only after the event that I was counted a Theban among Thebans—to you, Cadmeans all, I do thus proclaim: Whoever knows by whom Laius son of Labdacus was slain, I order him to declare all to me. And if he is afraid, I order him to remove the danger of indictment from his path by denouncing himself: he will suffer no other punishment, but will only leave this land, unhurt. If anyone knows the assassin to be an alien, from another land, let him not keep silent. I will reward him, and my thanks shall rest with him besides. But if he keeps silent, if anyone, through fear, seeks to screen himself or a friend from my orders, then hear what I shall do: I charge you that no resident of this land, which I rule, give shelter to or address that murderer, whoever he is, or make him a partner in prayer or sacrifice, or give him a share of the lustral rite. Ban him from your houses, all of you, knowing that this is the defilement, as the oracle of the Pythian god has recently shown to me. In this way I am an ally both to the god and to the dead man. And I pray solemnly that the slayer, whoever he is, whether he alone is guilty or he has partners, may, in the horrible way he deserves, wear out his unblest life. And for myself I pray that if he should, with my knowledge, become a resident of my house, I may suffer the same things which I have just called down on others. And I order you to make all these words good, for my sake, for the sake of the god, and for the sake of our land, thus rendered unfruitful and ungodly. For even if the matter had not been urged upon us by a god, it still would not have been fit that you should leave the guilt unpunished as it is, when one so noble—and he your king—had perished. You should have searched it out. But now, since I hold the powers which he once held, possessing his bed and the wife who bore his children, and since, had his hope of offspring not been unsuccessful, children born of one mother would have tied us with a common bond—as it was, fate swooped upon his head—I will uphold this cause, as though it were that of my own father, and will leave no stone unturned in my search for the one who shed the blood, for the honor of the son of Labdacus and of Polydorus and the elder Cadmus and Agenor of old. And for those who do not obey me, I pray that the gods send them neither harvest of the earth nor fruit of the womb, but that they perish with the present fate, or one still worse. But to all you, the loyal Cadmeans who are satisfied by these things, may justice, our ally, and all the gods be gracious always.

CHORUS: As you have put me under oath, on my oath, my king, I will speak. I am not the slayer, nor can I reveal him. As for the investigation, it was for Phoebus, who enjoined it, to tell us who did the deed.

Part 3

OEDIPUS: Justly said. But no man on earth can force the gods to do what they do not want.

CHORUS: I would like to say what seems to me the next best course.

OEDIPUS: And if there is a third course, do not hesitate to reveal it too.

CHORUS: I know that our lord Teiresias is the seer most like our lord Apollo: from him, my king, an investigator might learn most clearly about these affairs.

OEDIPUS: Not even this have I neglected. On Creon’s suggestion, I sent a man twice to bring him. And I have been wondering for some time why he is not here.

CHORUS: Indeed—his skill apart—the rumors are but faint and old.

OEDIPUS: What are the rumors? I am investigating every tale.

CHORUS: He was said to have been killed by some wayfarers.

OEDIPUS: I too have heard that. But no one sees the one who saw it.

CHORUS: If he knows what fear is, he will not hesitate to come forward when he hears your curses, so dire are they.

OEDIPUS: When a man does not shrink from a deed, he is not scared by a word.

CHORUS: But there is one to convict him. But here they bring at last the godlike prophet, the only man in whom truth lives.

OEDIPUS: Teiresias, whose soul grasps all things, both that which may be told and that which is unspeakable, the Olympian secrets and the affairs of the earth, you feel, though you cannot see, what a huge plague haunts our state. From which, great prophet, we find you to be our protector and only savior. Now, Phoebus—if indeed you have not already heard the news—sent answer to our question that the only way to rid ourselves of this pest that afflicts us is to discover the slayers of Laius, and then to slay them or banish them from our land. So do not begrudge us the voice of the birds or any other path of prophecy, but save yourself and your state, save me, save all that is defiled by the dead. We are in your hands, and man’s noblest task is to help others to the best of his means and powers.

TEIRESIAS: Alas, how terrible it is to have wisdom when it does not benefit those who have it. I knew this well, but let it slip from my mind: otherwise I would not have come here.

OEDIPUS: What now? How disheartened you have come!

TEIRESIAS: Let me go home. For you will bear your own burden to the end, and I will bear mine, if you consent.

OEDIPUS: Your words are strange and unkind to the state which nurtured you, since you withhold this response.

TEIRESIAS: I see that you, for your part, speak inappropriately. Therefore do not speak, so I will not suffer the same.

OEDIPUS: For the love of the gods, do not turn away, if you have knowledge: all we suppliants implore you on our knees.

TEIRESIAS: For all of you are without knowledge. But never will I reveal my troubles—not to call them yours.

Part 4

OEDIPUS: What are you saying? Do you know the secret and refuse to tell it? Will you betray and destroy the state?

TEIRESIAS: I will grieve neither myself nor you. Why do you ask these things in vain? You will not learn the answers from me.

OEDIPUS: Will you not, basest of the base— you would anger a stone—speak out? can nothing touch you? Will you never make an end?

TEIRESIAS: You blame my anger, but do not perceive your own: no, you blame me.

OEDIPUS: Who would not be angry hearing such words, with which you now are slighting the city?

TEIRESIAS: The future will come of itself, though I shroud it in silence.

OEDIPUS: Since it must come anyway, it is right that you tell it to me.

TEIRESIAS: I will speak no further: rage, if you wish, with the fiercest wrath your heart knows.

OEDIPUS: In my anger I will not spare to speak all my thoughts. Know that you seem to me to have helped in plotting the deed, and to have done it, short of performing the actual murder with your own hands: if you had eyesight, I would have said that you had done even this by yourself.

TEIRESIAS: In truth? I order you to abide by you own decree, and from this day forth not to speak to these men or to me: you are the accursed defiler of this land.

OEDIPUS: So brazen with your blustering taunt? Where do you think to escape to?

TEIRESIAS: I have escaped. There is strength in my truth.

OEDIPUS: Who taught you this? Not your skill, at any rate.

TEIRESIAS: You yourself. For you spurred me on to speak against my will.

OEDIPUS: What did you say? Speak again, so I may learn it better.

TEIRESIAS: Did you not understand before, or are you talking to test me?

OEDIPUS: I cannot say I understood fully. Tell me again.

TEIRESIAS: I say that you are the killer of the man whose slayer you seek.

OEDIPUS: Now you will regret that you have said such dire words twice.

TEIRESIAS: Should I tell you more, that you might get more angry?

Part 5

OEDIPUS: Say as much as you want: it will be said in vain.

TEIRESIAS: I say that you have been living in unguessed shame with your closest kin, and do not see into what woe you have fallen.

OEDIPUS: Do you think that you will always be able to speak like this without smarting for it?

TEIRESIAS: Yes, if indeed there is any strength in truth.

OEDIPUS: But there is, except not for you. You do not have that strength, since you are maimed in your ears, in your wit, and in your eyes.

TEIRESIAS: And you are a poor wretch to utter taunts that every man here will soon hurl at you.

OEDIPUS: Night, endless night has you in her keeping, so that you can never hurt me, or any man that sees the light of the sun.

TEIRESIAS: No, it is not your fate to fall at my hands, since Apollo, to whom this matter is a concern, is sufficient.

OEDIPUS: Are these Creon’s devices, or your own?

TEIRESIAS: Creon is no trouble for you: you are your own.

OEDIPUS: O wealth, and empire, and skill surpassing skill in life’s keen rivalries, how great is the envy in your keeping, if for the sake of this office which the city has entrusted to me, a gift unsought, Creon the trustworthy, Creon, my old friend, has crept upon me by stealth, yearning to overthrow me, and has suborned such a scheming juggler as this, a tricky quack, who has eyes only for profit, but is blind in his art! Come, tell me, where have you proved yourself a seer? Why, when the watchful dog who wove dark song was here, did you say nothing to free the people? Yet the riddle, at least, was not for the first comer to read: there was need of a seer’s help, and you were discovered not to have this art, either from birds, or known from some god. But rather I, Oedipus the ignorant, stopped her, having attained the answer through my wit alone, untaught by birds. It is I whom you are trying to oust, assuming that you will have great influence in Creon’s court. But I think that you and the one who plotted these things will rue your zeal to purge the land: if you did not seem to be an old man, you would have learned to your cost how haughty you are.

CHORUS: To our way of thinking, these words, both his and yours, Oedipus, have been said in anger. We have no need of this, but rather we must seek how we shall best discharge the mandates of the god.

TEIRESIAS: Though you are king, the right of reply must be considered the same for both: over that I have control. For I do not live as your slave, but as Loxias’. I will not stand enrolled as Creon’s client. And I tell you, since you have taunted my blindness, that though you have sight, you do not see what a state of misery you are in, or where you dwell, or with whom. Do you know who your parents are? You have been an unwitting enemy to your own kin, both in the Underworld and on the earth above, and the double lash of your mother’s and your father’s curse will one day drive you from this land in dreadful haste, with darkness upon those eyes of yours which now can see. What place will be harbor to your cries, what part of all Cithaeron will not ring with them soon, when you have learned the meaning of the nuptials in which, within that house, you found a fatal haven, after a voyage so fair? And you have not guessed at a throng of other ills which will bring you level with your true self and with your own children. Therefore heap your scorn upon Creon and upon my message: for no man will ever be crushed more miserably than you.

OEDIPUS: Are these taunts to be endured from him? Be gone, to your ruin; be gone this instant! Will you not turn your back and leave this house?

TEIRESIAS: I would not have come if you had not called me.

OEDIPUS: I did not know you would speak foolishly, for otherwise it would have been a long time before I summoned you to my home.

TEIRESIAS: I was born like this—as you think, a fool, but in the opinion of the parents who bore you, quite sane.

OEDIPUS: What parents? Wait. What man is my father?

TEIRESIAS: This day will reveal your birth and bring your ruin.

OEDIPUS: What riddles, what dark words you always say.

Part 6

TEIRESIAS: Are you not the best at unravelling mysteries?

OEDIPUS: Reproach me in what you will find me to be great.

TEIRESIAS: Yet it was just that fortune that undid you.

OEDIPUS: But if it saved this city I care not.

TEIRESIAS: I will take my leave. You, boy, lead me.

OEDIPUS: Yes, let him take you: while here, you are a hindrance, a source of trouble. When you have gone, you will vex me no more.

TEIRESIAS: I will go when I have performed the errand for which I came, fearless of your frown: you can never destroy me. I tell you: the man whom you have been seeking this long while, uttering threats and proclaiming a search into the murder of Laius, is here, ostensibly an alien sojourner, but soon to be found a native of Thebes; nor will he enjoy his fortune. A blind man, though now he sees, a beggar, though now rich, he will make his way to a foreign land, feeling the ground before him with his staff. And he will be discovered to be at once brother and father of the children with whom he consorts; son and husband of the woman who bore him; heir to his father’s bed, shedder of his father’s blood. So go in and evaluate this, and if you find that I am wrong, say then that I have no wit in prophecy.

CHORUS: Who is he of whom the divine voice from the Delphian rock has said to have wrought with blood-red hands horrors that no tongue can tell? It is time that he ply in flight a foot stronger than the feet of storm-swift steeds. The son of Zeus is springing upon him with fiery lightning, and with him come the dread unerring Fates.

CHORUS: Recently the message has flashed forth from snowy Parnassus ordering all to search for the unknown man. He wanders under cover of the wild wood, among caves and rocks, fierce as a bull, wretched and forlorn on his joyless path, still seeking to separate himself from the doom revealed at the central shrine of the earth. But that doom lives forever, forever flits around him.

CHORUS: The wise augur moves me, neither approving nor denying, with dread, with dread indeed. I am at a loss what to say. I am flustered in my expectations, seeing neither the present nor the future clearly. Never in past days or in these have I heard how the house of Labdacus or the son of Polybus had any quarrel with one another that I could bring as proof in assailing the public reputation of Oedipus, seeking to avenge the line of Labdacus for the undiscovered murder.

CHORUS: Zeus and Apollo indeed are keen of thought and know the affairs of the earth. But there is no sure test of whether a mortal seer attains more knowledge than I do, though man may surpass man in wisdom. But until I see the word made good, I will never assent when men blame Oedipus. Before all eyes the winged maiden came against him once upon a time, and he was seen to be wise, and bore the test in welcome service to the state. Never, therefore, will he be adjudged guilty of evil.

CREON: Fellow citizens, having learned that Oedipus the king lays dire charges against me, I have come in indignation. If he thinks that in the present troubles he has suffered from me, by word or by deed, anything harmful, truly I do not desire my full term of years, when I must bear such blame as this. The wrong of this rumor touches me not in one point alone, but has the largest scope, if I am to be called a traitor in the city, a traitor by you and by my friends.

CHORUS: But perhaps this taunt came under the stress of anger, rather than from the purpose of his heart.

CREON: Was the opinion given that my counsels had brought the seer to utter his falsehoods?

CHORUS: Such things were said—I do not know with what meaning.

CREON: And was this charge laid against me with steady eyes and steady mind?

CHORUS: I do not know. I see not what my masters do. But here comes our lord from the house.

OEDIPUS: You, how did you get here? Are you so boldfaced that you have come to my house, you who are manifestly the murderer of its master, the palpable thief of its crown? Come, tell me, in the name of the gods, was it cowardice or folly which you saw in me and which led you to plot this thing? Did you think that I would not notice this deed of yours creeping upon me by stealth, or that if I became aware of it I would not ward it off? Is your attempt not foolish, to seek the throne without followers or friends—a prize which followers and wealth must win?

CREON: Mark me now: hear a fair reply in answer to your words, and then judge for yourself on the basis of knowledge.

OEDIPUS: You are apt in speech, but I have a poor wit for lessons, since I have found you a malignant foe.

Part 7

CREON: Now hear first how I will explain this very thing.

OEDIPUS: One thing—that you are not false—do not bother to explain to me.

CREON: If you think that stubbornness without sense is a virtue, you are not wise.

OEDIPUS: If you think you can wrong a kinsman and escape the penalty, you are not sane.

CREON: Justly said, I grant you: but tell me what the wrong is that you say you are suffering at my hands.

OEDIPUS: Did you, or did you not, advise me to send for that reverend seer?

CREON: Even now I am of the same mind.

OEDIPUS: How long is it, then, since Laius . . .

CREON: Did what? I do not understand.

OEDIPUS: was swept out of sight by deadly violence?

CREON: The count of years would run far into the past.

OEDIPUS: Did this seer possess this skill in those days?

CREON: He was wise as now, and held in equal honor.

OEDIPUS: Did he make mention of me at that time?

CREON: Never, certainly, when I was within hearing.

OEDIPUS: Did you never investigate the murder?

CREON: Due search we made, of course, though we learned nothing.

OEDIPUS: And how was it that this sage did not tell this story then.

CREON: I do not know: where I lack insight it is my custom to be silent.

OEDIPUS: This much, at least, you know, and could declare with insight enough.

Part 8

CREON: What is that? If I know it, I will not deny it.

OEDIPUS: That, if he had not conferred with you, he would not have named me as Laius’ slayer.

CREON: If he says this, you know best: but I deem it just to learn from you as much as you have from me now.

OEDIPUS: Learn your fill. I will never be found guilty of the bloodshed.

CREON: Say, then—have you married my sister?

OEDIPUS: The question allows no denial.

CREON: And you rule the land as she does, with equal sway.

OEDIPUS: She obtains from me all that she wishes.

CREON: And do I not rank as a third peer of you two?

OEDIPUS: It is just in this that you are seen to be a false friend.

CREON: Not so, if you would reason with your heart as I do with mine. Weigh this first—whether you think that anyone would choose to rule amid terrors rather than in unruffled peace, granted that he is to have the same powers. Now I, for one, have by nature no yearning to rule as a king rather than to do kingly deeds, and neither does any man I know who has a sound mind. For now I attain all everything from you without fear, but, if I were ruler myself, I would have to do much that went against my own pleasure. How, then, could royalty be sweeter to me to have than painless rule and influence? I am not yet so misguided that I desire other honors than those which bring profit. Now, every man has a greeting for me; now, all that have a request of you crave to speak with me, since in me lies all their hope of success. Why then should I give up these things and take those others? No mind will become false while it is wise. No, I am no lover of such a policy, and if another put it into action, I could never bear to go along with him. And, in proof of this, first go to Pytho, and ask whether I brought a true report of the oracle. Then next, if you have found that I have planned anything in concert with the soothsayer, take and slay me, by the sentence not of one mouth, but of two—by my own no less than yours. But do not assume my guilt on unproven inference. It is not just to judge bad men good at random, or good men bad. I think that casting off a true friend is for a man like casting away the life in his own bosom, which he most loves. You will surely learn about these affairs in time, since time alone reveals a just man. But you can discern a bad man even in one day alone.

CHORUS: He has spoken well, my king, for one who is taking care not to fall: those who are quick in counsel are not sure.

OEDIPUS: When the stealthy plotter is moving on me quickly, I, too, must be quick in my counterplot. If I await him in repose, his ends will have been gained, and mine lost.

CREON: What do you want then? To banish me from the land?

OEDIPUS: Hardly. I desire your death, not your exile, so that I might show what a thing envy is.

CREON: Are you resolved not to yield or believe?

CREON: No, for I see you are not sane.

OEDIPUS: Sane, at least, in my own interest.

CREON: But you should be so in mine also.

OEDIPUS: You are false.

Part 9

CREON: But if you understand nothing?

OEDIPUS: Still I must rule.

CREON: Not if you rule badly.

OEDIPUS: Hear him, city of Thebes!

CREON: The city is mine too, not yours alone.

CHORUS: Cease, lords. In good time I see Iocasta coming from the house, with whose help you should resolve your present feud.

IOCASTA: Misguided men, why have you raised such a foolish argument? Are you not ashamed, while the land is so sick, to stir up troubles of your own? Come, go into the house—and you, Creon, go to yours—and stop making so much of a petty grief.

CREON: Kinswoman, Oedipus, your husband, wants to do one of two terrible things to me, either to thrust me from the land of my fathers or to arrest and slay me.

OEDIPUS: Yes indeed, for I have caught him, lady, working evil against my person with his wicked craft.

CREON: May I derive no benefit, but perish accursed, if I have done any of the things of which you charge me.

IOCASTA: In the name of the gods, believe it, Oedipus, first for the sake of this awful oath to the gods, then for my sake and for the sake of those who stand before you.

CHORUS: Consent, reflect, listen, my king, I beg you.

OEDIPUS: What would you have me grant you?

CHORUS: Respect him who was in the past not foolish, and who now is strong in his oath.

OEDIPUS: Do you understand what you crave?

CHORUS: I do.

OEDIPUS: Tell me, then, what you mean.

CHORUS: That you should never use an unproved rumor to cast a dishonoring charge on the friend who has bound himself with a curse.

OEDIPUS: Then be quite aware that when you seek this you are seeking death or exile from this land for me.

CHORUS: No, by the god that stands at the head of all the host of the gods, no, by the sun. Unblest, unbefriended, may I die the worst possible death, if I have this thought! But my unhappy soul is worn by the withering of the land, as well as by the thought that our old sorrows should be crowned by new ones arising from the two of you.

Part 10

OEDIPUS: Then let him go, though I am surely doomed to be killed or thrust dishonored from the land. Your words, not his, move me to compassion; but he, wherever he be, shall be hated.

CREON: You are truly sullen in yielding, as you are vehement in the excesses of your wrath. But such natures are justly most difficult for themselves to bear.

OEDIPUS: Will you not be gone and leave me in peace?

CREON: I will go on my way. I have found you undiscerning, but in the view of these men I am just. He exits.

CHORUS: Lady, why do you hesitate to take this man into the house?

IOCASTA: I will, when I have learned what has happened.

CHORUS: Blind suspicion, bred of talk, arose, and injustice inflicts wounds.

IOCASTA: On both sides?

CHORUS: Yes.

IOCASTA: And what was the story?

CHORUS: It is enough, I think, enough, when our land is already vexed, that the matter should rest where it stopped.

OEDIPUS: Do you see to what you have come, for all your noble intent, in seeking to slacken and blunt my zeal?

CHORUS: King, I have said it more than once— be sure that I would have proved myself a madman, bankrupt in sane counsel, if I forsook you—you, who gave a true course to my beloved country when it was distraught with troubles, and who now are likely to prove our prospering guide.

IOCASTA: In the name of the gods, tell me, king, the reason that you have conceived this steadfast wrath.

OEDIPUS: That I will do, for I honor you, lady, above these men. Creon is the cause, and the plots he has laid against me.

IOCASTA: Come, tell me how the argument began.

OEDIPUS: He says that I stand guilty of Laius’ blood.

IOCASTA: On his own knowledge or on hearsay from another?

OEDIPUS: He has made a rascal seer his mouth piece: as for himself, he keeps his lips wholly pure.

IOCASTA: Then absolve yourself of the things about which you are speaking. Listen to me, and take comfort in learning that nothing of mortal birth shares in the science of the seer. I will give you a pithy proof of this. An oracle came to Laius once—I will not say from Phoebus himself, but from his ministers—saying that he would suffer his doom at the hands of the child to be born to him and me. And Laius—as, at least, the rumor goes—was murdered one day by foreign robbers at a place where the three highways meet. And the child’s birth was not yet three days past, when Laius pinned his ankles together and had him thrown, by others’ hands, on a remote mountain. So, in that case, Apollo did not bring it to pass that the child should become the slayer of his father, or that Laius should suffer that which he feared, death at the hands of his child: thus the messages of the seer’s art had mapped out the future. Pay them no regard. Whatever necessary event the god seeks, he himself will easily bring to light.

Part 11

OEDIPUS: What restlessness of soul, lady, what tumult has come upon me since I heard you speak!

IOCASTA: What anxiety has startled you, that you say this?

OEDIPUS: I thought that I heard this from you—that Laius was slain where the three roads meet.

ICASTA: Yes, that was the report, and so it is still thought.

OEDIPUS: And where is the place where this occurred?

IOCASTA: The land is called Phocis; the branching forks lead to the same spot from Delphi and from Daulia.

OEDIPUS: And how much time has passed since these events took place?

IOCASTA: The news was announced to the town shortly before you first attained power over this land.

OEDIPUS: O Zeus, what have you decreed for me?

IOCASTA: Why, Oedipus, does this matter weigh upon your heart?

OEDIPUS: Do not ask me yet. Tell me rather what stature Laius had, and how ripe his manhood was.

IOCASTA: He was tall—the silver just lightly strewn among his hair—and his form was not greatly unlike your own.

OEDIPUS: Unhappy that I am! I think that I have laid myself under a terrible curse without realizing it.

IOCASTA: How do you mean? I tremble when I look at you, my lord.

OEDIPUS: I have dread fears that the seer can see. But you will reveal the matter better if you tell me one thing more.

IOCASTA: Indeed, though I tremble, I will hear and answer all that you ask.

OEDIPUS: Did he go with a small force, or like a chieftain, with many armed followers?

IOCASTA: Five they were in all—a herald among them—and there was one carriage which bore Laius.

OEDIPUS: Alas! It is all clear now! Who gave you this information, lady?

IOCASTA: A servant, the only survivor who returned home.

Part 12

OEDIPUS: Is he by any chance in the house now?

IOCASTA: No. Soon after he returned and found you ruling in Laius’ stead, he pled with me, with hand laid on mine, to send him to the fields, to the pastures of the flocks, that he might be far from the sight of this town. And I sent him; he was worthy, for a slave, to win even a larger favor than that.

OEDIPUS: Would, then, that he return to us without delay!

IOCASTA: That is easy. But why do you enjoin this?

OEDIPUS: I fear, lady, that my words have been rash, and therefore I wish to see him.

IOCASTA: He will come. But I think that I too have a claim to learn what lies heavy on your heart, my king.

OEDIPUS: It will not be kept from you, now that my forebodings have advanced so far. To whom more than to you would I speak in suffering such a fortune as this? My father was Polybus of Corinth, my mother the Dorian Merope. I was considered the greatest of the folk in that town, until a chance event befell me, worthy, indeed, of wonder, though not of my overreaction regarding it. At a banquet, a man drunk with wine cast it at me that I was not the true son of my father. And I, vexed, restrained myself for that day as best as I could, but on the next went to my mother and father and questioned them. They were angry at the one who had let this taunt fly. So I had comfort about them, but the matter rankled in my heart, for such a rumor still spread widely. I went to Delphi without my parents’ knowledge, and Phoebus sent me forth disappointed of the knowledge for which I had come, but in his response set forth other things, full of sorrow and terror and woe: that I was fated to defile my mother’s bed, that I would reveal to men a brood which they could not endure to behold, and that I would slay the father that sired me. When I heard this, I turned in flight from the land of Corinth, from then on thinking of it only by its position under the stars, to some spot where I should never see fulfillment of the infamies foretold in my evil fate. And on my way I came to the land in which you say that this prince perished.

Now, lady, I will tell you the truth. When on my journey I was near those three roads, there I met a herald, and a man in a carriage drawn by colts, as you have described. The leader and the old man himself tried to thrust me rudely from the path. Then, in anger, I struck the one pushing me aside, the driver, and the old man, when he saw this, watched for the moment I was passing, and from his carriage, brought his double goad straight down on my head. Yet he was paid back with interest: with one swift blow from the staff in this hand he rolled right out of the carriage onto his back. I slew every one of them. But if this stranger had any tie of kinship to Laius, who is now more wretched than this man before you? What mortal could be proved more hateful to the gods? No stranger, no citizen, is allowed to receive him at home, it is unlawful for anyone to accost him, and all must push him from their homes. And this—this curse— was laid on me by no other mouth than my own. And I pollute the bed of the slain man with the hands by which he perished. Am I now vile? Oh, am I not utterly unclean, seeing that I must be banished, and in banishment neither see my own people, nor set foot in my own land, or else be joined in wedlock to my mother, and slay my father Polybus, who sired and reared me? Then would he who judged these things to be sent down by some cruel divinity not be right about Oedipus? Prevent, prevent, you pure and awful gods, me from ever seeing that day! No, may I be swept away from all men, before I see myself visited with that brand of doom.

CHORUS: To us, king, these things are fraught with fear. Yet have hope, until at least you have gained full knowledge from the one who saw the deed.

OEDIPUS: I have, in truth, this much hope alone: I await the man summoned from the pastures.

IOCASTA: And what do you want from him when he appears?

OEDIPUS: I will tell you. If his story is found to match withwith yours, I at least, will stand clear of disaster.

IOCASTA: And what special note did you hear from me?

OEDIPUS: You said that he spoke of Laius as slain by robbers. If, then, he still speaks of several as before, I was not the slayer: a solitary man could not be considered the same as that band. But if he names one lonely wayfarer, then beyond doubt this guilt rests upon me.

IOCASTA: Be assured that thus, at least, the tale was first told. He cannot revoke that, for the city heard it, not I alone. But even if he should diverge somewhat from his former story, never, king, can he show that the murder of Laius, at least, is truly square with the prophecy, for Loxias plainly said that he was to die at the hand of my child. How was it then that that poor innocent never slew him, but perished first? From now on then, as far as divination goes, I would not look to my right hand or my left.

OEDIPUS: You are right. But nevertheless send someone to fetch the peasant, and do not neglect this matter.

IOCASTA: I will send for him without delay. But let us go into the house: I will do nothing which does not please you. Exeunt Oedipus and Iocasta.

CHORUS: May destiny still find me winning the praise of reverent purity in all words and deeds sanctioned by those laws of sublime range, called into life through the high clear aether, whose father is Olympus alone. Their parent was no race of mortal men, no, nor shall oblivion ever lay them to sleep: the god is mighty in them, and he does not grow old.

CHORUS: Insolence breeds the tyrant. Insolence, once vainly stuffed with wealth that is not proper or good for it, when it has scaled the topmost ramparts, is hurled to a dire doom, where one’s feet cannot serve to good advantage. But I pray that the god never quell such rivalry as benefits the state. I will always hold the god as our protector.

CHORUS: But if any man walks haughtily in deed or word, with no fear of Justice, no reverence for the images of gods, may an evil doom seize him for his ill-starred pride, if he does not gain his advantage fairly, or avoid unholy deeds, but seeks to lay profaning hands on sanctities. Where such things occur, what mortal shall boast any more that he can ward off the arrow of the gods from his life? No. For if such deeds are held in honor, why should we join in the sacred dance?

Part 13

CHORUS: No longer will I go reverently to the earth’s central and inviolate shrine, no more to Abae’s temple or to Olympia, if these oracles do not fit the outcome, so that all mortals shall point at them with their fingers. No, King—if this you are rightly called—Zeus all ruling, may it not escape you and your deathless power! The old prophecies concerning Laius are fading; already men give them no value, and nowhere is Apollo glorified with honors; the worship of the gods is perishing.

IOCASTA: Princes of the land, I am planning to visit the shrines of the gods, with this wreathed branch and these gifts of incense in my hands. For Oedipus excites his soul excessively with all sorts of grief, as he does not judge the new things from the old, like a man of sense, but is under the control of the speaker, if he speaks of frightful things. Since, then, I can do no good by counsel, to you, Lycean Apollo—for you are nearest— I have come as a suppliant with these symbols of prayer, that you may find us some escape from uncleanliness. For now we are all afraid, like those who see fear in the helmsman of their ship.

MESSENGER: Can you tell me, strangers, where the house of King Oedipus is? Or better still, tell me where he himself is, if you know.

CHORUS: This is his dwelling, and he himself, stranger, is within. This lady here is the mother of his children.

MESSENGER: Then may she be ever happy in a happy home, since she is his blessed queen.

IOCASTA: Happiness to you also, stranger! Your fair greeting deserves this. But say what you have come to seek or to tell.

MESSENGER: Good tidings, lady, for your house and your husband.

IOCASTA: What are they? From whom have you come?

MESSENGER: From Corinth, and at the message I will give now you will doubtless rejoice, though you may perhaps grieve too.

IOCASTA: What is it? Why has it this double potency?

MESSENGER: The people will make him king of the Isthmian land, as it was said there.

IOCASTA: How then? Is the aged Polybus no longer in power?

MESSENGER: No. For death holds him in the tomb.

IOCASTA: What do you mean? Is Polybus dead, old man?

MESSENGER: If I do not speak the truth, I am content to die.

IOCASTA: Handmaid, away with all speed, and tell this to your master! Oracles of the gods, where do you stand now? It is this man that Oedipus long feared he would slay. And now this man has died in the course of destiny, not by his hand.

OEDIPUS: Iocasta, dearest wife, why have you summoned me forth from these doors?

IOCASTA: Hear this man, and judge, as you listen, what the awful oracles have come to.

OEDIPUS: Who is he and what news does he have for me?

IOCASTA: He comes from Corinth to tell you that your father Polybus lives no longer, but has perished.

Part 14

OEDIPUS: How, stranger? Let me have it from your own mouth.

MESSENGER: If I must first make these tidings plain, know indeed that he is dead and gone.

OEDIPUS: By treachery, or from illness?

MESSENGER: A light tilt of the scale brings the aged to their rest.

OEDIPUS: Ah, he died, it seems, of sickness?

MESSENGER: Yes, and of the long years that he had lived.

OEDIPUS: Alas, alas! Why indeed, my wife, should one look to the hearth of the Pythian seer, or to the birds that scream above our heads, who declared that I was doomed to slay my father? But he is dead, and lies beneath the earth, and here I am, not having put my hand to any spear—unless, perhaps, he died out of longing for me: thus, indeed, I would be the cause of his death. But as the oracles stand, at least, Polybus has swept them with him to his rest in Hades. They are worth nothing.

IOCASTA: Did I not long ago foretell this to you?

OEDIPUS: You did, but I was mislead by my fear.

IOCASTA: Now no longer take any of those things to heart.

OEDIPUS: But surely I must fear my mother’s bed.

IOCASTA: What should a mortal man fear, for whom the decrees of Fortune are supreme, and who has clear foresight of nothing? It is best to live at random, as one may. But fear not that you will wed your mother. Many men before now have slept with their mothers in dreams. But he to whom these things are as though nothing bears his life most easily.

OEDIPUS: All these words of yours would have been well said, were my mother not alive. But as it is, since she lives, I must necessarily fear, though you do speak well.

IOCASTA: Your father’s death is a great sign for us to take cheer.

OEDIPUS: Great, I know. But my fear is of her who lives.

MESSENGER: And who is the woman about whom you fear?

OEDIPUS: Merope, old man, the consort of Polybus.

MESSENGER: And what is it in her that moves your fear?

OEDIPUS: A divine oracle of dread import, stranger.

MESSENGER: Proper, or improper, for another to know?

Part 15

OEDIPUS: Proper, surely. Loxias once said that I was doomed to marry my own mother, and to shed with my own hands my father’s blood. For which reasons I long shirked my home in Corinth—with a happy outcome, to be sure, but still it is sweet to see the face of one’s parents.

MESSENGER: Was it really for fear of this that you became an exile from that city?

OEDIPUS: And because I did not wish, old man, to be the murderer of my father.

MESSENGER: Why have I not relieved you of this second fear, my lord, since I came to give you pleasure?

OEDIPUS: And indeed you will have worthy thanks from me.

MESSENGER: And indeed I came specially for this, that I might profit from your returning home.

OEDIPUS: But by no means will I ever go near my parents again.

MESSENGER: My son, it is crystal clear that you do not know what you are doing.

OEDIPUS: How so, old man? In the name of the gods, tell me.

MESSENGER: If on account of this you are fleeing from returning home.

OEDIPUS: Fearing indeed lest Apollo’s prophecy come true in me.

MESSENGER: Lest you acquire some pollution from your parents?

OEDIPUS: This very thing, old man, this constantly frightens me.

MESSENGER: Do you know, then, that your fears are wholly in vain?

OEDIPUS: [...] How so, if I was born of those parents?

MESSENGER: Because you had no blood in common with Polybus.

OEDIPUS: What are you saying? Was Polybus not my father?

MESSENGER: Just as much, and no more, than he who speaks to you.

OEDIPUS: And how can my father be equal to him who is as though nothing to me?

MESSENGER: But he did not father you, any more than I did.

Part 16

OEDIPUS: How, then, did he call me his son?

MESSENGER: Long ago he received you as a gift from my hands.

OEDIPUS: And yet he loved me so dearly, who came from another’s hand?

MESSENGER: His former childlessness won him over.

OEDIPUS: And had you bought me or found me by chance, when you gave me to him?

MESSENGER: I found you in Cithaeron’s winding glens.

OEDIPUS: And why were you roaming those regions?

MESSENGER: I was in charge of mountain flocks.

OEDIPUS: What, you were a shepherd—a vagrant hireling?

MESSENGER: But your savior, my son, in that hour.

OEDIPUS: And what was my pain when you took me in your arms?

MESSENGER: The ankles of your feet might bear witness.

OEDIPUS: Ah me, why do you speak of that old trouble?

MESSENGER: I freed you when you had your ankles pinned together.

OEDIPUS: It was a dread brand of shame that I took from my cradle.

MESSENGER: So much so that from that fortune you were called by that name which you still bear.

OEDIPUS: Oh, in the name of the gods, was the deed my mother’s or father’s? Speak!

MESSENGER: I know not. He who gave you to me knows better of that than I.

OEDIPUS: What, you got me from another? You did not find me yourself?

MESSENGER: No. Another shepherd gave you to me.

Part 17

OEDIPUS: Who was he? Can you tell clearly?

MESSENGER: I think he was said to be one of the household of Laius.

OEDIPUS: The king who ruled this country long ago?

MESSENGER: The same. The man was a herdsman in his service.

OEDIPUS: Is he still alive, that I might see him?

MESSENGER: You natives of this country should know best.

OEDIPUS: Is there any of you here present that knows the herdsman of whom he speaks, having seen him either in the pastures or here in town? Answer! The hour has come for these things to be revealed finally.

CHORUS: I think he speaks of no other than the peasant you already wanted to see. But our lady Iocasta might best tell you that.

OEDIPUS: Lady, do you know the one whom we summoned just now? Is it of him that this man speaks?

IOCASTA: Why ask of whom he spoke? Regard it not; waste not a thought on what he said; it would be vain.

OEDIPUS: It must not happen that, with such clues in my grasp, I fail to bring my birth to light.

IOCASTA: For the gods’ sake, if you have any care for your own life, do not continue this search! My anguish is enough.

OEDIPUS: Be of good courage. Even if I should be found the son of a servile mother—a slave by three descents—you will not be proven baseborn.

IOCASTA: Hear me, I implore you: do not do this.

OEDIPUS: I will not hear of not discovering the whole truth.

IOCASTA: Yet I wish you well—I counsel you for the best.

OEDIPUS: These best counsels, then, vex my patience.

IOCASTA: Oh ill-fated man, may you never know who you are!

OEDIPUS: Go, some one, fetch me the herdsman. Leave this woman to glory in her princely stock.

IOCASTA: Alas, alas, miserable man—that word alone can I say to you—and no other word ever again. She rushes into the palace.

Part 18

CHORUS: Why has this woman gone, Oedipus, rushing off in wild grief? I fear a storm of sorrow will soon break forth from this silence.

OEDIPUS: Break forth what will! Be my race ever so lowly, I crave to learn it. That woman perhaps—for she is proud with more than a woman’s pride—feels ashamed of my lowly origin. But I, who hold myself son of Fortune that gives good, will not be dishonored. She is the mother from whom I spring, and the months, my kinsmen, have marked me sometimes lowly, sometimes great. Such being my heritage, never more can I prove false to it, or keep from searching out the secret of my birth.

CHORUS: If I am a seer or wise of heart, Cithaeron, you will not fail—by heaven, you will not—to know at tomorrow’s full moon that Oedipus honors you as native to him, as his nurse, and his mother, and that you are celebrated in our dance and song, because you are well-pleasing to our prince. O Phoebus to whom we cry, may these things find favor in your sight!

CHORUS: Who was it, my son, who of the race whose years are many, that bore you in wedlock with Pan, the mountain-roaming father? Or was it a bride of Loxias that bore you? For dear to him are all the upland pastures. Or perhaps it was Cyllene’s lord, or the Bacchants’ god, dweller on the hill-tops, that received you, a new-born joy, from one of the nymphs of Helicon, with whom he most often sports.

OEDIPUS: Elders, if it is right for me, who have never met the man, to guess, I think I see the herdsman we have been looking for for a long time. In his venerable old age he tallies with this stranger’s years, and moreover I recognize those who bring him, I think, as servants of mine. But perhaps you have an advantage in knowledge over me, if you have seen the herdsman before.

CHORUS: Yes, I know him, be sure. He was in the service of Laius—trusty as any shepherd.

OEDIPUS: I ask you first, Corinthian stranger, if this is the man you mean.

MESSENGER: He is, the one you are looking at.

OEDIPUS: You, old man—look this way and answer all that I ask—were you once in the service of Laius?

SERVANT: I was—not a bought slave, but reared in his house.

OEDIPUS: Employed in what labor, or what way of life?

SERVANT: For the better part of my life I tended the flocks.

OEDIPUS: And what regions did you most frequently haunt?

SERVANT: Sometimes Cithaeron, sometimes the neighboring ground.

OEDIPUS: Are you aware of ever having seen this man in these parts?

SERVANT: Doing what? What man do you mean?

OEDIPUS: This man here. Have you ever met him before?

SERVANT: Not so that I could speak at once from memory.

MESSENGER: And no wonder, master. But I will bring clear recollection to his ignorance. I am sure he knows well of the time we dwelled in the region of Cithaeron for six month periods, from spring to Arcturus, he with two flocks, and I, his comrade, with one. And then for the winter I used to drive my flock to my own fold, and he took his to the fold of Laius. Did any of this happen as I tell it, or did it not?

SERVANT: You speak the truth, though it was long ago.

Part 19

MESSENGER: Come, tell me now: do you remember having given me a boy in those days, to be reared as my own foster-son?

SERVANT: What now? Why do you ask the question?

MESSENGER: This man, my friend, is he who then was young.

SERVANT: Damn you! Be silent once and for all!

OEDIPUS: Do not rebuke him, old man. Your words need rebuking more than his.

SERVANT: And in what way, most noble master, do I offend?

OEDIPUS: In not telling of the boy about whom he asks.

SERVANT: He speaks without knowledge, but is busy to no purpose.

OEDIPUS: You will not speak with good grace, but will in pain.

SERVANT: No, in the name of the gods, do not mistreat an old man.

OEDIPUS: Someone, quick—tie his hands him this instant!

SERVANT: Alas, why? What do you want to learn?

OEDIPUS: Did you give this man the child about whom he asks?

SERVANT: I did. Would that I had perished that day!

OEDIPUS: Well, you will come to that, unless you tell the honest truth.

SERVANT: But if I speak I will be destroyed all the more.

OEDIPUS: This man is bent, I think, on more delays.

SERVANT: No, no! I said before that I gave it to him.

OEDIPUS: Where did you get it from? From your own house, or from another?

SERVANT: It was not my own: I received it from another.

Part 20

OEDIPUS: From whom of the citizens here? From what home?

SERVANT: For the love of the gods, master, ask no more!

OEDIPUS: You are dead if I have to question you again.

SERVANT: It was a child, then, of the house of Laius.

OEDIPUS: A slave? Or one of his own clan?

SERVANT: Alas! I am on the brink of speaking the dreaded words.

OEDIPUS: And I of hearing: I must hear nevertheless.

SERVANT: You must know then, that it was said to be his own child. But your lady within could say best how these matters lie.

OEDIPUS: How? Did she give it to you?

SERVANT: Yes, my lord.

OEDIPUS: For what purpose?

SERVANT: That I should do away with it.

OEDIPUS: Her own child, the wretched woman?

SERVANT: Yes, from fear of the evil prophecies.

OEDIPUS: What were they?

SERVANT: The tale ran that he would slay his father.

OEDIPUS: Why, then, did you give him to this old man?

SERVANT: Out of pity, master, thinking that he would carry him to another land, from where he himself came. But he saved him for the direst woe. For if you are what this man says, be certain that you were born ill-fated.

OEDIPUS: Oh, oh! All brought to pass, all true. Light, may I now look on you for the last time—I who have been found to be accursed in birth, accursed in wedlock, accursed in the shedding of blood. He rushes into the palace.

CHORUS: Alas, generations of mortals, how mere a shadow I count your life! Where, where is the mortal who attains a happiness which is more than apparent and doomed to fall away to nothing? Your fate warns me—yours, unhappy Oedipus—to call no earthly creature blessed.

Part 21

CHORUS: For he, O Zeus, shot his shaft with peerless skill, and won the prize of an all-prosperous fortune, having slain the maiden with crooked talons, who sang darkly. He arose for our land like a tower against death. And from that time, Oedipus, you have been called our king, and have been honored supremely, holding power in great Thebes.

CHORUS: But now whose story is more grievous in men’s ears? Who is a more wretched slave to fierce plagues and troubles, with all his life reversed? Alas, renowned Oedipus! The same bounteous harbor was sufficient for you, both as child and as father, to make your nuptial couch in. Oh, how can the soil in which your father sowed, unhappy man, have endured you in silence for so long?

CHORUS: Time the all-seeing has found you out, against your will: he judges the monstrous marriage in which parent and child have long been one. Alas, child of Laius, would that I had never seen you. I wail as one who pours a dirge from his lips. It was you who gave me new life, to speak directly, and through you darkness has fallen upon my eyes.

SECOND MESSENGER: You who are most honored in this land, what deeds you will hear, what deeds you will behold, what burden of sorrow will be yours, if, true to your race, you still care for the house of Labdacus. For I think that neither the Ister nor the Phasis could wash this house clean, so many are the ills that it shrouds, or will soon bring to light, ills wrought not unwittingly, but on purpose. And those griefs smart the most which are seen to be of our own choice.

CHORUS: Indeed the troubles which we knew before are far from being easy to bear. Besides them, what do you have to announce?

SECOND MESSENGER: This is the shortest tale to tell and hear: our royal lady Iocasta is dead.

CHORUS: Alas, wretched lady! From what cause?

SECOND MESSENGER: By her own hand. You will not suffer the worst part of the painful event, since you do not behold the events. Nevertheless, so far as my memory serves, you will learn that unhappy woman’s fate. When, frantic, she passed within the vestibule, she rushed straight towards her marriage couch, clutching her hair with the fingers of both hands. Once within the chamber, she dashed the doors together behind her, then called on the name of Laius, long since a corpse, thinking of that son, born long ago, by whose hand the father was slain, leaving the mother to breed accursed offspring with his own child. And she bewailed the marriage in which, wretched woman, she had given birth to a twofold brood, husband by husband, children by her child. And how she perished is more than I know. For with a shriek Oedipus burst in, and did not allow us to watch her woe until the end: on him, as he rushed around, our eyes were set. To and fro he went, asking us to give him a sword, asking where he could find the wife who was no wife, but a mother whose womb had borne both him and his children. And in his frenzy a power greater than mortal man was his guide, for it was none of us mortals who were near. With a dread cry, as though someone beckoned him on, he sprang at the double doors, forced the bending bolts from the sockets, and rushed into the room. There we beheld the woman hanging by the neck in a twisted noose of swinging cords. And when he saw her, with a dread deep cry he released the halter by which she hung. And when the hapless woman was stretched out on the ground, then the sequel was horrible to see: for he tore from her raiment the golden brooches with which she had decorated herself, and lifting them struck his own eye-balls, uttering words like these: No longer will you behold such horrors as I was suffering and performing! Long enough have you looked on those whom you ought never to have seen, having failed in the knowledge of those whom I yearned to know—henceforth you shall be dark! With such a dire refrain, he struck his eyes with raised hand not once but often. At each blow the bloody eye-balls bedewed his beard, and sent forth not sluggish drops of gore, but all at once a dark shower of blood came down like hail. From the deeds of the two of them such ills have broken forth, not on one alone, but with mingled woe for man and wife. The old happiness of their ancestral fortune was once happiness indeed. But now today lamentation, ruin, death, shame, and every earthly ill that anyone could name are all theirs.

CHORUS: And does the sufferer have any respite from pain now?

SECOND MESSENGER: He cries for some one to unbar the gates and show to all the Cadmeans his father’s slayer, his mother’s—the words must not pass my lips— in order to banish himself from the land and not to put the house under his own curse by waiting here. And yet he lacks strength, and one to guide his steps, for the anguish is more than he can bear. He will soon show this to you: look, the bars of the gates are withdrawn, and soon you will behold a sight which even he who abhors it must pity.

CHORUS: O dread fate for men to see, O most dreadful of all that I have set my eyes on! Unhappy one, what madness has come upon you? Who is the unearthly foe who, with a leap of more than mortal range has made your ill-starred life his prey? Alas, alas, you hapless man! I cannot even look on you, though there is much I desire to ask, much I desire to learn, much that draws my wistful gaze: with such a shuddering do you fill me!

OEDIPUS: Woe is me! Alas, alas, wretched that I am! Where, where am I carried in my misery? How is my voice swept abroad on the wings of the air? Oh, my fate, how far you have sprung!

CHORUS: To a dread place, dire in men’s ears, dire in their sight.

OEDIPUS: Oh horror of darkness that enfolds me, unspeakable visitant, resistless, sped by a wind too favorable! Oh, me! and once again, Oh, me! How my soul is pierced by the stab of these goads and by the memory of sorrows!

CHORUS: No wonder that amidst these woes you mourn and bear a double pain.

OEDIPUS: Ah, friend, you still are steadfast in your care for me, and still have patience to tend to the blind man! Ah, me! Your presence is not hidden from me—no, blind though I am, nevertheless I know your voice full well.

CHORUS: Man of dread deeds, how could you quench your vision in this way? What divinity urged you on?

OEDIPUS: It was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought these troubles to pass, these terrible, terrible troubles. But the hand that struck my eyes was none other than my own, wretched that I am! Why should I see, when sight showed me nothing sweet?

CHORUS: These things were just as you say.

OEDIPUS: What, my friends, can I behold anymore, what can I love, what greeting can touch my ear with joy? Hurry, friends, lead me from the land, lead me from here, the utterly lost, the thrice-accursed, the mortal most hateful to the gods!

Part 22

CHORUS: Wretched alike for your fortune and for your understanding of it, would that I had never known you!

OEDIPUS: Perish the man, whoever he was, who freed me in the past years from the cruel shackle on my feet—a thankless deed! Had I died then, I would not have been so sore a grief to my friends and to my own soul.

CHORUS: I too would have had it thus.

OEDIPUS: In this way I would not have come to shed my father’s blood, or been known among men as the husband of the woman from whom I was born. Now I am forsaken by the gods, son of a defiled mother, successor to the bed of the man who gave me my own wretched being: if there is a woe surpassing all woes, it has become Oedipus’ lot.

CHORUS: I cannot agree that you have counseled well: you would have been better dead than living and blind.

OEDIPUS: Do not tell me that things have not been best done in this way: give me counsel no more. If I had sight, I know not with what eyes I could even have looked on my father, when I came to the house of Hades, or on my miserable mother, since against both I have sinned such sins as hanging myself could not punish. But do you think that the sight of children, born as mine were, was lovely for me to look upon? No, no, never lovely to my eyes! No, neither was this town with its towering walls, nor the sacred statues of the gods, since I, thrice wretched that I am— I, noblest of the sons of Thebes—have doomed myself to know them no more by commanding that all should reject the impious one, the one whom the gods have revealed as unholy, a member of Laius’ own race! After bearing such a stain upon myself, was I to look with steady eyes on this folk? No indeed: were there a way to choke the source of hearing, I would not have hesitated to make a fast prison of this wretched frame, so that I should have known neither sight nor sound. It is sweet for our thought to dwell beyond the sphere of grief. Alas, Cithaeron, why did you provide a shelter for me? When I was given to you, why did you not slay me straightway, that I might never reveal my origin to men. Ah, Polybus, ah, Corinth, and you that were called the ancient house of my father, how fair-seeming was I, your nurseling, and what evils were festering underneath! Now I am found to be evil and of evil birth. Oh you three roads, and you secret glen, you, thicket, and narrow way where three paths met— you who drank my father’s blood from my own hands—do you remember, perhaps, what deeds I have performed in your sight, and then what fresh deeds I went on to do when I came here? Oh marriage rites, you gave me birth, and when you had brought me forth, you again bore children to your child, you created an incestuous kinship of fathers, brothers, sons, brides, wives, and mothers—all the foulest deeds that are wrought among men! But it is improper to mention what it is improper to do— hurry, for the love of the gods, hide me somewhere beyond the land, or slay me, or cast me into the sea, where you will never behold me any longer! Approach—deign to lay your hands on a wretched man—listen and fear not: my plague can rest on no other mortal.

CHORUS: But here is Creon in good time to plan and perform that which you request. He alone is left to guard the land in your place.

OEDIPUS: Ah, me, how will I address him? What claim to credence can be shown on my part? For in the past I proved to be wholly false to him.

CREON: I have not come to mock or reproach you with any any past fault.

But you, if you no longer respect the children of men, revere at least the all-nurturing flame of our lord the Sun, and don’t show so openly such a pollution as this, one which neither earth, nor holy rain, nor the light itself can welcome. Take him into the house as quickly as you can: it best accords with pity that kinfolk alone should see and hear a kinsman’s woes.

OEDIPUS: For the gods’ love—since you have done a gentle violence to my prediction and come in a spirit so noble to me, a man most vile—grant me a favor: I will speak for your own good, not mine.

CREON: And what do you wish so eagerly to get from me?

OEDIPUS: Cast me out of this land with all speed, to a place where no mortal shall be found to greet me.

CREON: This I could have done, to be sure, except I craved first to learn from the god all my duty.

OEDIPUS: But his pronouncement has been set forth in full—to let me perish, the parricide, unholy one that I am.

CREON: Thus it was said. But since we have come to such a pass, it is better to learn clearly what should be done.

OEDIPUS: Will you, then, seek a response on behalf of such a wretch as I?

CREON: Yes, for even you yourself will now surely put faith in the god.

OEDIPUS: Yes. And on you I lay this charge, to you I make this entreaty: give to the woman within such burial as you wish—you will properly render the last rites to your own. But never let this city of my father be condemned to have me dwelling within, as long as I live. No, allow me to live in the hills, where Cithaeron, famed as mine, sits, which my mother and father, while they lived, fixed as my appointed tomb, so that I may die according to the decree of those who sought to slay me. And yet I know this much, that neither sickness nor anything else can destroy me; for I would never have been snatched from death, except in order to suffer some strange doom. But let my fate go where it will. Regarding my children, Creon, I beg you to take no care of my sons: they are men, so that they will never lack the means to live wherever they should be. My two girls, poor hapless ones—who never knew my table spread separately, or lacked their father’s presence, but always had a share of all that reached my hands—I implore you to take care of them. And, if you can, allow me to touch them with my hands, and to indulge my grief. Grant it, prince, grant it, noble heart. Ah, if I could but once touch them with my hands, I would think that I had them just as when I had sight. What is this? Oh, gods, can it be my loved ones that I hear sobbing, can Creon have taken pity on me and sent my children, my darlings? Am I right?

CREON: You are. I have brought this about, for I knew the joy which you have long had from them—the joy you now have.

Part 23

OEDIPUS: Bless you, and for this errand may the god prove a kinder guardian to you than he has to me. My children, where are you? Come, here, here to the hands of the one whose mother was your own, the hands that have made your father’s once bright eyes to be such orbs as these—his, who seeing nothing, knowing nothing, became your father by her from whom he was born! For you also do I weep, though I cannot see you, when I think of the bitter life that men will make you live in days to come. To what company of the citizens will you go, to what festival, from which you will not return home in tears, not sharing in the holiday? But when you reach a ripe age for marriage, who shall he be, who shall be the man, my daughters, to risk taking upon himself the reproaches that will certainly be baneful to my offspring and yours? What misery is lacking? Your father killed his own father, and bore you from the source of his own being! Such are the taunts that will be cast at you. And who then will wed you? The man does not live, no, it cannot be, my children, but you will wither in barren maidenhood. Son of Menoeceus, hear me: since you are the only father left to them—we, their parents, are both gone— do not allow them to wander poor and unwed, for they are your own kin, nor abase them to the level of my woes. Pity them, seeing them deprived of everything but you at such an age. Promise, noble man, and touch them with your hand. To you, children, I would have given much counsel, if your minds were mature. But now pray that you may live where occasion allows, and that the life which is your lot may be happier than your father’s.

CREON: Your grief has had a sufficient scope: move on into the house.

OEDIPUS: I must obey, though I do it in no way gladly.

CREON: Yes, for it is in season that all things are good.

OEDIPUS: Do you know on what terms I will go?

CREON: You will tell me, and then I will know when I have heard them.

OEDIPUS: See that you send me to dwell outside this land.

CREON: You ask for what the god must give.

OEDIPUS: But to the gods I have become most hateful.

CREON: Then you will quickly get your wish.

OEDIPUS: So you consent?

CREON: It is not my way to say idly what I do not mean.

OEDIPUS: Then it is time to lead me away.

CREON: Come, then, but let your children go.

OEDIPUS: No, do not take them from me!

CREON: Do not wish to be master in all things: the mastery which you did attain has not followed you through life.

CHORUS: Residents of our native Thebes, behold, this is Oedipus, who knew the renowned riddle, and was a most mighty man. What citizen did not gaze on his fortune with envy? See into what a stormy sea of troubles he has come! Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the final destined day, we must call no mortal happy until he has crossed life’s border free from pain.

Contents — 28 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21
22. Part 22
23. Part 23
24. Part 24
25. Part 25
26. Part 26
27. Part 27
28. Part 28

Part 1

OEDIPUS: Child of a blind old man, Antigone, to what region have we come, or to what city of men? Who will entertain the wandering Oedipus today with scanty gifts? Little do I crave, and obtain still less than that little, and with that I am content. For patience is the lesson of suffering, and of the long years upon me, and lastly of a noble mind. My child, if you see any resting-place, either on profane ground or by groves of the gods, stop me and set me down, so that we may inquire where we are. We have come to learn as foreigners from the townsmen, and to bring to completion whatever we hear.

ANTIGONE: Father, toil-worn Oedipus, the towers that ring the city, to judge by sight, are far off; and this place is sacred, to judge from its appearance: laurel, olive, and vine grow thick-set; and a feathered crowd of nightingales makes music within. So sit here on this unshaped stone; you have travelled a long way for an old man.

OEDIPUS: Seat me, then, and watch over the blind.

ANTIGONE: If time can teach, I need not learn that.

OEDIPUS: Can you tell me, now, where we have arrived?

ANTIGONE: Athens I know, but not this place.

OEDIPUS: Yes, so much every traveller told us.

ANTIGONE: Well, shall I go and learn what the spot is called?

OEDIPUS: Yes, child, if indeed it is inhabited.

ANTIGONE: It surely is inhabited. But I think there is no need—I see a man nearby.

OEDIPUS: Setting off and coming toward us?

ANTIGONE: He is at our side already. Speak whatever seems timely to you, for the man is here.

OEDIPUS: Stranger, hearing from this maiden, who has sight both for herself and for me, that you have arrived as a scout of good fortune for the solving of our doubts—

STRANGER: Now, before you question me at length, leave this seat. You occupy ground which is unholy to tread upon.

OEDIPUS: And what is this ground? To which of the gods is it sacred?

STRANGER: Ground inviolable, on which no one may dwell. The dread goddesses hold it, the daughters of Earth and Darkness.

OEDIPUS: Who are they? Whose awful name might I hear and invoke in prayer?

STRANGER: The all-seeing Eumenides the people here would call them: but other names please elsewhere.

OEDIPUS: Then graciously may they receive their suppliant! Nevermore will I depart from my seat in this land.

STRANGER: What does this mean?

Part 2

OEDIPUS: The watchword of my fate.

STRANGER: I dare not remove you without warrant from the city, until I report what I am doing.

OEDIPUS: Now by the gods, stranger, do not deny me, hapless wanderer as you see, the honor of the knowledge for which I beg you.

STRANGER: Tell me, and you will not be without honor from me.

OEDIPUS: What, then, is the place that we have entered?

STRANGER: All that I myself know, you will hear and learn. This whole place is sacred; august Poseidon holds it, and in it lives the fire-bearing god, the Titan Prometheus. But as for the spot on which you tread, it is called the bronze threshold of this land, the support of Athens. And the neighboring fields claim Colonus, the horse-rider, for their ancient ruler; and all the people bear his name in common as their own. Such, you see, stranger, are these haunts. They receive their honor not through story, but rather through our living with them.

OEDIPUS: Are there indeed dwellers in this region?

STRANGER: Yes indeed, the namesakes of that god there .

OEDIPUS: Have they a king? Or does speaking rest with the masses?

STRANGER: These parts are ruled by the king in the city.

OEDIPUS: And who is he that is sovereign in counsel and in might?

STRANGER: Theseus he is called, son of Aegeus who was before him.

OEDIPUS: Could a messenger go to him from among you?

STRANGER: With what aim? To speak, or to prepare his coming?

OEDIPUS: So that by a small service he may find a great gain.

STRANGER: And what help can come from one who cannot see?

OEDIPUS: In all that I speak there will be vision.

STRANGER: Take care now, stranger, that you come to no harm; for you are noble, if I may judge by your looks, leaving your ill-fortune aside. Stay here, where I found you, until I go and tell these things to the people of this district—not in the city. They will decide for you whether you should stay or go back. Stranger exits.

OEDIPUS: My child, has the stranger left us?

ANTIGONE: He is gone, and so you can speak what you wish, father, fully at ease, knowing that I alone am near.

Part 3

OEDIPUS: Ladies of dread aspect, since your seat is the first in this land at which I have bent my knee, show yourselves not ungracious to Phoebus or to myself; who, when he proclaimed that doom of many woes, spoke to me of this rest after long years: on reaching my goal in a land where I should find a seat of the Awful Goddesses and a shelter for foreigners, there I should close my weary life, with profit, through my having fixed my abode there, for those who received me, but ruin for those who sent me forth, who drove me away. And he went on to warn me that signs of these things would come, in earthquake, or in thunder, or in the lightning of Zeus. Now I perceive that in this journey some trusty omen from you has surely led me home to this grove; never otherwise could I have met with you, first of all, in my wanderings—I, in my sobriety, with you who touch no wine, —or taken this august seat not shaped by men. Then, goddesses, according to the word of Apollo, give me at last some way to accomplish and close my course—unless, perhaps, I seem too lowly, enslaved as I am evermore to woes the sorest on the earth. Hear, sweet daughters of primeval Darkness! Hear, you that are called the city of great Pallas, Athens, given most honor of all cities! Pity this poor ghost of the man Oedipus! For in truth it is the former living body no more.

ANTIGONE: Hush! Here come some aged men to spy out your resting-place.

OEDIPUS: I will be mute. But hide me in the grove, apart from the road, till I learn how these men will speak. For in learning is the safeguard of our course. They exit.

CHORUS: Look! Who was he, then? Where is he staying? Where has he rushed from this place, man most insatiate of all who live? Scan the ground, look well, press the search everywhere. A wanderer that old man must have been, a wanderer, not a dweller in the land; otherwise he never would have advanced into this untrodden grove of the maidens with whom none may strive. Their name we tremble to speak; we pass them by with eyes turned away, moving our lips, without sound or word, in still devotion. But now it is said that one has come who reveres them not at all; and him I cannot yet discern, though I look round all the holy place, nor do I know where to find his lodging.

OEDIPUS: Behold the man you seek! In sound is my sight, as the saying goes.

CHORUS: Oh! Oh! Fearful he is to see, and fearful to hear!

OEDIPUS: Do not regard me, I beg you, as a lawless man.

CHORUS: Zeus defend us! Who may this old man be?

OEDIPUS: Not so wholly of the best fate that you would call him fortunate, guardians of this land! It is plain; otherwise I would not be creeping, as you see, by the eyes of others, and buoying my strength upon weakness.

CHORUS: Alas! Were you sightless even from birth? Evil have been your days, and many, it appears. But at least if I can help it, you shall not add this curse to your lot. You go too far—too far! That your rash steps may intrude on the field of this voiceless, grassy glade, where the waters of the mixing bowl blend their stream with the flow of honied offerings, beware, unhappiest of strangers. Retire! Withdraw! Let a wide space part us. Do you hear, toil-worn wanderer? If you have anything to say in converse with us, leave forbidden ground, and speak where it is lawful for all; but, till then, refrain.

OEDIPUS: Daughter, to what counsel shall we incline?

ANTIGONE: My father, we must behave just as the townspeople do, listening and giving way where it is necessary.

OEDIPUS: Then give me your hand.

ANTIGONE: I lay it in yours.

OEDIPUS: Strangers, let me not suffer wrong when I have trusted in you, and have passed from my refuge!

CHORUS: Never, old man, never will anyone remove you from your resting-place here against your will.

OEDIPUS: Further, then?

CHORUS: Come still further.

OEDIPUS: Further?

CHORUS: Lead him onward, maiden, for you hear us and obey.

Part 4

ANTIGONE: [...]

OEDIPUS: [...]

ANTIGONE: Come, follow this way with your dark steps, father, as I lead you.

OEDIPUS: [...]

CHORUS: Stranger in a foreign land, poor man, have the courage to detest what the city steadfastly holds as not dear, and to reverence what it holds dear!

OEDIPUS: Lead me, then, child, to a spot where I may speak and listen within piety’s domain, and let us not wage war with necessity.

CHORUS: There! Do not incline your steps beyond that ledge of bedrock.

OEDIPUS: This far?

CHORUS: Enough, I say

OEDIPUS: Shall I sit down?

CHORUS: Yes, move sideways, and crouch low on the edge of the rock.

ANTIGONE: Father, this is my task: calmly to—

OEDIPUS: Ah me! ah me!

ANTIGONE: —fit step to step, and lean your aged frame upon my dear arm.

OEDIPUS: Alas for my sad destruction!

CHORUS: Ah, poor man, since now you are at ease, speak! What is your lineage among mortals? With what name are you led on your weary path? What fatherland can you tell us of?

OEDIPUS: Strangers, I am without a city, but do not—

CHORUS: What is this that you forbid, old man?

OEDIPUS: do not, do not ask me who I am! Do not seek or probe further!

CHORUS: What does this mean?

Part 5

OEDIPUS: Horrid the birth—

CHORUS: Speak!

OEDIPUS: My child—ah, me!—what shall I say?

CHORUS: What is your lineage, stranger? Speak! And who is your father?

OEDIPUS: Woe is me! What will become of me, my child?

ANTIGONE: Speak, for you are driven to the verge.

OEDIPUS: Then speak I will. I have no way to hide it.

CHORUS: You two make a long delay. Come, hasten!

OEDIPUS: Do you know of a son of Laius?

CHORUS: Oh!

OEDIPUS: —And the race of the Labdacidae?

CHORUS: O Zeus!

OEDIPUS: —and the pitiful Oedipus?

CHORUS: You are he?

OEDIPUS: Have no fear of any words that I speak—

CHORUS: Ah, no, no!

OEDIPUS: Unhappy that I am!

CHORUS: Oh, oh!

OEDIPUS: Daughter, what is about to happen?

CHORUS: Out with you! Go forth from the land!

Part 6

OEDIPUS: And your promise—to what fulfillment will you bring it?

CHORUS: No man is visited by the punishment of fate if he requites deeds which were first done to himself. Deceit on the one part matches deceits on the other, and gives pain instead of pleasure for reward. And you—back with you! Out from your seat! Away from my land with all speed, that you may not fasten some heavier burden on my city!

ANTIGONE: Reverent strangers, since you have not endured my aged father—knowing, as you do, the rumor of his unintended deeds—pity at least my poor self, I implore you, who supplicate you for my father alone. I beg you with eyes that can still look on your own, like one sprung from your own blood, that this sufferer may meet with reverent treatment. On you, as on a god, we depend in our misery. But come, grant the favor for which we hardly dare hope! I implore you by everything that you hold dear at home: by child, by wife, or treasure, or god! Look well and you will not find the mortal who, if a god should lead him on, could escape.

CHORUS: Feel sure, daughter of Oedipus, that we pity you and him alike for your misfortune; but dreading the punishment of the gods, we could not say anything beyond what we have now said to you.

OEDIPUS: What help comes, then, of repute or fair fame, if it ends in idle breath; seeing that Athens, as men say, is god-fearing beyond all, and alone has the power to shelter the outraged stranger, and alone the power to help him? And where are these things for me, when, after making me rise up from this rocky seat, you then drive me from the land, afraid of my name alone? Not, surely, afraid of my person or of my acts; since my acts, at least, have been in suffering rather than doing—if I must mention the tale of my mother and my father, because of which you fear me. That know I full well. And yet how was I innately evil? I, who was merely requiting a wrong, so that, had I been acting with knowledge, even then I could not be accounted evil. But, as it was, all unknowing I went where I went—while they who wronged me knowingly sought my ruin. Therefore, strangers, I beseech you by the gods: just as you made me leave my seat, so protect me, and do not, while you render honor to the gods, consider those gods to be fools. But rather consider that they look on the god-fearing man and on the godless, and that never yet has an impious man found escape. With the help of those gods, do not becloud the prosperity of Athens by paying service to unholy deeds. As you have received the suppliant under your pledge, rescue me and guard me to the end; nor dishonor me when you look on this face unlovely to behold, for I have come to you as one sacred and pious, bearing comfort for this people. But when the master has come, whoever is your leader, then you will hear and know all; meanwhile show yourselves in no way evil.

CHORUS: The thoughts you urge, old man, must move awe; they have been set forth in grave words. But I am content that the rulers of our country should judge in this case.

OEDIPUS: And where, strangers, is the lord of this realm?

CHORUS: He is at the city of his fathers in our land. The messenger who sent us here has gone to fetch him.

OEDIPUS: Do you think that he will have any regard or care for the blind man, so as to come here himself?

CHORUS: Yes, surely, as soon as he learns of your name.

OEDIPUS: Who is there to bring him that word?

CHORUS: The way is long, and many words from travellers often wander about. When he hears them, he will soon be with us, never fear. For your name, old man, has been loudly trumpeted through all lands, so that even if he is taking his ease, and slow to move, when he hears of you he will swiftly arrive.

OEDIPUS: Well, may he come with good fortune both for his own city and for me! What noble man is not his own friend?

ANTIGONE: O Zeus! What shall I say? What shall I think, my father?

OEDIPUS: What is it, Antigone, my child?

ANTIGONE: I see a woman coming towards us, mounted on a colt of Etna; she wears a Thessalian bonnet to screen her face from the sun. What shall I say? Is it she, or is it not? Does my judgment err? Yes—no—I cannot tell—ah, me! It is no other, yes! She greets me with bright glances as she draws near, and makes a signal. Here is Ismene, clearly, and no other before me.

OEDIPUS: What is that you say, my child?

ANTIGONE: That I see your daughter, my sister. By her voice right away you can know her.

ISMENE: Father and sister, names most sweet to me! How hard it was to find you! And how hard now to look upon you for my tears!

OEDIPUS: My child, have you come?

Part 7

ISMENE: Father, your fate is sad to see!

OEDIPUS: Are you with us, my child?

ISMENE: Not without toil, indeed, for myself.

OEDIPUS: Touch me, my daughter!

ISMENE: I give a hand to each at once.

OEDIPUS: Ah my children, my sisters!

ISMENE: Alas, twice-wretched life!

OEDIPUS: Her life and mine?

ISMENE: And mine, wretched me, makes a third.

OEDIPUS: Child, why have you come?

ISMENE: Through concern for you, father.

OEDIPUS: Through longing to see me?

ISMENE: Yes, and to bring you news by my own mouth, with the only faithful servant that I had.

OEDIPUS: And where are the young men, your brothers, in our need?

ISMENE: They are where they are; their circumstances now are terrible.

OEDIPUS: True image of the ways of Egypt that they show in their spirit and their life! For there the men sit weaving in the house, but the wives go forth to win the daily bread. And in your case, my daughters, those to whom these toils belonged keep the house at home like maidens, while you two, in their place, bear your poor father’s woes. The one, from the time when her youth was past and she came into her strength, has always been this old man’s guide in weary wanderings, often roaming, hungry and barefoot, through the wild woods, often battered by rains and scorching sun. And the comforts of home, poor girl, she holds in the second place, so long as her father should have her care. And you, my child, in former days came forth, bringing your father, unknown to the Cadmeans, all the oracles that had been given concerning Oedipus. You became a faithful guardian on my behalf, when I was being driven from the land. Now, in turn, what new tidings have you brought your father, Ismene? On what mission have you set forth from home? For you do not come empty-handed, I know well, or without some cause of fear for me.

ISMENE: The sufferings that I bore, father, in seeking where you dwelt, I will pass by; I would not renew the pain in the recital. But the evils that now beset your ill-fated sons—it is of these that I have come to tell. At first it was their decision that the throne should be left to Creon, and the city spared pollution, when they thought calmly about the ancient blight on our race, and how it has clung to your unfortunate house. But now, moved by some god and by sinful heart, an evil strife has seized them—thrice-deluded!—to grasp at rule and the power of a tyrant. And the younger son has stripped the elder, Polyneices, of the throne, and has driven him from his fatherland. But he, as the widespread rumor says among us, has gone to the valley of Argos as an exile, and is taking to himself a new marriage connection, and warriors for his friends, intending that Argos soon get hold of the Cadmean land, or send its praises to the sky. These are not empty words, my father, but terrible deeds; and where the gods will have pity on your grief, I cannot tell.

OEDIPUS: What, had you come to hope that the gods would ever have concern enough for me to give me rescue?

ISMENE: Yes, that is my hope, father, from the present oracles.

OEDIPUS: What are they? What has been prophesied, my child?

Part 8

ISMENE: That you will be desired some day, in life and death, by the men of that land, for their safety’s sake.

OEDIPUS: And who could profit from such a one as I?

ISMENE: Their power, it is said, proves to be in your hands.

OEDIPUS: When I no longer exist, then I am a man?

ISMENE: Yes, for the gods now raise you up; but before they worked your ruin.

OEDIPUS: It is a paltry thing to raise up age, when youth was ruined.

ISMENE: Well, know at least that Creon will come to you on this account—and soon, not late.

OEDIPUS: With what purpose, daughter? Interpret that to me.

ISMENE: To plant you near the Cadmean land, so that they may have you in their power, while you may not set foot within their borders.

OEDIPUS: And how can I profit them while I rest beyond their gates?

ISMENE: Your tomb contains a curse for them, if it should suffer misfortune.

OEDIPUS: I need no god to help my wits so far.

ISMENE: For this reason, therefore, they wish to get you as their neighbor; but in a place where they will have you at their mercy.

OEDIPUS: Will they really cover me in Theban dust?

ISMENE: No, the guilt of related blood forbids you, father.

OEDIPUS: Then never will they become my masters.

ISMENE: Someday then this will be a grief for the Cadmeans.

OEDIPUS: In what conjunction of events, my child?

ISMENE: Under the power of your anger, when they stand at your tomb.

OEDIPUS: And who has told you this, my child?

Part 9

ISMENE: Sacred envoys, from the Delphian hearth.

OEDIPUS: And has Phoebus indeed spoken this concerning me?

ISMENE: So say the men who have come back to Thebes.

OEDIPUS: Has either of my sons heard this?

ISMENE: Yes, both have heard it, and know it well.

OEDIPUS: And then those most evil of sons, aware of this, preferred the kingship to the wish of recalling me?

ISMENE: It grieves me to hear this, but I must bear it.

OEDIPUS: Then may the gods not quench their fated strife, and may it fall to me to decide this war on which they are now setting their hands, raising spear against spear! For then neither would he who now holds the scepter and the throne survive, nor would the exile ever return; seeing that when I, their father, was being thrust without honor from my country, they did not stop or defend me. No, they saw me sent forth homeless, and heard the crier proclaim my sentence of exile. Perhaps you will say that that was my own wish then, and that the city fittingly granted me that gift. Not so! For on that first day, when my heart seethed, and my sweetest wish was for death—indeed, death by stoning—no one was found to help me in that desire. But after a time, when all my anguish was now softened, and when I began to feel that my heart had been excessive in punishing those past errors, then it was that the city set about to drive me by force from the land, after all that time. And my sons, when they had the strength to bring help—sons to their own father—they would not do it. For lack of one little word from them, I was left to wander, an outcast and a beggar forever. Instead, it is from these, maidens as they are, insofar as nature enables them, that I obtain my daily food, and a shelter in the land, and the aid of family. Their brothers have bartered their father for the throne, the scepter of power, and the rule of the realm. No, never will they win Oedipus for an ally, nor will good ever come to them from this reign at Thebes; that I know, when I hear this maiden’s oracles and reflect on the old prophecies stored in my own mind, which Phoebus has fulfilled for me at last. Therefore let them send Creon to seek me—or whoever else is mighty in Thebes. For if you, strangers, with the help of the dread goddesses who reign among your district, are willing to defend me, you will obtain a great savior for this city, and troubles for my enemies.

CHORUS: You are worthy of compassion, Oedipus, both you and these maidens. And since to this plea you append your power to save our land, I wish to advise you for your advantage.

OEDIPUS: Dearest friends, be my patrons, and I will bring everything to completion.

CHORUS: Then make atonement to these divinities, to whom you have come first, and on whose ground you have trespassed.

OEDIPUS: With what rites? Instruct me, strangers.

CHORUS: First, from an ever-flowing spring bring sacred drink-offerings, borne in ritually pure hands.

OEDIPUS: And when I have gotten this unmixed draught?

CHORUS: There are bowls, the work of a skilled craftsman; crown their edges and the handles at either side.

OEDIPUS: With olive branches, or woollen cloths, or in what way?

CHORUS: Take the freshly-shorn wool of a ewe-lamb.

OEDIPUS: Good; and then to what last rite shall I proceed?

CHORUS: Pour the drink-offerings, with your face to the dawn.

OEDIPUS: Shall I pour them with these vessels of which you speak?

Part 10

CHORUS: Yes, in three streams; but the last vessel—

OEDIPUS: With what shall I fill this, before I set it down? Teach me this also.

CHORUS: With water and honey; but add no wine.

OEDIPUS: And when the ground under the dark shade has drunk these?

CHORUS: Three times lay on it nine branches of olive with both your hands, and meanwhile make this prayer.

OEDIPUS: I wish to hear this prayer; it is the most important part.

CHORUS: We call them Eumenides, so that with well-wishing power they may receive the suppliant as his saviors. Let this be your prayer, or of whoever prays for you. Speak inaudibly, and do not lift up your voice; then depart, without looking behind. If you should do this, I would be bold enough to come to your aid; but otherwise, stranger, I would fear for you.

OEDIPUS: Daughters, do you hear these strangers who dwell nearby?

ANTIGONE: We have listened. Tell us what to do.

OEDIPUS: I cannot make the trip; for I am disabled by lack of strength and lack of sight, twin evils. But let one of you two go and do these things. For I think that one soul suffices to pay this debt for ten thousand, if it comes with good will. Act, then, with speed. But do not abandon me, for my body would not have the strength to move, without help or a guiding hand.

ISMENE: Then I will go to perform the rite; but where I am to find the place—this I wish to learn.

CHORUS: On the further side of this grove, stranger. And if you have need of anything, there is a guardian of the place. He will direct you.

ISMENE: Off to my task. But you, Antigone, watch our father here. In the case of parents, if we toil, we must not keep a memory of it. Ismene exits.

CHORUS: Terrible it is, stranger, to arouse the old woe that has for so long been laid to rest: and yet I yearn to hear—

OEDIPUS: What now?

CHORUS: —Of that grief-filled anguish, cureless, with which you have wrestled.

OEDIPUS: By your hospitality, do not uncover the shame that I have suffered!

CHORUS: Seeing that the tale is wide-spread and in no way weakens, I wish, friend, to hear it straight.

OEDIPUS: Ah me!

CHORUS: Grant the favor, I beg!

Part 11

OEDIPUS: Alas, alas!

CHORUS: Grant my wish, as I have granted yours to the full.

OEDIPUS: I have suffered the greatest misery, strangers—suffered it through unintended deeds—may the god know it! No part was of my own choice.

CHORUS: But in what way?

OEDIPUS: In an evil marriage, the city bound me, unknowing, to ruin.

CHORUS: Is it true, as I hear, that you made your mother the partner of your bed, to its infamy?

OEDIPUS: Ah, me! These words, strangers, are like death to my ears. And those two maidens of mine—

CHORUS: What will you say?

OEDIPUS: —Two daughters—two curses—

CHORUS: O Zeus!

OEDIPUS: —of mine, sprung from the travail of the womb that bore me too.

CHORUS: These, then, are at once your daughters, and—

OEDIPUS: —Sisters, indeed, of their father.

CHORUS: Oh!

OEDIPUS: Indeed, woes untold sweep back upon my soul!

CHORUS: You have suffered—

OEDIPUS: I have suffered woes grievous to bear.

CHORUS: You have performed—

OEDIPUS: I have not performed!

CHORUS: How?

Part 12

OEDIPUS: A gift was given to me—O, wretched that I am, if only I had never won from the city that gift for my services!

CHORUS: Cursed man! What of this? Did you commit the murder—

OEDIPUS: What now? What would you learn?

CHORUS: —Of your father?

OEDIPUS: Oh! oh! a second stab—wound on wound!

CHORUS: You killed—

OEDIPUS: I killed—yet I have a plea—

CHORUS: What can you plead?

OEDIPUS: —A plea of justice.

CHORUS: What?

OEDIPUS: I will tell you: I killed in ignorance and perished utterly. Pure before the law, without knowledge of my act, I have come to this!

CHORUS: Look, there comes our lord, Theseus son of Aegeus, at the sound of your voice, to do that for which he was summoned.

THESEUS: Through hearing from many in the past about the bloody marring of your sight, I recognized it was you, son of Laius; and now on coming here, through sight I am more fully certain. For your clothing and that heart-rending face alike assure me that it is you. And in all compassion I ask you, ill-fated Oedipus, with what petition to the city and to me have you taken your place here, you and the poor maiden at your side. Declare it. Dire indeed must be the fortune which you tell, for me to stand aloof from it; since I know that I myself also was reared in exile, just as you, and that in foreign lands I wrestled with perils to my life, like no other man. Never, then, would I turn aside from a stranger, such as you are now, or refuse to help in his deliverance. For I know well that I am a man, and that my portion of tomorrow is no greater than yours.

OEDIPUS: Theseus, in a few words your nobleness has come to such a point that I need make only a brief reply. You have said who I am, from what father I am sprung, and from what land I have come; and so nothing else remains for me but to speak my wish, and the tale is told.

THESEUS: Then inform me of this very thing, so that I may learn it.

OEDIPUS: I come to offer you my care-worn body as a gift—not one fine to look on, but the gains from it are better than beauty.

THESEUS: And what gain do you claim to have brought?

OEDIPUS: Later you may learn it—but not yet.

THESEUS: At what time, then, will the benefit become clear?

OEDIPUS: When I am dead, and you have given me burial.

Part 13

THESEUS: You crave life’s last service; but for all between you have no memory, or no care.

OEDIPUS: Indeed, for by that service I gather in all the rest.

THESEUS: Well then, this favor you crave from me is brief indeed.

OEDIPUS: Yet take care; the struggle here is no light one. No, indeed.

THESEUS: Do you mean in respect to your sons, or to me?

OEDIPUS: They will compel you to convey me there to Thebes.

THESEUS: But if you are willing, then exile is not becoming.

OEDIPUS: No, when I was willing, they refused.

THESEUS: Foolish man, anger amidst woes is not suitable.

OEDIPUS: When you have heard my story, admonish; till then, forbear.

THESEUS: Speak. I must not pronounce without knowledge.

OEDIPUS: I have suffered, Theseus, terrible woes upon woes.

THESEUS: Will you speak of the ancient trouble of your race?

OEDIPUS: No, indeed; all Greeks speak of that.

THESEUS: How, then, do you suffer beyond what is mortal?

OEDIPUS: The circumstance is this: from my country I have been driven by my own sons; and I may not return, since I am guilty of a father’s blood.

THESEUS: Why would they have you brought back, if you must dwell apart?

OEDIPUS: The word of the god will compel them.

THESEUS: What suffering do they fear from the oracles?

OEDIPUS: That they must be struck down in this land.

Part 14

THESEUS: And how should bitterness come between them and me?

OEDIPUS: Dearest son of Aegeus, to the gods alone old age and death never come, but everything else sinks into chaos from time which overpowers all. Earth’s strength decays, and so too the strength of the body; trust dies; distrust is born; and the same spirit is never steadfast among friends, or between city and city. For some now, for others tomorrow, sweet feelings turn to bitter, and then once more to being dear. And if now the sun shines brightly between Thebes and you, yet time in his course gives birth to days and nights untold, in which from a small cause they will scatter with the spear today’s pledges of concord. Then one day my slumbering and buried corpse, cold in death, will drink their warm blood, if Zeus is still Zeus, and Phoebus, the son of Zeus, speaks clear. But, since I would not break silence concerning words that must not spoken, allow me to cease where I began. Only keep your own pledge good, and never will you say that in vain you welcomed Oedipus to dwell in this land—if indeed the gods do not deceive me.

CHORUS: Lord, from the first this man has shown a will to bring these words, or similar ones, to completion for our land.

THESEUS: Who, then, would reject the goodwill of such a one? To whom, first, the hearth of a spear-friend is always available on our side, by reciprocal right; then too he has come as a suppliant to our gods, paying no small recompense to this land and to me. In reverence for these claims, I will never spurn his favor, and I will establish a dwelling for him as a citizen in the land. And if it is the pleasure of the stranger to remain here, I will command you to protect him; or, if it pleases him, to come with me. This choice or that, Oedipus, you may take; your desire will be mine.

OEDIPUS: O Zeus, may you be good to men such as these!

THESEUS: What is your wish, then? Will you come to my house?

OEDIPUS: Yes, I would, if it were right. But this is the place—

THESEUS: What will you do here? Speak, for I will not hinder you.

OEDIPUS: —Where I will conquer those who cast me out.

THESEUS: The promised gift of your presence would be great.

OEDIPUS: It shall be, if you keep your pledge with me.

THESEUS: Have courage concerning me; never will I betray you.

OEDIPUS: I will not bind you with an oath as if an evil man.

THESEUS: Well, you would win nothing more than by my word.

OEDIPUS: What will you do, then?

THESEUS: What is it that you fear?

OEDIPUS: Men will come—

THESEUS: But these men here will see to that.

OEDIPUS: Beware that if you leave me—

THESEUS: Do not instruct me in my duties.

Part 15

OEDIPUS: Fear constrains me—

THESEUS: My heart feels no fear.

OEDIPUS: You do not know the threats—

THESEUS: I know that none will lead you from here against my will. Often threats have blustered in men’s hearts with words loud and vain; but when the mind comes to itself once more, the threats have vanished. For those men, too, perhaps—yes, even if in boldness they have spoken dreadful things of bringing you back, the voyage here will prove long and hard to sail. Now I exhort you, apart from any decision of mine, to take heart, if indeed Phoebus has been your escort here. Even if I am not present, still my name, I know, will shield you from harm.

CHORUS: Stranger, in this land of fine horses you have come to earth’s fairest home, the shining Colonus. Here the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear note under the trees of green glades, dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god’s inviolate foliage, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by the wind of any storm. Here the reveller Dionysus ever walks the ground, companion of the nymphs that nursed him.

CHORUS: And, fed on heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms day by day with its fair clusters; it is the ancient crown of the Great Goddesses. And the crocus blooms with a golden gleam. Nor do the ever-flowing springs diminish, from which the waters of Cephisus wander, and each day with pure current it moves over the plains of the land’s swelling bosom, bringing fertility. Nor have the dancing Muses shunned this place, nor Aphrodite of the golden rein.

CHORUS: And there is a thing such as I have not heard of on Asian ground, nor as ever yet born in the great Dorian isle of Pelops: a plant unconquered, self-renewing, causing terror to destroying enemies. It greatly flourishes in this land—the gray-leafed olive, nurturer of children. Youth cannot harm it by the ravages of his hand, nor can any who lives with old age. For the sleepless eye of Zeus Morios watches over it, and gray-eyed Athena.

CHORUS: And I have more praise for this city our mother, the gift of a great divinity, a glory most great: the might of horses, the might of colts, and the might of the sea. For you, son of Cronus, lord Poseidon, have set her on the throne of this pride, by establishing first in our roads the bit that cures the rage of horses. And the shapely oar, well-fitted for the sea, in flying past the land leaps to follow the hundred-footed Nereids.

ANTIGONE: Land that is praised above all lands, now it is your task to make those bright praises seen in deeds!

OEDIPUS: What strange new thing has happened, my daughter?

ANTIGONE: Creon there draws near us, and not without followers, father.

OEDIPUS: Ah, dearest old men, now give me the final proof of my salvation!

CHORUS: Courage! It will be yours. For even if I am aged, this country’s strength has not grown old.

CREON: Gentlemen, noble dwellers in this land, I see from your eyes that a sudden fear has troubled you at my coming; but do not shrink back from me, and let no evil word escape you. I am here with no thought of force; I am old, and I know that the city to which I have come is mighty, if any in Hellas has might. No, I have been sent, aged as I am, to plead with this man to return with me to the land of Cadmus. I am not one man’s envoy, but have a mandate from all our people; since it belonged to me, by family, beyond all other Thebans to mourn his woes. Unhappy Oedipus, hear us, and come home! Justly are you summoned by all the Cadmeans, and most of all by me, since I—unless I am the worst of all men born—feel most sorrow for your woes, old man, when I see you, unhappy as you are, a stranger and a wanderer evermore, roaming in beggary, with one handmaid for your support. Ah, me, I had not thought that she could fall to such a depth of misery as that to which she has fallen— this poor girl!—as she tends forever your dark life amid poverty; in ripe youth, but unwed: a prize for the first passerby to seize. Is it not a cruel reproach—alas!—that I have cast at you, and me, and all our race? But indeed an open shame cannot be hidden. Oedipus, in the name of your ancestral gods, listen to me! Hide it, and consent to return to the city and the house of your ancestors, after bidding a kind farewell to this city. Athens is worthy; yet your own city has the first claim on your reverence, since it was Thebes that nurtured you long ago.

OEDIPUS: You who will dare anything, who from any just plea would derive a crafty trick, why do you make this attempt on me, and seek once more to snare me in your trap where I would feel most grief? Long ago, when I labored under the sickness of my self-made evils, and I yearned to be cast out of the land, you refused to grant the favor. But when my fierce anger had spent its force, and seclusion in the house was sweet to me, it was then that you thrust me from the house and cast me from the land. And this common race that you mention—that was not at all dear to you then. Now, in turn, when you see that I have a kindly welcome from this city and all its race, you try to pluck me away, wrapping your cruel thoughts in soft words. And yet what pleasure do you find in this, in treating me as dear against my will? As if a man should refuse you a gift, bring you no aid, when you continually begged for it; but after your heart was sated with your desires, he should grant it then, when the favor could bring no joy —would you not find your delight in this empty? Yet such is the nature of your own offers to me: noble in appearance, but in substance base. And I will declare it to these men too, to show you up as base. You have come to get me, not to bring me home, but to plant me near your borders, so that your city might escape uninjured by evils from this land. That fate is not for you, but this one: the brooding of my vengeful spirit on your land forever; and for my sons, this heirloom: just so much soil in my realm in which to die. Am I not wiser than you in the fortunes of Thebes? Yes, far wiser, by as much as the sources of my knowledge are truer: Phoebus I mean, and his father, Zeus himself. But you have come here with fraud on your lips, yes, and with a tongue keener than the edge of a sword; yet by their use you may well reap more sorrow than salvation. Still, since I know that I cannot persuade you of this, go! Allow us to live on here; for even in this plight our life would not be bad, if we should be content with it.

CREON: Which of us, do you think, suffers more in this exchange—I by your action, or you by your own?

OEDIPUS: For me, it is enough if your pleading fails both with me and with these men nearby.

CREON: Unhappy man, will you let everyone see that even in your years you have gained no sense? Must you live on to disgrace your old age?

OEDIPUS: You have a clever tongue, but I know no just man who can produce from every side a pretty speech.

CREON: Words may be many, and yet not to the point.

Part 16

OEDIPUS: As if yours, indeed, were few, but on the mark.

CREON: They cannot be, not for one whose mind is such as yours.

OEDIPUS: Begone! I will say it for these men too. And do not besiege me with a jealous watch where I am destined to remain.

CREON: I call these men, and not you, to witness the tenor of your words to your friends. And if I ever catch you—

OEDIPUS: And who could catch me against the will of these allies?

CREON: I promise you, soon you will be pained even without that.

OEDIPUS: Where is the deed which backs that threatening word?

CREON: One of your two daughters I have myself just seized and sent away. The other I will drag off immediately.

OEDIPUS: Oh, no!

CREON: You will soon find more to weep about.

OEDIPUS: You have my child?

CREON: And I will have this one in no long time.

OEDIPUS: Oh! Strangers, what will you do? Will you betray me? Will you not drive the godless man from this land?

CHORUS: Depart, stranger! Quick! Your present deed is not just, nor the deed which you have done.

CREON: It is time for you to drag this girl off against her will, if she will not go freely.

ANTIGONE: Wretched that I am! Where can I flee? Where find help from gods or men?

CHORUS: What are you doing, stranger?

CREON: I will not touch this man, but her who is mine.

OEDIPUS: Lords of the land!

CHORUS: Stranger, you are acting unjustly.

Part 17

CREON: Justly.

CHORUS: How?

CREON: I take my own.

OEDIPUS: Oh, city !

CHORUS: What are you doing, stranger? Release her! Your strength and ours will soon come to the test.

CREON: Stand back!

CHORUS: Not while this is your purpose.

CREON: There will be war with Thebes for you, if you harm me.

OEDIPUS: Did I not say so?

CHORUS: Unhand the girl at once!

CREON: Do not make commands where you are not the master.

CHORUS: Let go, I tell you!

CREON: And I tell you: be off!

CHORUS: Help, men of Colonus, bring help! The city, our city, is attacked by force! Come to our aid!

ANTIGONE: I am being dragged away in misery. Strangers, strangers!

OEDIPUS: My child, where are you?

ANTIGONE: I am led off by force.

OEDIPUS: Give me your hand, my child!

ANTIGONE: I am helpless.

CREON: Away with you!

Part 18

OEDIPUS: I am wretched, wretched! The guards exit with Antigone.

CREON: So those two staffs will never again support your path. But since you wish to overcome your country and your friends, whose will I, though tyrant as well, am here discharging, then I wish you victory. For in time, I am sure, you will come to recognize all this, that now too as in time past, it is you who have done yourself no good, by indulging your anger despite your friends. This has always been your ruin.

CHORUS: Stop there, stranger!

CREON: Hands off, I say!

CHORUS: I will not let go, unless you give back the maidens.

CREON: Then you will soon give the city a more valuable prize, for I will lay hands on more than those two girls.

CHORUS: What! What do you intend?

CREON: This man here will be my captive.

CHORUS: A valiant threat!

CREON: Straightaway it will be done.

CHORUS: Indeed, unless the ruler of this realm prevents you.

OEDIPUS: Voice of shamelessness! Will you really lay hands on me?

CREON: Shut up, I say!

OEDIPUS: No! May the powers of this place grant me to utter this further curse! Most evil of men, when these eyes were dark, you wrenched from me the helpless one who was my eyesight and made off with her by force. Therefore to you and to your race may the Sun, the god who sees all things, grant in time an old age such as mine!

CREON: Do you see this, people of the land?

OEDIPUS: They see both you and me. They know that I have suffered in deeds, and my defense is mere words.

CREON: I will not check my anger. Though I am alone and slow with age, I will take this man by force.

OEDIPUS: Ah, my wretchedness!

CHORUS: What arrogance you have come with, stranger, if you think you will achieve this!

CREON: I will.

Part 19

CHORUS: Then I think this city no longer exists.

CREON: For men who are just, you see, the weak vanquishes the strong.

OEDIPUS: Do you hear his words?

CHORUS: Yes, but he will not achieve them.

CREON: Zeus knows perhaps, but you do not.

CHORUS: This is an outrage!

CREON: An outrage which you must bear.

CHORUS: Hear people, hear rulers of the land! Come quickly, come! These men are on their way to cross our borders!

THESEUS: What is this shout? What is the trouble? What fear has moved you to stop my sacrifice at the altar to the sea-god, the lord of your Colonus? Speak, so that I may know the situation; for that is why I have sped here more swiftly than was pleasant.

OEDIPUS: Dearest of men! I know your voice. Terrible are the things I have just suffered at the hands of this man here.

THESEUS: What things are these? And who has pained you? Speak!

OEDIPUS: Creon, whom you see here, has torn from me my children—my only two.

THESEUS: What is that you say?

OEDIPUS: You have heard my wrongs.

THESEUS: Hurry, one of you attendants, to the altars there, and order the people to leave the sacrifice and race on foot and by horse full speed, to the region where the two highways meet, so that the maidens may not pass, and I not become a mockery to this stranger as one worsted by force. Quick, I say, away with you! As for this man, if my anger went as far as he deserves, I would not let him go uninjured from my hand. But now, just such law as he himself has brought will be the rule for his correction. You will never leave this land until you bring those maidens and produce them in my sight. For your action is a disgrace to me, and to your own ancestors, and to your country. You have come to a city that practices justice and sanctions nothing without law, yet you have spurned her lawful authorities and made this violent assault. You are taking captives at will and subjugating them by force, as if you believed that my city was void of men, or manned by slaves, and that I counted for nothing. Yet it was not Thebes that trained you to be evil. Thebes is not accustomed to rearing unjust men;— nor would she praise you, if she learned that you are despoiling me, and despoiling the gods, when by force you drive off their unfortunate suppliants. If my foot were upon your land, never would I drag off or lead away someone without permission from the ruler of the land, whoever he might be—no, even if my claim were the most just of all. I would know how a stranger ought to live among citizens. But you are disgracing a city that does not deserve it: your own, and your years, despite their fullness, bring you an old age barren of sense. Now, I have said before, and I say it once again: let the maidens be brought here speedily, unless you wish to be an unwilling immigrant to this country by force. These are the words of my lips; my mind is in accord.

CHORUS: Do you see your plight, stranger? You are judged to be just by where you are from, but your deeds are found to be evil.

CREON: It is not because I thought this city void of men, son of Aegeus, or of counsel, as you say, that I have done this deed; but because I judged that its people could never be so zealous for my relatives as to support them against my will. And I knew that this people would not receive a parricide and a polluted man, a man whose unholy marriage—a marriage with children—had been found out. Such wisdom, I knew, was immemorial on the Areopagus, which does not allow such wanderers to dwell within this city. Trusting in that, I sought to take this prize. And I would not have done so, had he not been calling down bitter curses on me and on my race. As I was wronged in this way, I judged that I had a right to this requital. For anger knows no old age, until death comes; the dead alone feel no galling pain. In response to this, you will do what pleases you; for, though my case is just, the lack of aid makes me weak. Yet in the face of your actions, despite my age, I will endeavor to pay you back.

OEDIPUS: Shameless arrogance, where do you think this outrage falls—on my old age, or on your own? Bloodshed, incest, misery—all this your tongue has launched against me, and all this I have borne in my wretchedness by no choice of mine. For this was dear to the gods, who were angry, perhaps, with my race from of old. Taking me alone, you could not find a reproach for any crime, in retribution for which I was driven to commit these sins against myself and against my kin. Tell me now: if, by the voice of an oracle, some divine doom was coming on my father, that he should die by a son’s hand, how could you justly reproach me with this, when I was then unborn, when no father had yet begotten me, no mother’s womb conceived me? But if, having been born to misery—as I was born—I came to blows with my father and slew him, ignorant of what I was doing and to whom, how could you reasonably blame the unwitting deed? And my mother—wretch, do you feel no shame in forcing me to speak of her marriage, when she was your sister, and when it was such as I will now tell? For I will not be silent, when you have gone so far in impious speech. Yes, she was my mother, yes—alas, for my miseries! I did not know it, nor did she, and to her shame she bore children to the son whom she had borne. But one thing, at least, I know: that you willingly revile her and me, but I did not willingly marry her, and I do not willingly speak now. No, I will not be called evil on account of this marriage, nor in the slaying of my father, which you charge me with again and again in bitter insult. Answer just one thing of those I ask. If, here and now, someone should come up and try to murder you—you, the just one—would you ask if the murderer was your father, or would you revenge yourself on him straightaway? I think that if your life is dear to you, you would requite the criminal, and not look around for a justification. Such then were the evils into which I came, led by the gods; and in this, I think, my father’s soul, could it come back to life, would not contradict me. But you are not just; you are one who considers it a fine thing to utter every sort of word, both those which are sanctioned and those which are forbidden—such are your taunts against me in the presence of these men. And to you it seems a fine thing to flatter the renowned Theseus, and Athens, saying how well it is governed. Yet while giving such generous praise, you forget that if any land knows how to worship the gods with honors, this land excels in that. It is from her that you had planned to steal me, a suppliant and an old man, and tried to seize me, having already carried off my daughters. Therefore I now call on the goddesses here, I supplicate them, I beseech them with prayers, to bring me help and to fight on my behalf, that you may learn well what kind of men this city is guarded by.

CHORUS: The stranger is a good man, lord. His fate has been accursed, but it is worthy of our aid.

THESEUS: Enough of words. The doers of the deed are in flight, while we, the sufferers, stand still.

Part 20

CREON: What order, then, do you have for a powerless man?

THESEUS: Guide the way on the path to them while I escort you, in order that if you are keeping the maidens whom we seek in these lands, you yourself may reveal them to me. But if your men are fleeing with the spoils in their grasp, we may spare our trouble; the chase is for others, from whom they will never escape out of this land to thank their gods. Come, lead the way! And know that the captor has been captured; fate has seized you as you hunted. Gains unjustly got by guile are soon lost. And you will have no ally in your purpose; for I well know that it is not without accomplice or resource that you have come to such outrage, from the daring mood which has inspired you here. There was someone you were trusting in when you did these deeds. This I must consider, and I must not make this city weaker than one man. Do you take my drift? Or do these words seem as empty as the warnings given when you were laying your plans?

CREON: Say what you wish while you are here; I will not object. But at home I too will know how to act.

THESEUS: Make your threats, then, but go forward. As for you, Oedipus, stay here in peace with my pledge that, unless I die beforehand, I will not cease until I put you in possession of your children.

OEDIPUS: Thanks to you, Theseus, for your nobleness and your righteous care for me! Theseus exits with attendants and Creon.

CHORUS: Oh, to be where the enemy, turned to fight, will soon join in Ares’ clash of bronze, by the shores of Apollo, perhaps, or by that torch-lit beach where the Great Goddesses maintain awful rites for mortals on whose lips the ministering Eumolpidae have laid the golden seal of silence. There, I think, the war-rousing Theseus and the two maiden sisters will soon meet within our borders, amid the war-cry of resisting men!

CHORUS: Or perhaps they will soon draw near to the pastures on the west of Oea’s snowy rock, fleeing on young horses or in chariots racing full speed. He will be caught! Terrible is the neighboring Ares, terrible the might of the followers of Theseus. Yes, the steel of every bridle flashes, and against their opponents charges forward our whole cavalry, who honor horse-riding Athena, and the earth-girdling Sea-god, the dear son of Rhea.

CHORUS: Is the battle now or yet to be? For somehow my mind presages to me that soon I will meet the maidens who have suffered fearfully, who have found fearful suffering at the hands of a kinsman. Today Zeus will bring something to completion. I predict noble struggles. Oh, to be a dove with the strength and swiftness of a whirlwind, that I might reach an airy cloud, and hang my gaze above the fight!

CHORUS: Hear, all-ruling lord of the gods, all-seeing Zeus! Grant to the guardians of this land to achieve with triumphant might the capture that gives the prize into their hands! And may your daughter grant it too, dread Pallas Athena! And Apollo, the hunter, and his sister, who follows the spotted, swift-footed deer—I wish that they would come, a double help to this land and to its people.

CHORUS: Wandering stranger, you will not say your watcher was a false prophet, for I see your daughters once again drawing near.

OEDIPUS: Where? Where? What is that? What do you mean?

ANTIGONE: Father, father, I wish some god would grant that your eyes might see this excellent man, who has brought us here to you!

OEDIPUS: My child, are you really here?

ANTIGONE: Yes, for these strong arms have saved us—Theseus and his dearest followers.

OEDIPUS: Come here, my children, to your father! Grant me your embrace—restored beyond all hope!

ANTIGONE: We shall grant your wish, for we crave the favor we bestow.

OEDIPUS: Where, then, where are you?

ANTIGONE: Here we are, approaching you together.

OEDIPUS: Dearest offspring!

ANTIGONE: Everything is dear to its parent.

Part 21

OEDIPUS: Supports of a man—

ANTIGONE: Ill-fated as he is ill-fated.

OEDIPUS: I hold my dearest. Now, if I should die, I would not be wholly wretched, since you have come to me. Press close to me on either side, children, cling to your father, and rest from your wandering, so desolate, so grievous! And tell me what has happened as briefly as you can, since brief speech suffices for young maidens.

ANTIGONE: Here is our savior: you should hear the story from him, father, since the deed was his. So short will by part be.

OEDIPUS: Stranger, do not be amazed at my persistence, if I prolong my words to my children, found again beyond my hope. I well know that my present joy in them has come to me from you, and you alone, for you—and not any other mortal—have rescued them. May the gods grant to you my wish, both to you yourself and to this land; for among you, above all mankind, I have found piety, the spirit of decency, and lips that tell no lie. I know these things, and I repay them with these words; for what I have, I have through you, and no one else. Stretch out to me your right hand, lord, that I may touch it; and if it is right, let me kiss your cheek. But what am I saying? Wretched as I have become, how could I wish you to touch a man in whom every stain of evils has made its dwelling? I will not touch you—nor will I allow it, if you do consent. They alone, who know them, can share these burdens. Receive my greeting where you stand, and in the future too give me your righteous care, as you have given it up to this hour.

THESEUS: I feel no amazement, if you have had a lengthy conversation from joy in these children, or if your first concern has been for their words rather than for me. Indeed, there is nothing to vex me in that. Not with words so much as with deeds would I add luster to my life. You have this proof: I have cheated you in none of my sworn promises, old man. Here am I, with the maidens living, uninjured by those threats. As to how the struggle was won, what need have I vainly to boast of what you will learn from these two when you are together? But there is a matter that has just presented itself to me, as I came here. Give me your counsel regarding it; for, though it is small, it is food for wonder. And mortal man must consider nothing beneath his concern.

OEDIPUS: What is it, son of Aegeus? Tell me; I myself know nothing of what you inquire.

THESEUS: They say a man—not from your city, yet of your race—has somehow thrown himself down, as a suppliant, at our altar of Poseidon, where I was sacrificing when I first set out here.

OEDIPUS: What land does he come form? What does he desire by his supplication?

THESEUS: I know one thing only: they tell me he asks to speak briefly with you, a thing of no great burden.

OEDIPUS: On what topic? That suppliant state is of no small account.

THESEUS: He asks, they say, no more than that he may confer with you, and return unharmed from his journey here.

OEDIPUS: Who can he be that implores the god in this way?

THESEUS: Consider whether there is anyone in your race at Argos, who might desire this favor from you.

OEDIPUS: Dearest friend, say no more!

THESEUS: What is wrong?

OEDIPUS: Do not ask me for—

THESEUS: For what? Speak!

OEDIPUS: From hearing these things I know who the suppliant is.

THESEUS: And who can he be, that I should have an objection to him?

Part 22

OEDIPUS: My son, lord, a hated son whose words would vex my ear like the words of no man besides.

THESEUS: What? Can you not listen, without doing what you do not wish to do? Why does it pain you to hear him?

OEDIPUS: Lord, that voice has become most hateful to his father. Do not constrain me to yield in this.

THESEUS: But consider whether his suppliant state constrains you; what if you have a duty of respect for the god?

ANTIGONE: Father, listen to me; I will offer counsel though I am young. Allow this man here to gratify his own feelings and the god as he wishes, and for your daughters’ sake allow our brother to come. He will not tear you by force from your resolve—never fear—with such words as will not be for your good. What harm can there be in listening to words? Deeds wickedly devised, as you know, are betrayed by speech. You sired him, so, even if he wrongs you with the most impious of wrongs, father, it is not right for you to wrong him in return. Let him come! Other men too have evil offspring and a sharp anger, but they hear advice and are charmed from their mood by the gentle spells of friends. Look to the past, away from the present; consider all the pains that you have suffered through your father and mother. If you consider those things, I know well that you will perceive that what results from an evil anger is evil. Your reasons to reflect on this are not trivial, bereft of your unseeing eyes. Yield to us! It is not a fine thing for those seeking justice to keep asking; nor is it good that a man should be treated well, and thereafter not know how to requite it.

OEDIPUS: My child, by your pleading you overcome me; but your pleasure here is my grief. Still, let it be as is dear to you. Only, if that man is to come here, stranger, let no one ever become master over my soul.

THESEUS: Once only do I need hear such words, and no more, old man. I do not want to boast, but you may feel sure that your life is safe, while any of the gods preserves mine. Theseus exits.

CHORUS: Whoever craves the longer length of life, not content to desire a moderate span, him I will judge with no uncertainty: he clings to folly. For the long years lay in deposit many things nearer to pain than joy; but as for your delights, you will find them nowhere, when someone’s life has fallen beyond the fitting period. The Helper comes at last to all alike, when the fate of Hades is suddenly revealed, without marriage-song, or lyre, or dance: Death at the end.

CHORUS: Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best; but when a man has seen the light of day, this is next best by far, that with utmost speed he should go back from where he came. For when he has seen youth go by, with its easy merry-making, what hard affliction is foreign to him, what suffering does he not know? Envy, factions, strife, battles, and murders. Last of all falls to his lot old age, blamed, weak, unsociable, friendless, wherein dwells every misery among miseries.

CHORUS: In such years is this poor man here, not I alone. Like some cape that fronts the north which is lashed on every side by the waves of winter, so he also is fiercely lashed evermore by the dread disasters that break on him like the surf, some from the region of the setting sun, some from that of its rising, some in the realm of its noon-time rays, some from the gloom-wrapped hills of the North.

ANTIGONE: Look, the stranger, it seems, is coming here to us. Yes, without attendants, father, with tears streaming from his eyes.

OEDIPUS: Who is he?

ANTIGONE: The very man who was in our thoughts from the first. Polyneices has come to us.

POLYNEICES: Ah, me, what should I do? Should I weep first for my own woes, sisters, or for those of my father here, in his old age? I have found him in a foreign land, here with you two as an exile, clad in such garments as these. Their unfriendly filth has resided with the old man for long, wasting his flesh; while above the sightless eyes the unkempt hair flutters in the breeze; and matching with these things, it seems, is the food that he carries, sustenance for his poor stomach. Wretch that I am! I learn all this too late. And I bear witness that I have proved the worst of men in all that concerns care for you; from my own lips hear what I am. But seeing that Zeus himself in all his actions has Shame beside him to share his throne, may she come to your aid too, father. For the sins committed can be healed, but can never be made worse.Why are you silent? Speak, father. Do not turn away from me. Do you not have any answer at all for me? Will you dismiss me without a word, dishonored, and not tell me why you are angry? Seed of this man, my sisters, you at least must try to move our father’s implacable, inexorable silence, so that he may not send me away like this, dishonored and with no word in return, when I am the suppliant of the god.

ANTIGONE: Tell him yourself, unhappy man, what you have come to seek. When words flow, you know, they may give joy, or incite anger or pity, and so they may give a voice to the mute.

POLYNEICES: Then I will speak boldly, for you give me excellent guidance, first claiming the help of the god himself, from whose altar the king of this land raised me to come to you, with a guarantee to speak and hear, and go my way unharmed. And I wish these pledges, strangers, to be kept with me by you, and by my sisters here, and by my father. But now I want to tell you, father, why I came. I have been driven as an exile from my fatherland, because, as eldest-born, I thought it right to sit on your sovereign throne. Therefore Eteocles, though the younger, thrust me from the land, when he had neither defeated me by an argument of law, nor made a trial of might and deed. He brought over the city by persuasion. The cause of this, I claim, is most of all the curse on your house; I also hear this from soothsayers. For when I came to Dorian Argos, I made Adrastus my father-in-law. And I bound to me by oath all men of the Apian land who are foremost in their renown for war, so that with their aid I might collect the seven armies of spearmen against Thebes, and die in a just cause, or drive the doers of this wrong from the land. All right then, why have I come to you now? Bearing prayers of supplication, father, in person to you, my own prayers and those of my allies, who now with seven armies behind their seven spears have set their blockade around the plain of Thebes. One such is swift-speared Amphiaraus, a matchless warrior, and a matchless diviner; then comes the son of Oeneus, Aetolian Tydeus; Eteoclus is third, of Argive birth; the fourth, Hippomedon, is sent by Talaos, his father; while Capaneus, the fifth, boasts that he will burn Thebes to the ground with fire; and sixth, Arcadian Parthenopaeus rushes to the war. He is named for that virgin of long ago from whose marriage in later time he was born, the trusty son of Atalanta. Last come I, your son—or if not yours, then the offspring of an evil fate, but yours at least in name— leading the fearless army of Argos to Thebes. It is we who implore you, father, every one of us, by your daughters here and by your soul, begging you to forgo your fierce anger against me, as I go forth to punish my brother, who has expelled me and robbed me of my fatherland. For if anything trustworthy comes from oracles, they said that whoever you join with in alliance will have victorious strength. Then, by the streams of water and gods of our race, I ask you to listen and to yield. I am a beggar and a stranger, as you are yourself; by paying court to others both you and I have a home, obtaining by lot the same fortune. But he is tyrant at home—wretched me!—and in his pride laughs at you and me alike. But if you join as ally to my purpose, with little trouble or time I will scatter his strength to the winds, so that I will bring you home and set you in your own house, and set me in mine, when I have cast him out by force. If you are with me, then I can make this boast; but without you I cannot even return alive.

CHORUS: For the sake of him who has sent this man, Oedipus, speak what seems good to you, before you send him away.

OEDIPUS: Guardians of this land, if it were not Theseus who had sent him here to me, thinking it just that he should hear my response, then never would he have heard my voice of prophecy. But now he will be graced with it, before he goes, and hear from me such words as never will gladden his life. Worst of men, when you had the scepter and the throne, which now your brother has in Thebes, you drove me, your own father, into exile; and by making me an exile you caused me to wear this clothing at whose sight you weep, now that you have come to the same state of misery as I. The time for tears is past. I must bear this burden as long as I live, and keep you before my mind as a murderer. For it is you that have made me subject to this anguish; it is you that have thrust me out, and because of you I wander, begging my daily bread from strangers. And had these daughters not been born to me to be my comfort, in truth I would be dead, for lack of help from you. But now these girls preserve me; they are my nurses; they are men, not women, in sharing my toil. But you are from another and are no sons of mine. Therefore the divinity looks upon you—not yet as he soon will look, if indeed those armies of yours are moving against Thebes. There is no way in which you can ever overthrow that city. Before that you will fall, polluted by bloodshed, and so too your brother. Such curses as my heart before now sent up against you both, I now invoke to fight for me, in order that you may think it fit to revere your parents and not to dishonor your father utterly, because he who begot such sons is blind. For my daughters here did not act in this way. This supplication of yours, and this throne of yours, will lie in the power of my curses, if indeed Justice, revealed long ago, sits beside Zeus, to share his throne through sanction of primordial laws. But off to damnation with you, abhorred by me and disowned! Take these curses which I call down on you, most evil of evil men: may you never defeat your native land, and may you never return to the valley of Argos; I pray that you die by a related hand, and slay him by whom you have been driven out. This is my prayer. And I call on the hateful darkness of Tartarus that your father shares, to take you into another home; and I call on the divinities of this place, and I call on the god of war, who has set dreadful hatred in you both. Go with these words in your ear; go and announce to all the Cadmeans, and to your own faithful allies, that Oedipus has distributed such portions to his sons.

CHORUS: Polyneices, in your past travels I take no joy. Now go back with speed.

POLYNEICES: Alas, for my journey and my failed attempt! Alas, for my companions! Such is the end of the road on which we set out from Argos—wretched me!—such an end, that I cannot even mention it to any of my companions or turn them back, but must go in silence to meet this fate. But you, daughters of this man and my sisters, since you hear these hard curses of a father, do not—if this father’s curses be fulfilled and you find some way of return to Thebes—do not, I beg you by the gods, leave me dishonored, but give me burial and due funeral rites. So the praise which you now win from this man here for your labors will be increased by another praise no less, through your care for me.

Part 23

ANTIGONE: Polyneices, I beseech you, hear me in one thing!

POLYNEICES: What is it, dearest Antigone? Speak!

ANTIGONE: Turn your force back to Argos as quickly as may be, and do not destroy both yourself and your city.

POLYNEICES: No, it is not possible. For how could I lead the same force again, when once I had shrunk back?

ANTIGONE: But why, my brother, must your anger rise again? What profit will come to you from destroying your native land?

POLYNEICES: It is shameful to be in exile, and to be mocked in this way by my brother, when I am eldest-born.

ANTIGONE: Do you see to what sure fulfillment the prophecies of this man are leading, who declares mutual death for you two?

POLYNEICES: Yes, for he wishes it. But I must not yield.

ANTIGONE: Ah, wretched me! But who will dare follow you, when he hears what prophecies this man has uttered?

POLYNEICES: I will not report ill-tidings; a good leader should tell the better news, and not the worse.

ANTIGONE: Is this then your fixed decision, my brother?

POLYNEICES: Yes, and do not detain me. This path now will be my destiny, ill-fated and evil, because of my father here and his Furies. But as for you two, may Zeus grant you good things, if you bring these things to completion for me when I am dead, since in life you will see me no more. Now release me, and farewell; for nevermore will you behold me living.

ANTIGONE: Ah, wretched that I am!

POLYNEICES: Do not mourn for me.

ANTIGONE: And who would not mourn you, brother, when you are hurrying off to a death foreseen?

POLYNEICES: If it is fated, then I must die.

ANTIGONE: No, no, listen to my prayer!

POLYNEICES: Do not plead for what must not be.

ANTIGONE: Then I, indeed, am utterly wretched, if I must lose you!

POLYNEICES: It rests with the divinity, this way or that. But as for you two, I pray to the gods that you may never meet with evil; for in all men’s eyes you do not deserve to suffer. Polyneices exits.

Part 24

CHORUS: Behold, new ills of heavy fate have newly come from the blind stranger, unless, perhaps, fate is finding its goal. I cannot say that a purpose of the divinities is ever vain. Time sees all things forever, and raises up some things, then on the next day raises others back up again. The sky resounds! Zeus!

OEDIPUS: Children, children! If there is any man still here, send him forth to bring back Theseus, excellent in all respects.

ANTIGONE: And what, father, is the purpose of your summons?

OEDIPUS: This winged thunder of Zeus will soon lead me to Hades. So send someone with speed.

CHORUS: Listen! With a louder noise this one crashes down unspeakably, hurled by Zeus! The hair of my head stands up for fear, my soul is dismayed; for again the lightning flashes in the sky. What end will it release? I fear it, for never does it fly forth in vain, or without serious results. O great Sky! O Zeus!

OEDIPUS: Children, the appointed end of life has reached this man; he can turn from it no more.

ANTIGONE: How do you know? By what means do you understand this?

OEDIPUS: I know it well. But let some one go, I pray you, as quickly as he can, and bring back the lord of this land.

CHORUS: Look! Look! Once again the piercing din is around us! Be merciful, divinity, be merciful, if you are bringing anything of gloom for the land which is our mother! May I find you well disposed, and may I not, because I have cared for a man accursed, somehow obtain a favor without profit! Lord Zeus, to you I cry!

OEDIPUS: Is the man near? Will he find me still alive, children, and master of my senses?

ANTIGONE: And what is the pledge that you would like to have firm in your mind?

OEDIPUS: In return for his benefits, I would grant him the fulfillment of the favor that I promised.

CHORUS: Hurry, my son, come to us! If you chance to be in the glade sacrificing an ox to the sea-god Poseidon, then come! For the stranger thinks you worthy, you and your city and your friends, to receive just return for benefits. Hasten quickly, lord!

THESEUS: What din is this that once more rings forth from you all, from my people as clearly as from the stranger? Can a thunderbolt from Zeus be the cause, or rushing hail in its fierce onset? When the god sends such a storm, forebodings of every sort may find a place.

OEDIPUS: Lord, you have appeared at my desire, and to you some god granted noble fortune at this coming.

THESEUS: And what new thing has now occurred, son of Laius?

OEDIPUS: My life hangs in the balance; and I wish to die without cheating you and this city of the promises I made.

THESEUS: And what is the proof of your fate that you depend on?

OEDIPUS: The gods themselves herald the news to me, nor do they cheat me of any of the appointed signs.

THESEUS: What makes these things clear? Tell me, old man.

Part 25

OEDIPUS: The thunder, crash after crash; the lightning, flash after flash, hurled from the unconquered hand.

THESEUS: I am persuaded, for in much I find you a prophet whose voice is not false. Then say what must be done.

OEDIPUS: I will expound myself, son of Aegeus, the treasures which will be laid up for this city, such as age can never hurt. Immediately, with no hand to guide me, I will lead to the place where I must die. But as to that place, never reveal it to another man, neither where it is hidden, nor in what region it lies, so that it may be an eternal defence for you, better than many shields, better than the spear of neighbors which brings relief. But as for mysteries which speech may not profane, you will learn them yourself when you come to that place alone, since I cannot declare them either to any of these people, or even to my own children, though I love them. Reserve them always to yourself, and when you reach the end of life, reveal them to your eldest son alone, and let him reveal them to his successor in turn forever. In this way you will keep this city unscathed by the men born of the Dragon’s teeth. Countless cities commit outrage even though their neighbor commits no sin. For the gods are slow to punish, yet they are sure, when men scorn holiness and turn to frenzy. Do not desire this, son of Aegeus! But you know such things as these without my teaching. Let us now set forth to that place—the divine summons urges me—and hesitate no longer. Children, follow me. For now in turn it is I that shine forth wondrously as a leader for you, as you were your father’s. Onward. Do not touch me, but allow me unaided to find the sacred tomb where it is my fate to be buried in this land. This way, here—come this way! Hermes the Conductor and the goddess of the dead lead me in this direction. Light of day, no light to me, once you were mine, but now my body feels you for the last time! For now I go to hide the end of my life in the house of Hades. But you, dearest of strangers, may you yourself be prosperous, and this land, and your followers. In your prosperity, remember me in my death, and be fortunate evermore. He exits, followed by his daughters, Theseus, and attendants.

CHORUS: If it is right for me with prayer to adore the Unseen Goddess and you, Lord of the Dead, then hear me, Aidoneus, Aidoneus! Grant that without pain, without a fate arousing heavy grief, the stranger may pass to the all-concealing fields of the dead below, and to the Stygian house. Many were the sorrows that came to him without cause, but a just divinity will lift him up again.

CHORUS: Goddesses of the nether world and unconquered beast whose lair lies in the gates of many guests, you untamable Watcher of Hades, snarling from the cavern’s jaws, as rumor has always told! Hear me, Death, son of Earth and Tartarus! May that Watcher leave a clear path for the stranger on his way to the nether fields of the dead! To you I call, giver of the eternal sleep.

MESSENGER: Citizens, my news might be summed up most briefly thus: Oedipus is dead. But the story of the happening cannot be told in brief words, as the deeds done there were not brief.

CHORUS: Is he gone, the unfortunate man?

MESSENGER: You may be sure that he has left this life.

CHORUS: How? By a fate divine and painless, the poor man?

MESSENGER: In that you touch upon what is indeed worthy of wonder. How he departed from here, you yourself must know since you were here: with no one of his friends as guide, but rather with himself leading the way for us all. When he had come to the Descending Way, which is bound by steps of bronze to earth’s deep roots, he paused at one of the many branching paths near the basin in the rock, where the faithful covenant of Theseus and Peirithous has its memorial. He stood midway between that basin and the Leaping stone, and between the hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb; then he sat down and loosened his filthy clothing. And then he called his daughters, and asked them to bring water from some flowing source, so that he might wash and make a drink-offering. They went to the hill which was in view, the hill of Demeter who guards the tender plants, and in a short time brought what their father had commanded. Then they washed him and dressed him, as is the custom. But when all his desire was fulfilled, and nothing that he required was still undone, then Zeus of the Underworld sent forth his thunder, and the maidens shuddered as they heard. They fell weeping at their father’s knees, and did not cease from beating their breast, and from wailing loud. When he heard their sudden bitter cry, he put his arms around them and said: My children, on this day your father no longer exists. Now I have perished utterly, and no longer will you bear the burden of tending me, which was no light one, I well know, my children. Yet just one word turns all those toils to nothing: you have been treated as friends by no one more than by this man; and now you will have me with you no longer, through all your days to come. In this way, clinging close to one another, the father and his daughters sobbed and wept. But when they came to the end of their crying, and the sound of wailing went forth no more, there was a silence; suddenly a voice called aloud to him, so that everyone felt hair rising from the sudden terror. The god called him again and again: Oedipus, Oedipus, why do you delay our going? Too long you have been lingering. And when he perceived that he was called by the god, he asked that lord Theseus should come to him; and when he did, he said: Friend, give me the sworn pledge of your right hand for my children; and you, my daughters, for him. Promise never to betray them by your own free will, but always to accomplish whatever you think for their benefit. And he, as a man of noble spirit, without lamentation swore to keep that promise to the stranger. When Theseus had done this, straightway Oedipus felt for his children with blind hands, and said: Children, you must bear up nobly in your hearts and depart from this place; do not consider it just to look upon what is not right, or to hear such speech as you may not hear. Go in haste; let only Theseus be entitled to remain to learn of those things which will be done. So he spoke, and everyone of us listened; with streaming tears and mourning we followed the maidens away. But when we had gone off, very soon we looked back and saw that Oedipus was nowhere any more and our lord was alone, holding his hand in front of his face to screen his eyes, as if he had seen some terrifying sight, one that no one could endure to behold. And then after a short time, we saw him adore together the earth and Olympus of the gods in the same prayer. But by what fate Oedipus perished, no man can tell, except Theseus alone. It was no fiery thunderbolt of the god that removed him, nor any rising of whirlwind from the sea; it was either an escort from the gods, or else the dark world of the dead kindly split open to receive him. The man passed away without lamentation or sickness or suffering, and beyond all mortal men he was wondrous. And if in anyone’s eyes I seem to speak senselessly, I would not try to win his belief when he counts me senseless.

CHORUS: Where are his daughters and the escort of their friends?

MESSENGER: Not far away; the sounds of mourning show plainly that they are approaching.

ANTIGONE: Ah, me, ah, me! Now, indeed, is it for us to bewail in full the curse on our blood—ill-fated sisters as we are—deriving from our father! In former time we bore the long toil without pause, and now at the last we bring to tell a sight and experience that baffle reason.

CHORUS: What is it?

ANTIGONE: It is possible to conjecture, friends.

CHORUS: He is gone?

ANTIGONE: Precisely in the way you could most wish for: indeed, in a way in which neither Ares took him, nor the sea, but instead he was snatched away to the fields which no one may see, by some swift, strange doom. Wretched me! For us a night like death has descended on our eyes; how shall we find our hard livelihood, roaming to some far land, or on the waves of the sea?

ISMENE: I do not know. If only murderous Hades would join me in death to my aged father! Wretched me! I cannot live the life that must be mine.

CHORUS: Best of daughters, you both must bear the will of the gods. Do not be inflamed with too much grief; what you have encountered is not to be blamed.

ANTIGONE: There is longing even for woes. What was in no way dear was dear, so long as I held him in my embrace. Father, Dear, clothed in the darkness of the underworld forever! Never in your absence will you not be dear to me and to my sister here.

Part 26

CHORUS: He fared—

ANTIGONE: He fared as he desired.

CHORUS: In what way?

ANTIGONE: He died on the foreign ground that he desired; he has his well-shaded bed beneath the ground for ever; and he did not leave behind unwept sorrow. With these weeping eyes, father, I lament you; nor do I know how in my wretchedness I must still my grief for you that is so immense. Alas! You wanted to die in a foreign land, but you died without me near.

ISMENE: Wretched me! What fate awaits you and me, dear, orphaned as we are of our father?

CHORUS: Cease from your grief, dear girls, since his end is blessed. No one is beyond the reach of evil.

ANTIGONE: Dear, let us hasten back.

ISMENE.: To do what deed?

ANTIGONE: A longing fills my soul—

ISMENE.: For what?

ANTIGONE: To see the netherworld home.

ISMENE.: Of whom?

ANTIGONE: Wretched me! Of our father.

ISMENE.: And how can this be right? Surely you understand?

ANTIGONE: Why this rebuke?

ISMENE.: And surely you know this, too—

ANTIGONE: What more would you tell me?

ISMENE: That he perished without a tomb, apart from everyone.

ANTIGONE: Lead me there, and then kill me, too.

ISMENE: Unhappy me! Abandoned and helpless, where am I now to live my wretched life?

Part 27

CHORUS: Dear girls, do not be afraid.

ANTIGONE: But where shall I flee?

CHORUS: Already a refuge has been found—

OEDIPUS: What do you mean?

CHORUS: —That no harm befall you.

ANTIGONE: I feel—

CHORUS: What do you think?

ANTIGONE: How we are to go home, I cannot tell.

CHORUS: Do not seek to go.

ANTIGONE: Trouble surrounds us.

CHORUS: And previously it bore heavily.

ANTIGONE: Then it was desperate, but now even crueler.

CHORUS: Vast, then, is the sea of your troubles.

ANTIGONE: Alas, alas! Zeus, where shall we turn? To what last hope does the divinity now drive us?

THESEUS: Cease your lament, children! Where the favor of the nether night is stored up, there is no room for sorrow; divine retribution would follow.

ANTIGONE: Son of Aegeus, we supplicate you!

THESEUS: To obtain what desire, my children?

ANTIGONE: We want look with our own eyes upon our father’s tomb.

THESEUS: It is not right to go there.

ANTIGONE: What do you mean, lord, ruler of Athens?

Part 28

THESEUS: Children, he told me that no one should draw near that place, or approach with prayer the sacred tomb in which he sleeps. He said that, so long as I saw to this, I would always keep the country free from pain. The divinity heard me say these things, as did the all-seeing Oath of Zeus.

ANTIGONE: If this is his intention, we must be content with it. Send us to ancient Thebes, in case we may somehow stop the bloodshed that threatens our brothers.

THESEUS: I will do both this and whatever other favorable service I can, for you and for the newly-departed under the earth, according to the gratitude I owe. I am bound to spare no pains.

CHORUS: Cease; raise up the lamentation no further. These things are established firm and fixed.

Contents — 14 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14

Part 1

DEIANEIRA: There is a saying among men, put forth long ago, that you cannot judge a mortal’s life and know whether it is good or bad until he dies. But well I know, even before I have passed away to Hades’ domain, that my life is ill-fortuned and heavy. For I, while still dwelling in the house of my father Oeneus at Pleuron, had such fear of marriage as never any woman of Aetolia had. For my suitor was a river-god, Achelous, who in three shapes was always asking me from my father—coming now as a bull in visible form, now as a serpent, sheeny and coiled, now ox-faced with human trunk, while from his thick-shaded beard wellheads of fountain-water sprayed. In the expectation that such a suitor would get me, I was always praying in my misery that I might die, before I should ever approach that marriage-bed. But at last, to my joy, the glorious son of Zeus and Alcmena came and closed with him in combat and delivered me. The manner of their fighting I cannot clearly recount. I know it not, but if there be anyone who watched that sight without trembling, he might give an account of it. But I, as I sat there, was struck with terror, lest my beauty should win me sorrow in the end. But Zeus, Arbiter of Contests, accomplished a good ending—if indeed it was good. For since being joined with Heracles as his chosen bride, I nourish one fear after another in my anxiety for him. One night brings distress, and the next night, in turn, drives it out. Children, furthermore, were born to us, whom at the time he looked at only as the farmer looks at a distant field, visiting it only once to sow seed and once to reap. Such was the manner of his life, ever sending him to and from our home in servitude to some master. But now, when he has risen above those trials—now it is that my fear is keenest. For ever since he slew the mighty Iphitus, we have been dwelling here in Trachis, refugees in the home of a foreign host. But where Heracles is, no one knows. I only know that he is gone, and has caused me sharp pain for him. I am almost sure that he has come to some suffering. The interval has not been brief; rather, he is unheard from ten months already, plus another five. Yes, there has been some terrible misfortune. That tablet which he left with me before departing suggests it to me. I often pray to the gods that I did not receive it to my misfortune.

NURSE: Deianeira, my mistress, many are the times already that I have observed you mourning the departure of Heracles with great weeping and lamentation. But now—if it is proper to school the free-born with the doctrines of a slave, and if I am obliged to point out what you should do—how is it that you so abound in sons, yet you do not send one of them to seek your husband, especially Hyllus? It would be appropriate to send him, if he cared for his father’s sake that he be deemed to fare well. Here he is now, dashing to the house in timely stride. So if in your eyes I speak in season, you can use both my counsel and the man.

DEIANEIRA: My child, my son, wise words fall, it seems, from humble lips. For this woman is a slave, but her advice is worthy of the free.

HYLLUS: What sort of advice, Mother? Tell me, if I may be told.

DEIANEIRA: It brings shame, she says, that you have not sought to learn of your father and where he is, when he has been abroad for so long.

HYLLUS: But I know where, if one can put any trust in rumors.

DEIANEIRA: And in what region, my child, do you hear that he has settled?

HYLLUS: Last year, they say, through all its length, he toiled as a slave to a Lydian woman.

DEIANEIRA: If he endured even that, then one might believe any and all rumors.

HYLLUS: Well, he has been released from that service, as I hear.

DEIANEIRA: Where, then, is he reported to be now—alive, or dead?

HYLLUS: He is waging or yet planning a war, they say, upon Euboea, the realm of Eurytus.

DEIANEIRA: Are you aware, my son, that he has left with me sure oracles concerning that land?

HYLLUS: What are they, mother? I do not know the oracles you mean.

DEIANEIRA: They read that either he shall meet the end of his life, or, after taking on this contest, he shall thereafter, at least, enjoy a happy life for its duration. And so, my child, when his fate is thus trembling in the balance, will you not go to assist him? For we are saved, if he finds safety, or we perish along with him.

HYLLUS: I will go, Mother. Had I known the substance of these prophecies, I would have long been at his side. As it was, my father’s usual good fortune did not allow me to fear for him, nor to be overly anxious. Now that I have the knowledge, I will spare no pains to learn the whole truth in this matter.

DEIANEIRA: Go, then, my son. For prosperity yields advantage even for him who learns of it late. Exeunt Hyllus, on one side, and the Nurse into the house.

CHORUS: You, to whom Night gives birth when she is vanquished and despoiled of her starry crown, and whom, as you blaze, she lays to rest, I pray you, O Sun, Sun, tell me, where is Alcmena’s son, where dwells her child? O Shining god with your bright flash, is he on the straits of the sea, or does he lean upon the twin continents? Speak, you who surpass all in sight!

CHORUS: For with longing heart, as I hear, Deianeira, the battle-prize, now, like some mournful bird, never rests her eyes’ longing that they might be without tears, but nourishing a well-remembered fear for her husband’s travels she is constantly afflicted by her anxious, widowed marriage-bed and in her misery anticipates misfortune.

CHORUS: For just as one may see billow after billow advancing and passing over the wide deep before the tireless south-wind, or the north, so the great toil of his life, stormy as the Cretan sea, now whirls back the heir of Cadmus, now exalts him. But some god always keeps him unerring from the house of Hades.

Part 2

CHORUS: With respect I reproach you for your weeping, but still I will speak in dissent. You must not, I say, wear away fair hope. Remember that the all-accomplishing king, the son of Cronus, does not appoint a painless lot for mortals. Sorrow and joy revolve to all, as the stars of the Bear move in their circling paths.

CHORUS: Starry night does not remain constant with men, nor does tribulation, nor wealth; in a moment it is gone from us, and to another in his turn come both gladness and bereavement. So I urge even you, our Queen, to keep these matters firmly in your outlook. You must, for who has known Zeus to be so without care for his children?

DEIANEIRA: You have heard of my trouble, I would guess, and that has brought you here. But the anguish which consumes my heart—may you never come to know it through your own experience!—to that now you are total strangers. Yes, a young life grows in those sheltered regions of its own, and the Sun-god’s heat disturbs it not, nor rain, nor any wind. Rather it takes up a toilless existence amidst pleasure, until such time as she is called “wife” instead of “maiden”, and takes her portion of anxious thoughts in the night, fearing for husband or for children. At that point a woman could understand the burden of my misfortunes by recalling her own experience. As a matter of fact, I have had many a trouble to weep for, but I am going to speak of one that none of the previous could equal. When lord Heracles was setting out from home on his last journey, he left in the house an ancient tablet, inscribed with signs which he had never before brought himself to explain to me when going out on one of his many labors. He had always departed as if to conquer, not to die. But now, as if he were a doomed man, he told me what I should take for my marriage portion, and what share of their father’s land he wished divided for his children. And he fixed the time for the division, saying that, when he had been gone from our land for a year and three months, he was fated either to die at that time, or by escaping the end of the period to live thereafter an untroubled life. That, he explained, was the fate ordained by the gods to be the end of the labors of Heracles just as, he said, the ancient oak at Dodona had once told him through the mouths of the two Peleiades. And it is in the present time that the truth of these prophecies is coming to pass, so that they must be fulfilled. As a result I leap up from sweet sleep in fear, dear maidens, terrified at the possibility that I must remain widowed of the noblest man of all.

CHORUS: Hush—no more ill-omened words! I see a man approaching who is crowned with garlands as if for joyous news.

MESSENGER: Queen Deianeira, I shall be the first messenger to free you from fear. Know that Alcmena’s son lives and triumphs, and from battle brings the first-fruits to the gods of this land.

DEIANEIRA: What news is this, old man, that you give me?

MESSENGER: That your much-admired husband will soon come to your house, revealed in his victorious might.

DEIANEIRA: From what citizen or what stranger did you learn these tidings?

MESSENGER: In the meadow, the summer haunt of oxen, Lichas the herald is proclaiming it to many. From him I heard it, and dashed away so that, in all honesty, having been the first to report this news, I might profit in some way by you and win your favor.

DEIANEIRA: And why is he not here, if he is so successful?

MESSENGER: He does not, my lady, enjoy ease of movement. The entire Malian populace stands about him in a circle and questions him, and he cannot move forward. Each person is bent on learning according to his desire, and will not release the man until he has heard his pleasure. Thus against his wishes, but in keeping with theirs, he is with them. Yet you will soon see him face to face.

DEIANEIRA: O Zeus, ruler of the sacred uncut meadow of Oeta, at last, though after much delay, you have given us joy! Uplift your voices, you women within the house and you beyond our gates, since now we enjoy the brightness of this message, which has risen on us beyond my hope!

CHORUS: Let the brides of tomorrow raise a joyous cry for the house with shouts of triumph at the hearth. Among them let the yell of the men go up in unison for Apollo of the bright quiver, our defender! And at the same time, maidens, lift up a paean, cry aloud to his sister, Ortygian Artemis, huntress of deer, goddess with torch in each hand, and to the nymphs her neighbors! I am uplifted, I will not spurn the flute—O you master of my heart! Behold, his ivy stirs me! Euoe! Quickly it wheels me round in Bacchus’s race! Oh, oh, Paean! Look, dear lady! All is taking shape, plain to see, before your gaze.

DEIANEIRA: I see it, dear maidens; the sight has not escaped my watchful eyes. I see that procession. I bid the herald joyous welcome after his long absence!—if indeed you bring anything that gives joy.

LICHAS: We are happy in our return, and happy in your greeting, lady, in accordance with the deed achieved. For when a man has fair fortune, it is his right to win good welcome.

DEIANEIRA: Most welcome man, tell me first what first I would know—shall I receive Heracles alive?

LICHAS: I certainly left him alive and well, in vigorous health, unburdened by disease.

DEIANEIRA: Where, tell me—in his ancestral land, or on barbarian soil?

LICHAS: There is a headland of Euboea, where to Cenaean Zeus he marks out altars and fruitful ground in tribute.

DEIANEIRA: In payment of a vow, or at the command of an oracle?

Part 3

LICHAS: For a vow, made when he was seeking to conquer and plunder the country of these women whom you see before you.

DEIANEIRA: And these—who are they, by the gods, and whose daughters? They deserve pity, unless their misfortune deceives me.

LICHAS: These are captives whom he selected as choice spoils for himself and for the gods when he sacked the city of Eurytus.

DEIANEIRA: Was it in fact the war against that city which kept him away so long, beyond all forecast, past all count of days?

LICHAS: No. The greater part of the time he was detained in Lydia, no free man, as he declares, but sold into servitude. No offense should be taken at my tale, lady, when the deed is found to be Zeus’ work. He passed a whole year, as he himself says, a bought slave to the barbarian Omphale. And so stung was he by the shame of it, that he bound himself by a solemn oath, swearing one day to enslave with wife and child the man who had brought that suffering upon him. And not in vain did he speak the oath; but, when he had been purified, he gathered a mercenary army and went against the city of Eurytus. For, Heracles asserted, that man alone of mortals had a share in causing his suffering. For when Heracles, a guest-friend of long standing, came to his house and hearth, Eurytus roared against him with insults of ruinous intent, saying that, although Heracles had inevitable shafts in his hands, he fell short of his own sons in the contest of the bow. Next he shouted that Heracles was a freeman’s slave, a broken hulk, and then at a banquet, when his guest was full of wine, he tossed him from his home. Furious at this treatment, when afterward Iphitus came to the hill of Tiryns on the track of horses that had strayed, Heracles seized a moment when the man’s eyes were one place and his thoughts another, and hurled him from a towering summit. But in anger at that deed, the king, the father of all, Olympian Zeus, sent him away to be sold, and did not tolerate that this once, he killed a man by guile. Had he achieved his vengeance openly, Zeus would surely have pardoned him the righteous triumph. For the gods do not love criminal behavior either. So those men, who gloried in bitter speech, are themselves residents of Hades, all of them, and their city is enslaved. And the women whom you see, fallen from happiness to misery, are sent here to you. For that was your husband’s command, which I, his faithful servant, perform. As for the man himself, know that he will come, once he has made pure sacrifice to Zeus of his fathers for the sacking of the city. After all the good news that has been told, this, indeed, is the sweetest word to hear.

CHORUS: Now, O Queen, your joy is plainly revealed; part is with you, and of the rest you have foreknowledge.

DEIANEIRA: Yes, how would I not rejoice with dutiful spirit, when I hear of my husband’s successful venture? My rejoicing is bound to keep pace with his success. And yet a prudent mind can see room for fear, lest he who prospers should one day stumble. For a strange pity came over me, friends, at the sight of these ill-fated exiles, homeless and fatherless in a foreign land. Though they were once the daughters perhaps of freeborn men, they now live the life of slaves. O Zeus, god who turns the tide of battle, may I never see you stalking against a child of my line on any occasion; no, if you do some such thing, let it not be while I am still alive! So great is my fear, as I look upon these girls.

Unfortunate girl, who are you? Are you without a man, or are you a mother? To judge by your appearance, you are untried in those roles, but someone of noble birth. Lichas, whose daughter is this stranger? Who is her mother, who the father who begot her? Speak; I pity her more than all the rest, when I look at her, inasmuch as she alone knows self-control.

LICHAS: Why would I know? Why would you ask me? Perhaps she is the offspring of not the lowest family in that land.

DEIANEIRA: Can she be of the ruling family? Was she a child of Eurytus?

LICHAS: I do not know; I did not in fact make a long investigation.

DEIANEIRA: And you do not know her name from one of her fellow captives?

LICHAS: No, indeed. In silence I completed my task.

DEIANEIRA: Unhappy girl, tell it to me, anyway, from your own mouth. It is indeed distressing to me not to know who you are.

LICHAS: It will not, I assure you, be at all on a par with time past if she moves her lips. She has not said a word, large or small, but has been constantly laboring with the heavy pains of her misfortune and weeping, poor girl, since she left her windswept fatherland. Her condition is indeed bad—for her, anyway—but claims our forbearance.

DEIANEIRA: Then let her be left in peace, and go beneath our roof as it pleases her. Let her not in addition to her existing troubles take fresh grief from me; she has enough already. Now let us all go in, so that you may go speedily on your journey, while I make all things ready in the house. Exit Lichas, followed by the Captives, into the house.

MESSENGER: Do go in, but first remain here a short while, so that you may learn, apart from these others, who they are whom you take into your home, and gain necessary knowledge of the facts which you have not heard. For of these I am in full possession.

DEIANEIRA: What do you mean? Why do you stay my departure?

MESSENGER: Stop and listen. My former report was not a waste of your time, and neither, I believe, will this one be.

DEIANEIRA: Shall I call those others back again? Or do you wish to speak before me and these women?

Part 4

MESSENGER: To you and the women I can speak freely. Never mind the others.

DEIANEIRA: Well, they are gone. Now let your speech signal your meaning.

MESSENGER: That man Lichas spoke nothing of what he just told you in strict accordance with the truth. He was just now lying, or else he was dishonest in his earlier report.

DEIANEIRA: What do you say? Explain to me clearly all that you mean, for I cannot understand what you said.

MESSENGER: I heard this man declare, before many witnesses, that it was for the sake of this girl that Heracles overthrew Eurytus and the high towers of Oechalia: Eros, alone of the gods, enchanted him into doing those deeds of arms, not the toilsome servitude to Omphale in Lydia, nor the death to which Iphitus was hurled. But now the herald has thrust Eros aside and tells a different tale. Well, when Heracles could not persuade him whose seed produced the child to give him the girl for his secret concubine, he devised some petty complaint as a pretext, and made war upon her fatherland, in which, as the herald said, that Eurytus ruled. He killed the king, her father, and sacked her city. And now, as you see, he makes his return, sending her to this house not without consideration, lady, and not as if she were to be a slave. No, do not expect that; it is not likely, if his heart has been kindled with desire. On this account, my Queen, I resolved to reveal to you all that I had heard from that man. Many others were listening to it, as I was, in the public place where the Trachinians were assembled, so they can convict him. If my words are unwelcome, I am grieved; but nevertheless I have spoken the truth.

DEIANEIRA: Ah, misery! What is happening to me? What secret plague have I welcomed beneath my roof? Ah, me! So, she was born without a name, as her escort swore?

MESSENGER: No, illustrious by name, as by birth; she is the daughter of Eurytus, and was once called Iole. But he could say nothing of her birth, because, of course, he made no investigation.

CHORUS: May destruction seize not all wrongdoers—no, only the man who practices stealthy wrongdoing that is shameful to his rank!

DEIANEIRA: Ah, friends, what should I do? I am dumbstruck by this latest news!

CHORUS: Go and question Lichas, since he might tell the truth, if you were willing to compel him by threat of force to answer.

DEIANEIRA: I will go. Your advice does not lack good judgment.

MESSENGER: And I, shall I wait here? Or what do you require?

DEIANEIRA: Stay here—since he is coming out from the house without my summons, but of his own accord.

LICHAS: My lady, what message shall I bear to Heracles? Instruct me, for, as you see, I am going.

DEIANEIRA: How quickly you rush away, when your arrival had been so tardy—before we have even resumed our talk.

LICHAS: Well, if there is anything you must ask, I am at your service.

DEIANEIRA: Will you indeed give me the honest truth?

LICHAS: Yes, be great Zeus my witness—in anything that I know.

DEIANEIRA: Who is the woman, then, whom you escorted here?

LICHAS: She is Euboean. But whose offspring, I cannot say.

Part 5

MESSENGER: You there, look at me. To whom do you think you speak?

LICHAS: And you, to what end have you asked me such a question?

MESSENGER: Dare to answer my question, if you are sensible.

LICHAS: I speak to the royal Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus, wife of Heracles and, unless my eyes deceive me, my mistress.

MESSENGER: The very word that I wished to hear from you—you admit that she is your mistress?

LICHAS: Yes, it is only right to do so.

MESSENGER: Well, then, what penalty would you think it right to pay, if you should be found to be behaving wrongly towards her?

LICHAS: Wrongly? What fiction have you created?

MESSENGER: None. Rather it is you, to be sure, who do this.

LICHAS: I am leaving—I was foolish to listen to you so long.

MESSENGER: No, not until you have answered a small question.

LICHAS: Speak, if you require something. You are not the silent type.

MESSENGER: That captive, whom you escorted into the house, you know whom I mean?

LICHAS: Yes. But why do you ask?

MESSENGER: Did you not avow that she, on whom you look as if in ignorance, was Iole, the seed of Eurytus, your captive?

LICHAS: To whom on earth did I say it? Who and where is the man who heard me say it and will be your witness?

MESSENGER: To many of our own citizens you said it. In the public gathering of Trachinians a great crowd heard this much, at least, from you.

LICHAS: Sure, they said they heard. But it does not amount to the same thing to tell one’s fancy and to give an accurate report.

MESSENGER: What do you mean, fancy! Did you not speak on your oath when you said that you were bringing her as a bride for Heracles?

LICHAS: I? Bringing a bride? In the name of the gods, dear mistress, tell me who on earth this stranger is?

Part 6

MESSENGER: I am a man who heard from your own lips that the conquest of the whole city was due to desire for this girl and that the Lydian woman did not destroy it, but the passion which arose for the girl.

LICHAS: Lady, send this creature away. To babble with the insane is not the mark of a sensible man.

DEIANEIRA: No, I implore you by Zeus whose strikes lightning down along the high glens of Oeta, do not rob me of a true report! Your words will not fall on the ears of a cruel woman, nor has she yet to learn the fate of humanity, how by our nature we are often inconstant in our pleasures. He does not use good sense, then, who like a boxer opposes the blows of Eros. For Eros rules the gods as he pleases, and he rules me as well—that is certain. Why not another woman, just like me? And so I am crazed indeed, if I blame my husband because that disease has seized him or because he was seized by this woman, his partner in a thing which is no shame to them, and no wrong to me. Impossible! If it was from him that you learned to lie, it was not a noble lesson. But if you are your own teacher in this, you will be seen as cruel when it is your wish to prove kind. No, tell me the whole truth, since to a free-born man the name of liar attaches like an ugly stain. If your hope is to escape detection, that cannot come to pass: many are those whom you told and who will inform me. And if you are afraid, your fear is mistaken, since it is not learning the truth that would pain me. But to know it, what is terrible in that? Has Heracles not all by himself already mated with a multitude of other women? And never yet has one of them come away with a harsh word or reproach from me, nor shall this girl, even if she should melt in her passion. Indeed, I felt a profound pity when I saw her because her beauty has destroyed her life, and she, unfortunate one, has against her will devastated her fatherland and enslaved it. Well, those things must go with the wind. But as for you, I tell you, be dishonest to others, but always speak the truth to me.

CHORUS: Obey her good and kind advice, and hereafter you will neither have cause to complain of this lady, nor lack my thanks.

LICHAS: Indeed, then, dear mistress. Since I see that you think as mortals should think and not without good judgment, I will tell you the whole truth, and not hide it. Yes, it is just as this one says. That terrible longing for the girl long ago shot through Heracles, and for her sake the desolate Oechalia, her father’s land, was leveled by his spear. But he—I must say what is in his favor— he never ordered me to conceal the fact and never denied it. Instead I, lady, fearing to wound your heart by such news, erred—if you regard this in any way an error. Since, however, you now know the whole story, for his sake and for yours equally bear with the woman, and be willing that the gentle words which you spoke about her have been spoken unalterably. For though by the strength of his hands he is victorious in all else, Heracles has been utterly subdued by his passion for this girl.

DEIANEIRA: My own thoughts move me to act as you advise. Rest assured that I will not earn another affliction for myself by waging a fruitless fight against the gods. But let us go into the house, so that you may carry him my messages and since gifts should be given in due recompense for gifts received, so that you may take these also. It would not be right that you should go back with empty hands, after coming with such a rich cargo. Exit Lichas, the Messenger and Deianeira into the house.

CHORUS: Great and mighty is the victory which the Cyprian queen always bears away. I bypass the tales of the gods, and do not narrate how she beguiled the son of Cronus, and Hades, the lord of darkness, or Poseidon, shaker of the earth. But, when this bride was to be won, who were the massive rivals that entered the contest for her nuptials? Who stepped forward to the ordeal of battle full of blows and raising dust?

CHORUS: One was a mighty river-god, the form of a bull, high-horned and four-legged, Achelous, from Oeniadae. The other came from Thebes, home of Bacchus, brandishing his resilient bow, his spears and club; he was the son of Zeus. These two then met in a mass, lusting to win a bride, and the Cyprian goddess of nuptial joy was there with them, acting as sole umpire.

CHORUS: There was clatter of fists and clang of bow and crash of a bull’s horns mixed together; then there were close-locked grapplings and deadly blows from foreheads and loud deep cries from both. Meanwhile the delicate beauty sat on the side of a hill that could be seen from afar, awaiting the husband that would be hers. So the battle rages, as I narrate. But the face of the bride which is the prize of the strife awaits the end in piteous anguish. And suddenly she has left her mother, like an orphaned calf.

DEIANEIRA: Dear friends, while our guest is saying his farewell to the captive girls in the house, I have stolen away partly to tell you what these hands have devised, and partly to grieve over my sufferings in your company. I have received a maiden—or, I believe, no longer a maiden, but an experienced woman—into my home, just as a mariner takes on cargo, a merchandise to wreck my peace of mind. And now we are two, a pair waiting under a single bedspread for one man’s embrace. Such is the reward that Heracles has sent me—he whom I called true and loyal—for guarding his home through all that long time. I do not know how to be angry with him, even though he is infected with this disease. But, then again, to live with her, sharing the same marriage—what woman could endure it? For I see that the flower of her youth is blossoming, while mine is fading. The eyes of men love to pluck off the bloom of youth, but they turn their steps from the old. On this account I am afraid lest Heracles, in name my husband, should be the younger woman’s man. But, as I said, anger brings shame to a woman of understanding. I will tell you, my friends, the way by which I will have deliverance and relief. I had a gift, an old one given to me by a monster of long ago, and kept it hidden in a bronze urn. While yet a girl, I took this gift from the shaggy-chested Nessus—from his lifeblood, as he lay dying. He is the one who used to carry men in his arms for hire across the deep current of the Evenus, using no oar for conveyance, nor ship’s sail. He carried me, too, on his shoulders, when at my father’s sending, I first departed with Heracles as his wife. When I was in midstream, he touched me with lewd hands. I shrieked, and straightaway the son of Zeus turned round and with his hands shot a feathered arrow that whistled right through his chest to the lungs. As he passed away the monster spoke these few words: “Child of aged Oeneus, you will have this benefit from my ferrying, if you obey me, since you were the last whom I carried. If you gather with your hands the blood clotted round my wound, at the place where the Hydra, Lerna’s monstrous growth, imbued the arrow with black gall, you will have a charm for the heart of Heracles, so that he will never look upon any woman and love her more than you.” Remembering this charm, my friends—for, after his death, I had kept it carefully locked up in the house— I have imbued this robe with it, applying to it all that he instructed while he lived. The work is finished. May deeds of wicked daring always be far from my thoughts and from my knowledge, as I detest the women who attempt them! But if in any way I may prevail against this girl by love-spells and the charms used on Heracles, the means to that end have been devised—unless I seem to be acting rashly. If so, I will stop immediately.

CHORUS: On the contrary. If there is any reason for confidence in these actions, we think that your plan is not wrong.

DEIANEIRA: My reason for confidence is this: there is the appearance of success in the plan. But the proof I have not yet essayed.

CHORUS: Your knowledge must come after you act. For you can have no test which is not fanciful except by making the attempt.

DEIANEIRA: Well, we shall know shortly, for there I see the man already at the doors. He will soon depart. Only I ask that I may be well sheltered by you! When you accomplish even shameful deeds under the cover of darkness, you will never fall into disgrace.

LICHAS: What are your instructions? Tell me, daughter of Oeneus, for already I am tardy because of my long stay.

DEIANEIRA: In fact I have just been seeing to this very thing for you, Lichas, while you were addressing the foreign women in the house: take for me this long robe, prepared by my own hand, a gift to my absent husband. Give it to him and tell him to be sure that no man puts it on his body before him and that it not be seen by the light of the sun, nor by the sacred precinct, nor by the blaze at the hearth, until he stands conspicuous before all eyes and shows it clearly to the gods on a day for the sacrifice of bulls. For so had I vowed, that if I should ever see or hear that he had come safely home, I would dutifully adorn him with this robe and reveal him to the god as a new sacrificer in new garb. As proof of your commission you will carry a token which he will easily recognize within the circle of this seal. Now go; and first, observe the rule that messengers should be unwilling to act out of line, and second, see to it that my thanks may be joined to his, doubling the gratitude you earn.

LICHAS: If I practice Hermes’ art of heraldry with any skill, I certainly will never slip up while doing your errand. I will not fail to carry and present this chest in the same condition, nor to add to it the proper assurance of the reasons which you have for sending it.

DEIANEIRA: You may go now, for you know well how things are with us in the house.

LICHAS: I know and will report that all is well.

DEIANEIRA: And you know, further, from your own eyes my greeting to the foreign girl, how I welcomed her warmly.

Part 7

LICHAS: So much so that my heart was struck with joy.

DEIANEIRA: What more, then, is there for you to tell him? I am afraid that it would be too soon to speak of the longing on my part, before I know if I am longed for there. Exit Lichas on one side and Deianeira into the house.

CHORUS: O you who dwell by the warm springs near ships’ haven and rocky cliff, and you who live by the crags of Oeta! And you dwellers by the land-locked waters of the Malian gulf, and the headland sacred to the virgin-goddess of the golden shuttle, where are the famed councils of the Greeks at the gates!

CHORUS: Soon the glorious voice of the flute will go up for you again, sounding no bothersome, strident notes, but divine music worthy of the lyre! For the son whom Alcmena bore to Zeus is hurrying homeward, with spoils won by supreme valor.

CHORUS: We thought him lost utterly to our land, a wanderer over sea, while we waited through twelve long months and knew nothing. She, his loving wife, miserable, was ever pining in her miserable heart, always weeping. But now Ares, stung to rage, has freed her days from their toil.

CHORUS: May he come, may he come! Let him not halt the many-oared ship that carries him before he has reached this town, leaving the island altar where he is reported to be sacrificing! May he come from there full of desire, steeped in love on the pretext of the robe by Persuasion’s all-powerful ointment!

DEIANEIRA: Friends, how I fear that I may have gone too far in all that I was doing just now!

CHORUS: What has happened, Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus?

DEIANEIRA: I do not know, but I despair that I will soon be found to have done a great wrong, when my hope was for good.

CHORUS: Surely it is nothing that bears on your gift to Heracles?

DEIANEIRA: Yes, it is! So much so that I would never recommend to anybody that he be eager for action in obscurity.

CHORUS: Tell us the cause of your fear, if it may be told.

DEIANEIRA: A thing has happened, my friends, such that, if I declare it, it will be a strange marvel for you to hear. The implement with which I was just now anointing the festal robe, a white tuft of fleecy sheep’s wool, has disappeared, eaten away by no animal in the courtyard, but self-devoured and self-destroyed it crumbled down over a stone slab. But I must tell the story at greater length, so that you may know exactly how this thing was accomplished. I neglected no part of the precepts which the savage Centaur gave me when he was hurting from the bitter barb in his side; they were in my memory, like the graven words which no hand may wash from a tablet of bronze. Now this was his order to me, and I obeyed it: to keep this potion hidden in inmost recesses always away from fire and untouched by the sun’s warm ray, until I should apply it, newly spread, where I wished. So I had done. And just now, when the moment for action had come, I performed the anointing secretly in the rooms of the house with a tuft of soft wool which I had plucked from a sheep of our home-flock; then I folded up my gift, and laid it, unvisited by sunlight, within its hollow chest, as you saw. But as I am going back into the house, I see a thing inexplicable by words and beyond the knowledge of the human mind to understand. For somehow I happened to have thrown the ball of wool, with which I had been anointing the robe, into the full blaze of the sun’s rays. As it grew warm, it ran all into confusion, and quickly crumbled to powder on the ground, like nothing in appearance so much as the morsels left by a saw’s teeth when wood is cut. It lies just so, fallen. And from the earth, where it lay exposed, clotted foam seethes up, like the rich juice of the blue fruit from the vine of Bacchus when it is poured on the ground.

And so I am distraught, and I do not know to which side my thoughts should fall. I only see that I have brought a terrible deed to completion. For why or in thanks for what should the monster in his death-throes have shown good will to me, because of whom he was dying? Impossible! No, he was enchanting me in order to destroy the man who had shot him. And now too late I gain the knowledge of this, when it can no longer help. Yes, I alone—unless my outlook prove mistaken—I, miserable one, shall completely destroy him! For I know that the arrow which made the wound harmed even the god Cheiron, and that it kills all varieties of beasts that it touches. Since it is this same black venom in the blood that has passed out through the wound of Nessus, must it not kill Heracles also? To my mind, at least, it must. Nevertheless, I am resolved that, if he is to be brought down, at the same time I too will die along with him in the selfsame fall. No woman could bear to live with a reputation for evil, if she cares above all that her nature is not evil.

CHORUS: Fear is necessary when terrible deeds are done, but one should not judge one’s expectations before the outcome is known.

DEIANEIRA: There is no room for expectation when one’s plans are bad, at least the kind of expectation which lends confidence.

CHORUS: And yet in the case of those whose mistakes were unwitting, men’s anger is softened. So it should be for you.

DEIANEIRA: No, such words are not for one who took part in the wrongdoing, but only for him who has no trouble at his own door.

CHORUS: It would suit you to refrain from saying anything more, unless you would reveal anything to your own son. For he is here, the one who earlier went to seek his father.

HYLLUS: O Mother, how I wish I could choose one of three fates for you! I wish that you no longer lived, or, if you remained, that someone else called you “Mother”, or that some new and kinder heart had been exchanged for your present one!

Part 8

DEIANEIRA: My son, what have I done to cause your hate?

HYLLUS: Listen to me! You have killed your husband, my father—my father!

DEIANEIRA: oh, no! What is this you have blurted out, Hyllus?

HYLLUS: Only what cannot but be fulfilled. For who could undo what has happened?

DEIANEIRA: What do you mean, son? From whom did you hear this that you charge me with a crime so awful?

HYLLUS: I have seen my father’s overwhelming misfortune with my own eyes. I did not learn of it by hearsay.

DEIANEIRA: Where did you find him? Where were you with him?

HYLLUS: If you need to hear, then I must tell all. After sacking the famous city of Eurytus, he went his way with the trophies and choice spoils of victory. There is a sea-washed headland of Euboea, Cape Cenaeum, where he marked out altars and a sacred grove to the Zeus of his fathers. There I first saw him, to the gratification of my desire. He was about to make a sacrifice rich in offerings when his own herald, Lichas, came to him from home with your gift, the deadly robe, in his hands. This he put on as you prescribed and then began his offering with twelve bulls, free from blemish, the prime of the spoil; but altogether he brought a hundred mixed victims to the altar. At first the miserable wretch prayed with serene soul and rejoiced in his ornate garb. But when the blood-fed flame began to blaze from the holy offerings and from the resinous pine, a sweat broke out on his skin and the tunic clung to his sides close-glued at every joint, as if by a craftsman’s hand; there came a convulsive, biting pain in his bones; and then the venom, like that of some deadly, cruel viper, began to devour him. At that he shouted for the ill-fated Lichas—who was in no way to blame for your crime—asking by what plots he had brought that robe. But he, unfortunate one, all-unknowing, said that he had brought your gift from you alone, just as it had been sent. When Heracles heard it, just as a piercing spasm clutched his lungs, he caught him by the foot where the ankle bends in the socket and threw him at a surf-beaten rock in the sea, causing the white brain to ooze from his hair, when the crown of his head had been scattered and his blood with it.

But all the people lifted up a cry of astounded grief when they saw that the one was frenzied, and the other destroyed; and no one dared to approach the man. For he convulsed down to the ground and up into the air as he shouted and cried out. All around the cliffs resounded, both the steep headlands of Locris and the Euboean capes. But when he was exhausted with repeatedly throwing himself on the ground in his anguish and repeatedly shouting with howls of grief, as he dwelled on his ill-mated marriage with miserable you and his alliance with Oeneus, which, he said, he got for himself as the ruin of his life, then from out of the shrouding altar-smoke he raised his wildly-rolling eyes and saw me weeping among his many troops. He stared at me and called me: “O my son, come to me. Do not fly from my trouble, not even if you have to share my death. Come, lift me up and away and above all put me in a place where no one can see me. But if you have pity, at least carry me in all speed away from this country so that I may not die here.” When he had laid this command on me, we put him onboard ship and brought him just barely to this land, while he moaned in his convulsions. And you shall soon see him, either alive or freshly dead. Such, Mother, are the designs and deeds against my father of which you have been found guilty. May Punishing Justice and the Erinys punish you for them! Yes, if it be right, that is my prayer. Right it is, for to my eyes you have rejected the right by killing the best and bravest of men in all the world, whose equal you will never see again. Deianeira moves towards the house.

CHORUS: Why do you leave without a word? Do you not know that your silence pleads your accuser’s case?

HYLLUS: Let her leave. May a fair wind speed her far from my sight! Why should she falsely keep the dignity of the name “Mother,” when she is all unlike a mother in her deeds? No, let her go—farewell to her. May such delight as she gives my father become her own! Exit Deianeira into the house, followed at a distance by Hyllus.

CHORUS: See, maidens, how suddenly the divine word of the old prophecy has closed upon us, which allotted this destiny: that when the twelfth year with its full complement of months should have come to an end, it would complete the undertaking of toils for the true-born son of Zeus! And that promise rides before a steady wind to sure fulfillment. For how shall he who does not see the light of day ever have toilsome servitude any more in death?

CHORUS: For if the Centaur’s deceitful torture smears his sides with a murderous net, where clings the venom which Death birthed and the gleaming serpent nourished, how can he look upon tomorrow’s sun, when that appalling Hydra-shape grasps him? Those murderous goads, prepared by the deceptive words of black-haired Nessus, torment him with confused thrashing and seethe on his skin.

CHORUS: In these matters this miserable lady had no apprehension, when she foresaw in the new marriage a great plague swiftly rushing upon her household. Her own hand applied the drug. But no doubt for the results yielded by a stranger’s counsel, given at a fatal meeting—for these she despairingly groans and sheds a tender dew of thickly-falling tears. And the coming fate foreshadows a great disaster, contrived by guile.

CHORUS: Our streaming tears break forth. Ah, no! An infection pours over him, an illness more to be pitied than any suffering that adversaries ever brought upon that glorious hero. Ah, you dark head of the spear foremost in battle, who by your mighty point recently led that swift bride from Oechalia’s heights! But the Cyprian goddess, ministering in silence, has been plainly proved the author of these deeds.

FIRST SEMI-CHORUS: Is it fancy, or did I just now hear some cry of grief rushing through the house? What is this?

SECOND SEMI-CHORUS: It is no uncertain sound, but a wail of anguish from inside. The house has some new trouble.

CHORUS: And note how strangely, with what consternation on her brow that old woman approaches to give us some news.

NURSE: Ah, my daughters, great, indeed, are the sorrows for us that began with the gift sent to Heracles!

CHORUS: Old woman, what new trouble have you to tell?

Part 9

NURSE: Deianeira has departed on the last of all her journeys, departed without stirring a foot.

CHORUS: Surely you do not mean she is dead?

NURSE: My tale is told.

CHORUS: Dead, the poor woman?

NURSE: Again you hear me affirm it.

CHORUS: Poor, lost one! Tell me, what was the manner of her death?

NURSE: Oh, it was most cruel in its execution!

CHORUS: Speak, woman, with what end did she meet?

NURSE: She destroyed herself.

CHORUS: What impulse drove her? What disease of her mind seized her on the point of its evil shaft? How did she contrive this death upon death, accomplishing it all on her own?

NURSE: By a stroke of the sword which gives cause for mourning.

CHORUS: Did you witness that violent deed, poor helpless one?

NURSE: I did, yes, since I was standing close by.

CHORUS: What was it? How was it done? Oh, speak!

NURSE: Of her own accord she set her hand to the deed.

CHORUS: What are you saying?

NURSE: The certain truth.

CHORUS: The firstborn, the firstborn of that newly arisen bride is a great Erinys on this house!

NURSE: Too true. And had you been close at hand and seen her do it, you would have pitied her even more.

CHORUS: And could a woman’s hand dare to carry out such deeds?

Part 10

NURSE: Yes, with fierce daring. You shall hear, and then you will bear me witness. When she came alone into the house and saw her son preparing a deep litter in the court, with which to go back and meet his father, she hid herself where none would see. Falling before the altars, she moaned that they were left desolate, and whenever she touched any household thing that she, poor lady, had habitually used in the past, her tears would flow. If, as she roamed hither and thither through the house, she beheld the form of any well-loved servant, she wept in misery at the sight, crying aloud upon her own fate, and her childless existence thereafter. But when she finished this, I saw her suddenly rush into the bedchamber of Heracles. I hid in the shadows to keep my observation secret and was watching over her when I saw her spread coverings on the bedstead of Heracles. When she had done this, she sprang up on them and sat in the middle of the bed. Then she broke out in warm streams of tears and said: “Ah, my bridal bed and bridal chamber, farewell now and for ever, since you will never more receive me in these covers as his wife.” She says no more, but with a vehement hand she loosens her robe where the brooch of beaten gold lies above her breasts and bares all her left side and arm. Then I run with all my strength, and warn her son of her intent. But even in the space between my going and our return, we find that she has driven a two-edged sword up through her side to the heart. At that sight, her son gave a great cry. For he knew, poor boy, that in his anger he had driven her to that action. He had learned too late from the servants in the house that she had acted without knowledge and at the will of the monster. Then and there the youth in his misery left no cry of grief unmade as he lamented over her, nor as he fell to kiss her lips; he threw himself at her side, loudly moaning that he had rashly attacked her with a false accusation and weeping that he must now live orphaned of both alike, of his father and of her. Such are the fortunes of this house. Rash, indeed, is he who reckons on tomorrow, or perchance on days beyond it. There is no tomorrow, until today is safely past. Exit the Nurse.

CHORUS: Which disaster shall I bewail first? Which is more to be pitied? In my grief I cannot decide.

CHORUS: One sorrow may be seen in the house; for one we wait with apprehension. To have and to await are one and the same.

CHORUS: oh, that some strong breeze, a fair wind, might arise at our hearth to bear me far from this land, so that I might not die of terror when I look but once upon the mighty seed of Zeus! For they say that he is approaching the house in torments from which there is no deliverance, a wonder of unutterable woe.

CHORUS: Ah, he was not far off, but close to us, he for whom I cried in advance, like the shrill nightingale! Here is a foreign procession of strange men. And in what manner, then, do they bring him? In sorrow, as for some loved one, they tread their mournful, noiseless tread. Ah, he is carried on in silence! Should I think that he is dead, or just asleep?

HYLLUS: O my father! O my misery! What is to become of me? What is my best plan? Ah!

OLD MAN: Hush, young man! Do not rouse the cruel pain that infuriates your father! He lives, though on the very edge. Bite your tongue and hold it!

HYLLUS: What do you say, old man—is he alive?

OLD MAN: You must not awake the slumberer! You must not rouse and revive his fierce, recurrent infection, my son!

HYLLUS: But the immense weight of this misery crushes me. My heart craves release!

HERACLES: O Zeus, in what land am I? Among what people do I lie, tortured with unending agonies? O me, what pain! Oh, that accursed pest gnaws me once more!

OLD MAN: Did I not know how much better it was that you should keep silent, instead of scattering sleep from his brain and eyes?

HYLLUS: No, I know no way to be patient when I witness this misery.

HERACLES: O Cenaean rock, foundation of my altars, what cruel reward you have earned me for those fair offerings, O Zeus! Ah, in what ruin you have deposited me, in what ruin! Would that I had never looked on you to my sorrow with my eyes, never come face to face with this blooming madness, which no spell can soothe! Where is the enchanter, where the practiced healer, save Zeus alone, who will charm this catastrophe away? I would be amazed if I saw him from even a great distance!

HERACLES: Ah! Leave me! Leave me in my misfortune! Leave me to sleep my last. Where, where do you touch me? Where do you lay me? You will kill me, you will kill me! If there was any pain that slumbered, you have aroused it! It has seized me,—oh, the pest comes again!—What is your homeland, you men most ungrateful of all the Greeks? I wore out my wretched days in ridding the Greeks of pests both on the deep and throughout every forest. And now, when I am afflicted, will no man turn merciful fire or sword on me? Oh! Oh! Will no one come and strike the head from this accursed body with one fierce stroke? Ah, me!

OLD MAN: You are the man’s son, and this task exceeds my strength. Help him, for the strength to save him is at your command, more than mine.

HYLLUS: My hands reach out to him, but no resource in myself or from another can help me make his life forget its agonies. So strong is the destiny appointed by Zeus!

HERACLES: O my son, where are you? Raise me, take hold of me here, here! Oh, oh, my god! Again, again the cruel pest leaps, leaps up to rend me, the wild, uncombatable plague! O Pallas, Pallas, it tortures me again! oh, please, my son, pity your sire! Draw a sword—you will not be blamed for it—strike me beneath my collarbone. Heal this pain with which your godless mother has enraged me! So may I see her fall to ruin, exactly, just exactly, as she has destroyed me! Sweet Hades, brother of Zeus, give me sleep, give me sleep. Kill me in my misery by a swift-flying doom!

CHORUS: I shudder, friends, to hear these sorrows which our King suffers. What a man is here, and what misfortunes lash at him!

HERACLES: Ah, many and hot and cruel not in name alone have been the labors of these hands, the burdens hoisted upon these shoulders! And yet no toil ever laid on me by the bedfellow of Zeus or by the hateful Eurystheus was as harsh as this thing which the daughter of Oeneus, fair and false, has fastened upon my back, this woven net of the Erinyes in which I perish! Plastered to my sides, it has eaten away my inmost flesh and sucks the channels of my lungs, making my body its home. Already it has drunk away my fresh lifeblood, and my whole body is wasted, conquered by these indescribable bonds. Not spearmen on the battlefield, nor the Giants’ earth-born army, nor the might of savage beasts, not Hellas, nor the land of the barbarian, nor any land which I came to purify has ever done this to me. No, a woman, a weak woman, born not to the strength of man, all alone has brought me down without a stroke of the sword! Son, show yourself my trueborn son, and do not honor your mother’s name above your father’s. Bring out the woman that bore you, and give her with your own hands into my hand, that I may know for certain which sight grieves you more—my tortured frame, or hers, when she suffers her just punishment! Go, my son, be bold! Show your pity for me, whom many might think deserving of pity—pity me moaning and weeping like a girl! No one could say that he had ever seen this man do that before. No, always without complaint I used to pursue my troubles. But now in my misery I have been found a woman, instead of the man I used to be.

Part 11

Come close, stand near your father and do examine the magnitude of the misfortune by which I suffer; for I will uncover my suffering. Look! See all of you this miserable body; see how wretched, how pitiable I am! Ah, misery! The ruinous spasm flames again; it shoots through my sides—I must wrestle once more with that cruel, devouring plague! King Hades, receive me! Strike me, O fire of Zeus! Hurl down your thunderbolt, ruler, dash it, Father, upon my head! Again the pest consumes me, it has blazed up, it has leapt to fury! O hands, my hands, O shoulders and chest and trusty arms, you are indeed those noted arms which once subdued with your might the dweller in Nemea, the scourge of herdsmen, the lion, a creature that no man might approach or confront; you tamed the Lernaean Hydra, and that monstrous army of beasts with double form, hostile, going on hoofed feet, violent, lawless, of surpassing violence; you tamed the beast in Erymanthia, and underground the three-headed whelp of Hades, a resistless terror, offspring of the fierce Echidna; you tamed the dragon that guarded the golden fruit in the farthest places of the earth. These toils and thousands more have I tasted, and no man has ever erected a trophy of victory over my hands. But now, with joints unhinged and with flesh torn to shreds, I have become the miserable spoil of an unseen destroyer, —I, who am called the son of noblest mother, I, who am reputed the seed of Zeus, lord of the starry sky. But you may be sure of one thing: though I am nothing, though I cannot move a step, yet she who has done this deed shall feel my heavy hand even so. Let her but come to me so that she may learn to proclaim this message to all the world, that in my death, as in my life, I punished the guilty!

CHORUS: Ah, unhappy Greece, what mourning do I foresee for her, if she is cheated of this man!

HYLLUS: Father, since your pause permits an answer, hear me, diseased though you are; I will ask you for no more than is my due. Give yourself to me in a mood not as harsh as that to which your heart is now stung. Otherwise you cannot learn in what circumstances you wrongly wish to triumph and wrongly show resentment.

HERACLES: Stop when you have said what it is you desire. In this pain of mine I understand none of your many riddles.

HYLLUS: I come to tell you of my mother—her present circumstances and how she erred unknowingly.

HERACLES: You corrupt thing! Have you indeed mentioned her name again, the name, “Mother, Murderess of Father,” in my hearing?

HYLLUS: Yes, for her condition is such that my silence shames me.

HERACLES: No, it does not shame you, when you consider her past crimes.

HYLLUS: You will not say so, at least in view of her deeds today.

HERACLES: Speak—but take care that you not be found corrupt.

HYLLUS: I will speak. She is just now dead, a new murder.

HERACLES: By whose hand? Your sinister words give a prophecy of wonder!

HYLLUS: She did it by her own hand, and no other’s.

HERACLES: Ah, no! Before she died by mine as she deserved!

HYLLUS: Even your rage would be deflected, if you would learn the whole of it.

HERACLES: Your tale begins strangely, but tell me what you mean.

HYLLUS: The sum is this: she did wrong, but with a good intent.

HERACLES: Did she do a good deed, corrupt traitor, when she killed your father?

HYLLUS: No, her plan was to apply a love-charm for your heart, when she saw your new marriage inside the house, but she missed her aim.

HERACLES: And what Trachinian is so potent a charmer?

Part 12

HYLLUS: Nessus the Centaur persuaded her long ago to inflame your desire with such a potion.

HERACLES: Ah! Ah, misery! I am lost, ruined, ruined! The light of day exists for me no more! Ah, now I understand the depth of my misfortune! Go, my son! Your father is no more. Summon for me all the crop of your brothers. Summon, too, poor Alcmena, in vain the bedfellow of Zeus, so that you may hear my final words tell what oracles I know.

HYLLUS: I cannot. Your mother is not here. It happens that she keeps her home at Tiryns by the sea. Some of your children she has taken to raise with her there, and others, you will find, are dwelling in Thebes. But we who are with you, Father, will render at your command all service that is needed.

HERACLES: Hear, then, your task. You have come to where you will reveal what sort of man you are, who are called my son. It was foreshown to me by my father far in the past that I would perish by no creature that had the breath of life, but by one already dead, a dweller with Hades. So this savage Centaur in death has killed me alive, just as the divine will had been foretold. And I will show you how later oracles tally with the first and testify to the old prophecy. I wrote them down for myself from the mouth of my father’s oak of many tongues in the grove of the Selli, who dwell on the hills and sleep on the ground. The tree said that, at the time which lives and now is, my release from the toils laid upon me would be accomplished. And I expected prosperous days, but the meaning, it seems, was only that I would die. For toil comes no more to the dead. Since, then, my son, those words are clearly finding their fulfillment, you, on your part, must fight on my behalf. You must not delay, and so sharpen my tongue, but give your consent to work with me, like one who has discovered that best of laws, the law of obedience to your father.

HYLLUS: Yes, Father—though in coming to this point in our talk I begin to have some fear—I will obey you in all your decrees.

HERACLES: First of all, put your right hand in mine.

HYLLUS: With what purpose in mind do you so strongly urge this pledge on me?

HERACLES: Give your hand at once—do not disobey me!

HYLLUS: Here, I hold it out to you. Nothing will be denied you.

HERACLES: Now, swear by the head of Zeus my begetter!

HYLLUS: To do what deed? May this also be revealed?

HERACLES: To perform for me the task that I shall impose.

HYLLUS: I swear it with Zeus for witness of the oath.

HERACLES: And pray that, if you break this oath, you may suffer.

HYLLUS: I shall not suffer, since I will keep it. Yet so I pray.

HERACLES: Good, then do you know the summit of Oeta, Zeus’s sacred mountain?

HYLLUS: I know it. I have often stood on that height to sacrifice.

HERACLES: Then, you must carry my body there after raising it up in your own hands, aided by as many of our friends as you require; and when you have cut many a branch from the deep-rooted oak and chopped down many a sturdy wild-olive, you must lay my body on them and with a flaming pine-torch burn it. And let no tear of mourning show itself there. No, do this without laments or tears, if you are indeed my son. But if you fail to do this, even from the world below my curse and my wrath shall await you for ever.

HYLLUS: Ah, Father, what have you said? What you have done to me!

HERACLES: I have spoken that which you must perform. If you refuse, then get yourself some other father, and be called my son no longer!

Part 13

HYLLUS: Ah, me! What deeds you call on me to do, Father—that I should become your murderer, polluted with your blood!

HERACLES: Not so, in truth, but healer of my sufferings, sole physician of my pain!

HYLLUS: And how, by inflaming your body, shall I heal it?

HERACLES: If your fear keeps you from this one task, at least perform the rest.

HYLLUS: The service of carrying you will not be refused.

HERACLES: And the heaping of the pyre which I have ordered?

HYLLUS: Yes, except that I will not touch fire to it with my own hands. All else will I do, and you will have no hindrance on my part.

HERACLES: Well, that much will be enough—yet add one small favor to your large benefits.

HYLLUS: Even if it is tremendously large, it will be done.

HERACLES: Do you know, then, the maiden, daughter of Eurytus?

HYLLUS: You mean Iole, I would guess.

HERACLES: You know her. Just this is the command that I impose upon you, my son: when I am dead, if you wish to show your piety by remembrance of your oath to your father, make this woman your wife and do not disobey your father. Let no other but you take her who has lain close at my side. You, my son, make that marriage-bond your own. Obey; for although you were obedient in great affairs, your disobedience in small ones cancels the gratitude already won.

HYLLUS: Ah, me, it is wrong to be angry with a sick man, but who could bear to see him have thoughts like these?

HERACLES: Your words show no willingness to do as I say.

HYLLUS: Who on earth would, when she alone is to blame for my mother’s death, and for your present condition besides? Who would choose to do so, unless he were infected by avenging fiends? It would be better, Father, that I also die, rather than live united with those whom I most detest!

HERACLES: The man will render no due respect, it seems, to my dying prayer. No, be sure that the curse of the gods will await you for disobeying my commands.

HYLLUS: Ah, you will soon show, it seems, how diseased you are!

HERACLES: Yes, for you stir me from my slumbering plague.

HYLLUS: I am miserable! I have no way out of so many dilemmas!

HERACLES: Yes, since you think it wrong to obey your begetter.

Part 14

HYLLUS: But must I then learn to be unholy, Father?

HERACLES: It is not unholy, if you gladden my heart.

HYLLUS: Do you, then, command me to do this as a clear duty?

HERACLES: I do, and I call on the gods to bear me witness!

HYLLUS: Then I will do it, and not refuse, —calling upon the gods to witness your deed. I can never be condemned for obeying you, Father.

HERACLES: Your words make a fair ending, and to them, my son, quickly add the gracious deed itself, so that you may place me on the pyre before any pain returns to tear or sting me. Come, make haste and lift me! This, in truth, is rest from troubles, this is the end, the last end, of Heracles!

HYLLUS: Nothing hinders the fulfillment of your wish, since your commandment strongly compels me, Father.

HERACLES: Come, then, before you awaken this plague, O my hardened soul, give me a bit of steel to bind my lips like stone to stone! Stop any cry, since the task you accomplish, though by constraint, gives cause for joy.

HYLLUS: Lift him, attendants! Grant me ample forgiveness for this, but also recall the great cruelty of the gods in the deeds that are being done. They beget children and are hailed as fathers, and yet they can let such sufferings pass before their eyes. No man foresees the future; the present is full of mourning for us, and of shame for the powers above, and indeed of hardship beyond compare for him who endures this disaster. And you, maiden, do not be left at the house. You have seen immense, shocking death, with sorrows great in number and strange. And in all of them there is nothing that is not Zeus.

Contents — 21 sections

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5
6. Part 6
7. Part 7
8. Part 8
9. Part 9
10. Part 10
11. Part 11
12. Part 12
13. Part 13
14. Part 14
15. Part 15
16. Part 16
17. Part 17
18. Part 18
19. Part 19
20. Part 20
21. Part 21

Part 1

ODYSSEUS: This is the headland of sea-washed Lemnos, land untrodden by men and desolate. It was here, child bred of the man who was the noblest of the Greeks, Neoptolemus son of Achilles, that I exposed long ago the native of Malis, Poeas’ son, on the express command of the two chieftains to do so, because his foot was all running with a gnawing disease. Neither libation nor burnt sacrifice could be attempted by us in peace, but with his wild, ill-omened cries he filled the whole camp continually with shrieking, moaning. But what need is there to speak of that? The time is not ripe for too many words, lest he even learn that I am here, and I so waste the whole ruse whereby I think soon to take him. Come, it is your task to serve as my ally in what remains, and to seek where in this region there is a cave with two mouths. During cold weather it provides two seats facing the sun, while in summer a breeze wafts sleep through the tunnelled chamber. And a little below, on the left hand, perhaps, you will see water rising from a spring, if it has not failed. Go there silently, and signal to me whether he still dwells in this same place, or is to be found elsewhere, so that the rest of my plan may be explained by me, heard by you, and sped by the joint effort of us both.

NEOPTOLEMUS: King Odysseus, the completion of the task that you set me is not far off, for I believe I see a cave like that which you have described.

ODYSSEUS: Above you, or below? I do not see it.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Here, high up—and of footfalls there is not a sound.

ODYSSEUS: See that he is not sheltered there asleep.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I see an empty dwelling, without occupants.

ODYSSEUS: And is there no provision inside for human habitation?

NEOPTOLEMUS: There is—a bed of leaves, as if for some one who makes his lodging here.

ODYSSEUS: And all else is bare? There is nothing else beneath the roof?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Just a cup of bare wood, the masterpiece of a sorry craftsman, and with it these tools for kindling.

ODYSSEUS: His is the store that you describe.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Ha! Yes, and here besides are some rags drying in the sun, stained by some severe infection.

ODYSSEUS: The man inhabits these regions, clearly, and is somewhere not far off. How could he go far afield when his foot is maimed by that old plague? No, he has gone out in quest of food, or of some soothing herb that he may have noted somewhere. Send your attendant, therefore, to keep watch, lest he come upon me unawares, since he would rather take me than all the Greeks together.

NEOPTOLEMUS: The man is going, and the path will be watched. And now, if you need anything else, say so. Exit Attendant, on the spectators’ left.

ODYSSEUS: Son of Achilles, you must be loyal to the goals of your mission—and not with your body alone. Should you hear some new plan unknown to you till now, you must serve it, since it is to serve that you are here.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then what are your orders?

ODYSSEUS: You must cheat the mind of Philoctetes by means of a story told as you converse with him. When he asks you who and from where you are, say that you are the son of Achilles—it is not in that detail that you will cheat him. But tell him you are sailing homeward, and have left the fleet of the Achaean warriors, after coming to hate them with unbounded hatred. Give him this reason: when, with no other hope of taking Ilium, they had summoned you by their prayers to come from home, they judged you not worthy of the arms of Achilles, not worthy to receive them—even though you had come and were claiming them by right—but instead handed them over to Odysseus. Say what you will of me—even the vilest of vile insults. You will not harm me at all by that. But if you fail to do as I say, you will inflict pain on all the Argives, for if that man’s bow is not seized, you can never sack the realm of Dardanus. And learn why your intercourse with him may be free from mistrust and danger, while mine cannot. You have sailed to Troy under no oath to any man, nor under any constraint. Neither did you have any part in the earlier expedition. I, however, can deny none of these things. Accordingly, if he perceives me while he is still master of his bow, I am dead, and you, as my comrade, will share my doom. No, the thing for which we must devise a ruse is just this: how you may steal his invincible weapons. Well I know, my son, that by nature you are not apt to utter or contrive such treachery. Yet knowing that victory is a sweet prize to gain, steel yourself to do it. Our honesty shall be displayed another time. Now, however, give yourself to me for one brief, shameless day, and then for the rest of time may you be called the most righteous of all humankind.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I abhor acting on advice, son of Laertes, which causes pain in the hearing. It is not in my nature to achieve anything by means of evil cunning, nor was it, as I hear, in my father’s. But I am ready to take the man by force and without treachery, since with the use of one foot only, he will not overcome so many of us in a struggle. And yet I was sent to assist you and am reluctant to be called traitor. Still I prefer, my king, to fail when doing what is honorable than to be victorious in a dishonorable manner.

ODYSSEUS: Son of a father so noble, I, too, in my youth once had a slow tongue and an active hand. But now that I have come forth to the test, I see that the tongue, not action, is what masters everything among men.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What, then, are your orders—apart from my lying?

Part 2

ODYSSEUS: I command you to take Philoctetes by deceit.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And why by deceit rather than by persuasion?

ODYSSEUS: He will never listen; and by force you cannot take him.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Has he strength so terrific to make him bold?

ODYSSEUS: Yes, shafts inevitable, escorts of death.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then one does not dare even approach him?

ODYSSEUS: No, unless he takes the man by deceit, as I prescribe.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then you think it brings no shame to speak what is false?

ODYSSEUS: No, not if the falsehood yields deliverance.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And with what expression on his face will anyone dare mouth those lies?

ODYSSEUS: When what you do promises gain, it is wrong to shrink back.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And what gain is it for me that he should come to Troy?

ODYSSEUS: His arrows alone will capture Troy.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then I am not to be the conqueror, as you said?

ODYSSEUS: Neither will you be without them, nor they without you.

NEOPTOLEMUS: It would seem, then, that we must track them down, if things stand as you say.

ODYSSEUS: Know that by doing this task, you win two rewards.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What are they? If I knew, I would not refuse the deed.

ODYSSEUS: You will be celebrated in the same breath as clever and as noble.

NEOPTOLEMUS: So be it! I will do it, and cast off all shame.

Part 3

ODYSSEUS: Do you remember, then, the story that I recommended?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Be sure of it, since once and for all I have consented.

ODYSSEUS: You stay here, then, to wait for him. Meanwhile I will go away, so as not to be observed here with you, and I will send our lookout back to your ship. And, if in my view you seem to linger at all beyond the due time, I will send that same man back again, after disguising him as the captain of a merchant-ship, so that secrecy may be on our side. Then, son, as he tells his artful story, take whatever in his tale is from time to time helpful to you. Now I will go to the ship, leaving matters here to you. May escorting Hermes the Deceiver, lead us on, and divine Victory, Athena Polias, who saves me always! Exit Odysseus, on the spectators’ left.

CHORUS: I am a stranger in a strange land, Master. What must I hide, what must I reveal to a man who will be swift to suspicion? Show me the way! His skill excels all other skill, his wisdom has no equal, whose hands govern the godlike scepter given by Zeus. To you, my son, that sovereign power has descended from the dawn of time. Therefore tell me how I must serve you.

NEOPTOLEMUS: For the present—since perhaps you wish to see the place on the island’s edge where he resides—survey it without fear. But when the dread traveler, who has left this dwelling, returns, step forward at my signal from time to time, and try to help as the moment may require.

CHORUS: Long have I been careful of this care, my prince: that my eyes should be watchful for your good above all else. And now tell me, in what manner of shelter does he keep his dwelling? In what region is he now? It is not inopportune for me to learn so that he may not come upon me unawares from somewhere. In what place does he wander, or rest? Does he plant his steps within his shelter, or abroad?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Well, here you see his home with its two portals, his rocky cell.

CHORUS: And its wretched occupant, where is he gone to?

NEOPTOLEMUS: It seems clear to me, anyway, that he is plowing his way along somewhere near here in search of food. For I know of a report that this is his means of sustenance—a wretch wretchedly shooting prey with his feathered shafts—and that no one comes near to him to heal his misery.

CHORUS: For my part, I pity him when I think how, with no one to care for him, and seeing no companion’s face, but suffering eternally alone, he is plagued by fierce disease and bewildered by each need as it arises. How, how does he endure his bitter fate? Ah, contrivances of the gods! Ah, unhappy tribes of mortals, whose life-portion exceeds due measure!

CHORUS: That man—inferior in no way, probably, to any man belonging to the oldest families—lies alone without companions and stripped of all life’s gifts among the dappled or shaggy beasts. He is a man to be pitied for his torments and his hunger alike, enduring anguish that has no cure. But to his bitter cries the mountain nymph, babbling Echo, coming from afar, gives answer.

NEOPTOLEMUS: No part of this is a marvel to me. God-sent—if a man such as I may judge—are both those sufferings which attacked him from savage Chryse, and those with which he now toils untended. Surely he toils by the plan of some god so that he may not bend against Troy the invincible arrows divine, until the time be fulfilled at which, men say, by those arrows Troy is fated to fall.

CHORUS: Hush,boy!

NEOPTOLEMUS: What is it?

CHORUS: I heard a sudden thud, one that might naturally come from a man worn by pain. From there it came, I think—or there. It strikes, strikes hard on my ear, the sure sound of someone creeping along his way as if tortured. I cannot miss that grievous cry of a man hard-pressed, even from afar—its tone is too clear.

CHORUS: But listen, son—

NEOPTOLEMUS: To what? Tell me.

CHORUS: To my latest thoughts. For he is not far from his home, but nearby. And not with music of the flute, like a shepherd pasturing his flocks, does he come,— no—but crying out a far-sounding howl as he stumbles, perhaps, from tortuous pain, or as he scans the haven unvisited by any ship. His cries are loud, and terrible.

PHILOCTETES: O strangers! Who can you be, and from what country, that you have put into this harborless and desolate land? What would I rightly say is your city or your ancestry? The fashion of your equipment is Greek, and most welcome to my sight; but it would please me to hear your voices. And do not shrink from me in fear, or be frightened by my savage looks. No, pity one so wretched and so lonely, a castaway, so friendless and so miserable. Speak to me, if indeed you have come as friends. Oh, answer! It is not right that I be disappointed by you in this request, at least, nor you by me.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Well, know first, stranger, that we are Greeks, since you desire to learn this.

Part 4

PHILOCTETES: O cherished sound! Ah, that I should truly be greeted by such a man, after so long a time! What need, young man, has made you land here and brought you to this spot? What business? What wind so kind? Speak, tell me all, so that I may know who you are.

NEOPTOLEMUS: My birthplace is the island Scyros, and I am sailing homeward. I am the son of Achilles, by name Neoptolemus. Now you know everything.

PHILOCTETES: O son of a father I loved, and of soil I cherished! Ward of aged Lycomedes, on what mission have you touched this shore? From where are you sailing?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Well, since you ask, it is from Ilium that I am now guiding my ship.

PHILOCTETES: What? You were certainly not our shipmate at the beginning of the expedition there.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And did you have a part in that toil?

PHILOCTETES: Then you do not know who I am?

NEOPTOLEMUS: How should I know one whom I have never seen before?

PHILOCTETES: Then you have not even heard my name, or any rumor of those sufferings under which I have been perishing?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Be sure that I know nothing of what you ask.

PHILOCTETES: How cursed I must be, how abhorred by the gods, if not a word of my miserable condition has reached my homeland, or any Greek land at all! Instead those men, who against the gods’ laws cast me away, keep their secret and laugh, while my plague has ever flourished and grows worse! O my son, boy whose father was Achilles, here I am before you, the man of whom you have perhaps heard as lord of the bow of Heracles, Philoctetes the son of Poeas. I am he whom the two marshalls and the Cephallenian king shamelessly hurled to this solitude which you see, when I was wasting with a fierce disease, stricken by the savage bite of the murderous serpent. With that plague for my sole companion, boy, those men put me out here alone and left, after they landed here with their fleet from sea-washed Chryse. Delighted they were then, when they saw me asleep after much tossing on the waves, in the shelter of a cave upon the shore, and they abandoned me, first setting out a few rags, as though for an unfortunate beggar, and a bit of food, too— a small work of charity. But may they get what they gave me! Can you imagine, boy, what kind of awakening I had when they had gone, and I rose from sleep that day?—what stinging tears I wept, and what miseries I bewailed when I saw that the ships with which I had sailed were all gone, and that there was no man in the place, not one to help me, not one to ease the sickness that afflicted me, when looking all around me, I could find nothing at hand, save agony—but of that a ready store?

So time passed for me, season by season, and alone in this narrow house, I had to attend to all my wants by my own resources. For my stomach’s needs this bow provided, bringing down doves on the wing. And whatever my string-sped arrow might strike, in pain I would crawl to it myself, dragging my wretched foot behind me. Or, again, if water had to be fetched, or, if when the frost had spread, as often happens in winter, a bit of firewood had to be broken, I would creep out in pain and manage it. Then fire would be lacking; but by rubbing stone hard on stone I would at last reveal the hidden spark which preserves me from day to day. Indeed, a roof over my head and a fire inside provides all that I want—except release from my disease. Come now, son, you must understand what sort of island this is. No mariner approaches it by choice, since there is no anchorage or port where he can find a gainful market or a kindly host. This is not a place to which prudent men voyage. But suppose that some one has put in against his will, for such things may often happen in the long course of a man’s life. These visitors, then, when they come, son, have compassionate words for me, and, perhaps moved by pity, they give me a little food or some clothing. But there is one thing that no one will do, whenever I mention it: take me home in safety. No, this is already the tenth year that I am wasted by misery from hunger and suffering, by feeding this gluttonous plague. This is what the Atreids and the forceful Odysseus have done to me, boy. May the gods on Olympus someday give them agonies as strong in requital for mine!

CHORUS: I believe that I, too, pity you, son of Poeas, as much as your former visitors.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And I myself attest your accusations, for I know their truth through my own experience with the wickedness of the Atreids and the force of Odysseus.

PHILOCTETES: What, do you also have a grievance against the accursed sons of Atreus, a cause for anger at some mistreatment?

NEOPTOLEMUS: If only I might one day be allowed to fulfill my heart’s rage by the deeds of my hand, so that Mycenae might learn, and Sparta, that Scyros also is a mother of brave men!

PHILOCTETES: Well said, son! Now what is the reason that you have come complaining against them with this fierce wrath?

NEOPTOLEMUS: I will tell you—and yet it is hard to tell— the outrage that I suffered from them upon my arrival there. For when fate decreed that Achilles should die—

PHILOCTETES: Ah, me! Tell me no more, until I first know this—is the son of Peleus dead?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Dead—not by a mortal hand, but by a god’s. He was brought down, as men say, by the arrow of Phoebus.

Part 5

PHILOCTETES: Well, noble alike are the slayer and the slain. But I am at a loss to know, son, whether I should first inquire into the wrong done you, or mourn the dead.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Your own sorrows, I think, are enough for you, unhappy man, without mourning for those of your neighbor.

PHILOCTETES: You speak the truth. Therefore tell me again what happened to you, and how they wronged you.

NEOPTOLEMUS: They came for me in a ship elaborately ornamented, shining Odysseus, and he who fostered my father, and said—whether truly or falsely, I do not know—that since my father had perished, fate now forbade that anyone but I should take the towers of Troy. Saying that this, my friend, was how things stood, they caused me no long delay before I set sail in haste, chiefly because of my yearning for the dead, that I might look upon him before burial, since I had never seen him. Then, besides, theirs was a fine promise, if by accompanying them I might sack the towers of Troy. It was now the second day of my voyage when, sped by breeze and oar, I approached bitter Sigeum. When I landed, straightaway the entire army thronged around me with greetings, vowing that they saw their lost Achilles once more alive. He, though, lay ready for burial, and I, unhappy, when I had wept for him, went before long to the Atreids, to friends, as it was reasonable to suppose,—and claimed my father’s arms and all else that had been his. O, their reply was bold and shameless! Seed of Achilles, you may take all else that was your father’s. But of those arms another man now is lord, the son of Laertes. The tears came quick to my eyes as I sprang up in passionate anger and said in my bitterness, Madman! Have you dared give my arms to another man in my place, without asking me? But Odysseus—for he chanced to be at hand—said, Yes, boy, they awarded them as was just, since it was I who saved the arms and their master by my presence at the crucial moment. Then immediately, in my fury, I began to lash at him with every kind of insult and left not one unsaid, if he was indeed to rob me of my arms. At this point, stung by the abuse, though not given to anger, he answered,—You have not gone to where we have; instead you have been absent from where you were needed. And since your tongue is so arrogant, you will never sail back to Scyros with those arms in your possession. In that way rebuked, in that way insulted, I sail for home, deprived of what is my own by that worst offspring of a wicked line, Odysseus. And yet I do not blame him as much as I do those in power. For a city hangs wholly on its leaders, and so does an army, but when men shatter law and order, it is the lessons of their teachers that corrupt them. My tale is told in full. May he who hates the Atreids be as dear to the gods as he is to me!

CHORUS: Goddess of the hills, Earth all-nourishing, mother of Zeus himself, you through whose realm the great Pactolus rolls golden sands! There, there also, dread Mother, I called upon your name, when all the insults of the Atreids landed upon this man, when they handed over his father’s armor, that sublime marvel, to the son of Laertes. Hear it, blessed queen, who rides on bull-slaughtering lions!

PHILOCTETES: It seems that you have come to me, friends, well commended by a grief that matches my own. Your story is in harmony with mine, so that I can recognize the work of the Atreids and of Odysseus. For well I know that he would put his tongue to any base tale and to any mischief-making, if thereby he could hope to accomplish something criminal in the end. No, that is not at all a wonder to me, but rather that the elder Ajax, if he was there, could bear to see this.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Ah, friend, he was no longer alive—I would never have been plundered like that while he lived.

PHILOCTETES: What do you say? Is he, too, dead and gone?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Think of him as of one who sees the sun’s light no more.

PHILOCTETES: Oh, no! But the son of Tydeus, and Sisyphus’ offspring that was bought by Laertes—they will not die, since they do not deserve to live!

NEOPTOLEMUS: No, indeed, be sure of it. On the contrary, they prosper now —yes, and greatly—in the Argive army.

PHILOCTETES: And what of my brave old friend, Nestor of Pylos—is he not alive? He often checked the crimes of those two, if not others, by his sage counsels.

NEOPTOLEMUS: He has his own troubles now, since Antilochus, the son that was at his side, left him for Hades.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, me! These two, again, whom you have named, are men of whose death I had least wished to hear. Gods! What are we to look for, when these men have died, but Odysseus here again lives, when in their place he should have been announced as dead?

NEOPTOLEMUS: The man is a clever wrestler. But even clever schemes, Philoctetes, are often blocked.

PHILOCTETES: Now, by the gods, tell me—where was Patroclus when you needed him, he whom your father loved beyond all others?

NEOPTOLEMUS: He, too, was dead. And in a brief maxim I would teach you this: War takes no evil man by choice, but always the good men.

PHILOCTETES: I will attest to that, and with that very truth in mind, I will ask you how fares a man of little worth, but sharp of tongue and clever.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Surely the man of whom you ask is no one but Odysseus?

PHILOCTETES: I did not mean him; there was one Thersites, who could never be content to speak once and briefly, even though no one wanted him to speak at all. Do you know if he is alive?

Part 6

NEOPTOLEMUS: I never saw him, but I heard that he is still alive.

PHILOCTETES: He would be—no evil thing has ever been known to perish. No, the gods take excellent care of their kind. They find a strange joy in turning back from Hades all things criminal and crooked, while they are always dispatching the just and the good from life. How am I to regard these doings? How can I praise them, when in the very act of praising the ways of the gods, I find that the gods are evil?

NEOPTOLEMUS: I, at least, son of Oetean Poeas, will be on my guard hereafter against Ilium and the Atreids, and look on them only from afar. And where the worse man is stronger than the good, where nobility goes to ruin and the vile man dominates—among such men I will never make my friends. No, rocky Scyros shall suffice for me from now on to make me delight in my home. Now to my ship! And you, son of Poeas, farewell—as best you can, farewell! May the gods free you of your disease, just as you wish! But we must be going, so that we may set sail whenever the god permits our voyage.

PHILOCTETES: Are you setting out already, son?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Yes, since opportunity bids us watch near our ship for a fair wind, rather than from afar.

PHILOCTETES: Now by your father and by your mother, son, by all that you cherish at home— I solemnly supplicate you, do not leave me alone like this, helpless amid these miseries in which I live, so harsh as you see, and so numerous as I have said! Consider me a small side-task. Great is your disgust, well I know, at such a cargo. Yet bear with it all the same—to noble minds baseness is hateful, and a good deed is glorious. If you forsake this task, you will have a stain on your honor; but if you perform it, boy, you will win the prize of highest honor—if I return alive to Oeta’s soil. Come, the trouble will not last one full day. Endure it, take me and throw me where you will—in the hold, the prow, the stern, wherever I will least annoy my shipmates. Say yes, by the great god of suppliants, son; be persuaded! I supplicate you at your knees, I am an infirm wretch, and lame! Do not leave me desolate like this, far from the paths of mankind! No, bring me safely to your own home, or to Euboea, Chalcodon’s seat; and from there it will be no long journey for me to Oeta and the Trachinian heights, and fair-flowing Spercheius, so that you may show me to my beloved father, though long I have feared that he may have departed me. For often did I summon him by means of those who came here, sending imploring prayers that he would himself send a ship and get me safely home. But either he is dead, or else, as I think is likely, my messengers thought my concerns of little account and hurried on their homeward voyage. Now, however, since in you I have found one who can be both an escort and a messenger, save me and show me mercy, keeping in mind that all human destiny is full of the fear and the danger that prosperity may be followed by its opposite. He who stands clear of trouble must beware of dangers, and when a man lives at ease, then it is that he must look most closely to his livelihood, lest it secretly suffer ruin.

CHORUS: Have pity, my king! He has told of a struggle with sufferings manifold and oppressive—may the like befall no friend of mine! And if, my king, you hate the hateful Atreids, then, turning their wrongdoing to this man’s gain, I would take him in your swift, well-rigged ship to the home for which he longs, and so escape the god’s just wrath.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Though now as a casual spectator you are compliant, beware lest later, when filled with his disease by its constant company, you prove no longer constant to these sentiments.

CHORUS: That will not happen. You will never have just cause to rebuke me for that!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Well, then, it would shame me if the stranger were to find me less ready than you are to toil for his good. Come, if it pleases you, let us sail. Let the man set out at once; our ship, for her part, will carry him, and will not refuse. Only may the gods give us safe passage from this land, and from here to whatever destination we choose!

PHILOCTETES: O day of joy unsurpassed! Most delightful man, and you good sailors! If only I could show you in deeds what a true friend you have made in me! Let us be going, my son, when we two have made a solemn farewell to my homeless home inside, so that you may also learn by what means I sustained my life, and how stout of heart I was born. For I believe that the mere sight would have deterred any other man but me from enduring these sufferings. But I have been slowly schooled by necessity to endure misery. Neoptolemus is about to follow Philoctetes into the cave.

CHORUS: Wait, let us listen to the two men who are coming! One is a crewman of your ship, the other a stranger. Go in after you hear their report.

MERCHANT: Son of Achilles, I asked my companion here, when he was guarding your ship with two others, to tell me where you might be found, since I have chanced upon you unexpectedly by the good fortune of coming to anchor off this very coast. With no great company I am homeward bound on my trader’s voyage from Ilium to Peparethus with its cluster-laden vines, but when I heard that the sailors were all of your crew, I resolved not to continue my voyage in silence, without first giving you my news and getting the due reward. You know nothing, I suspect, of your own affairs: the new designs the Greeks have regarding you, and not only designs, but deeds in progress and no longer postponed.

NEOPTOLEMUS: The service you have done me by your forethought, sir, unless I am unworthy, will remain in my grateful thoughts. But tell me just what the designs are that you mentioned, so that I may understand what is the strange plan of the Greeks that you know.

MERCHANT: Pursuers are on the way in search of you with a fleet. They are the aged Phoenix and the sons of Theseus.

NEOPTOLEMUS: To bring me back by force, or through persuasion?

MERCHANT: I do not know; but I have come to tell you what I did hear.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Are Phoenix and his comrades really so eager to do this favor for the Atreids?

MERCHANT: Be sure that it is being done, and without delay.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then why was Odysseus not ready to sail on this mission, and bring the message himself? Or did some fear hold him back?

Part 7

MERCHANT: Oh, he and the son of Tydeus were readying for pursuit of another man, just as I was leaving port.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Who is this other after whom Odysseus himself was sailing?

MERCHANT: There was a man. . . . But tell me first who that is over there. And whatever you say, do speak quietly.

NEOPTOLEMUS: There, sir, before your eyes is the renowned Philoctetes.

MERCHANT: Then do not question me further, but get yourself out of here as quickly as possible and sail away.

PHILOCTETES: What is he saying, boy? Why does the sailor traffic with you about me in these dark whispers?

NEOPTOLEMUS: His meaning yet eludes me. But, whatever he will say, he must say openly—to you, me and my men here.

MERCHANT: Seed of Achilles, do not stir the army’s resentment against me for saying what I should not. I receive many benefits for what services I do them, as a poor man may.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I am the enemy of the Atreids, and this man is my closest friend precisely because he hates them. Since, then, you have come kindly disposed towards me, you must not hide from us any part of their plans that you have heard.

MERCHANT: Beware of what you are doing, boy.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I am well aware.

MERCHANT: I will hold you accountable.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Do so, but speak.

MERCHANT: I will. It is after this man that those two whom I named to you, Diomedes and forceful Odysseus, are sailing. They are oath-bound to retrieve him, either by winning words or by overpowering might. And all the Achaeans heard this clearly from the mouth Odysseus, for his confidence of success in this action was higher than his comrade’s.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And for the sake of what did the Atreids after so long a time turn their thoughts so urgently towards this man, whom they were long since keeping an outcast? What was the desire that came over them, or what force? What avenging spirit sent by the gods to exact payment for evil deeds?

MERCHANT: I will inform you of all that, since it seems that you have not heard. There was a seer of noble birth, a son of Priam, called Helenus, whom that man, out on a solitary night raid—that deceitful Odysseus, whose repute is all shame and dishonor—captured. Leading him back in bonds, he displayed him publicly to the Achaeans as his glorious prey. Helenus then prophesied for them whatever matter they asked, and, pertaining to Troy, he foretold that they would never sack its towers, unless by winning words they should bring Philoctetes here from the island where he now dwells. And, as soon as he heard the seer prophecy this, Laertes’ son immediately promised that he would bring the man and show him to the Achaeans. He thought it most likely that he would get him willingly, but, if unwilling, then by force, and he added that, were he to fail in this, whoever wished it might sever his head. You have heard everything, boy, and I advise speed for you, and for any man for whom you care.

PHILOCTETES: Alas! Has he, the utter plague, sworn to fetch me back to the Achaeans by persuasion? For if that were to happen, I could be persuaded, when dead, to come back up from Hades into the light, as his father did!

MERCHANT: I know nothing about that. But for my part I must return to ship, while for you I pray that god may help you in every possible way. Exit Merchant.

PHILOCTETES: Now is it not astounding, boy, that Odysseus would ever have expected by means of soft words to lead me from his ship and show me in the middle of the Greeks? No! I would sooner listen to that greatest and worst of my enemies, the viper which made me crippled as I am! But there is nothing that he would not say or dare. And now I know that he is coming here. Come, son, let us be moving, so that a wide sea may part us from the ship of Odysseus. Let us go! Good speed in good season brings sleep and rest when toil is finished.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then as soon as the wind is not at our prow, we will sail. At present it blows against us.

Part 8

PHILOCTETES: The sailing is always fair, when you flee trouble.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Not so; this weather is against them also.

PHILOCTETES: No wind stands in the way of pirates who sense a chance to steal and plunder by force.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Well, if you are so resolved, let us go, once you have taken from the cave whatever you need or desire most.

PHILOCTETES: Yes, there are some things that I need, though the choice is not large.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What is there that will not be available on board my ship?

PHILOCTETES: I have a store of a certain herb, whereby I can always best lull this wound, until it is wholly tamed.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Fetch it, then. Now, what else do you wish to take?

PHILOCTETES: Any of these arrows that may have been forgotten, and may have slipped away from me, so that I not leave it for another to take.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Is that indeed the famous bow which you hold?

PHILOCTETES: This, and no other, that I carry in my hand.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Is there any way that I might have a closer view of it—and handle it, and salute it as divine?

PHILOCTETES: To you alone, my son, this shall be granted, along with anything else in my power that is in your interest.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I do indeed crave to touch it, but my craving takes this form: if it is lawful, I would be glad. If not, think no more of it.

PHILOCTETES: Your words are reverent, son, and your wish is lawful. For you alone have given to my eyes the light of life and the hope of seeing the land of Oeta, of seeing my aged father and my friends; and you alone, when I lay beneath the feet of my enemies, have lifted me beyond their reach. Be bold. The bow shall be yours to handle and to return to the hand that gave it, and you will be able to boast aloud that in reward for your goodness, you alone of mortals have touched it. Yes, it was by a good deed that I myself won it.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I am not sorry that I found you and have gained your friendship, since whoever knows how to render benefit for a benefit received must prove a friend more valuable than any possession. Please, do go inside.

PHILOCTETES: Agreed, and I will bring you also. My sickness craves the comfort of your presence. Philoctetes and Neoptolemus enter the cave.

CHORUS: I have heard a rumor, but never seen with my eyes, how the man who once approached the bed of Zeus was bound upon a swift wheel by the almighty son of Cronus. But of no other mortal do I know, either by hearsay or by sight, that has encountered a doom so repugnant as this of Philoctetes. For though he had wronged no one by force or thievery, but conducted himself fairly towards the fair, he was left to perish so undeservedly. I truly marvel how—how in the world—as he listened in solitude to the breakers rushing around him, he kept his hold upon a life so full of grief.

CHORUS: Here, he alone was his own neighbor, powerless to walk, with no one in the land to be his companion while he suffered—no one to whom he could cry out a lament that would be answered for the plague that gnawed his flesh and drained his blood—no one to lull with healing herbs gathered from the nourishing earth the burning blood which oozed from the ulcers of his envenomed foot, whenever the torment attacked him. Instead he would then creep this way or that, stumbling like a child without his kind nurse, to any place from where his needs might be supplied, whenever the devouring anguish withdrew.

CHORUS: For food he did not gather the fruit of holy Earth, nor anything else that we mortals feed on by our labor, except when on occasion he obtained food to ease his hunger by means of feathered shafts from his swift-striking bow. Ah, joyless was his life, who for ten years never knew the delight of wine, but ever directed his path towards any stagnant pool that he could find as he gazed around him.

Part 9

CHORUS: But now, after those troubles, he will attain happiness and heartiness in the end because of his meeting with this son of a noble race, who after the fullness of many months carries him aboard our sea-crossing hull to his ancestral home, the haunt of Malian nymphs, and to the banks of the Spercheius in that very land where, above Oeta’s heights, the hero of the brazen shield approached the gods, illuminated by his father’s divine fire.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Please, come on. Why so silent with no apparent cause? And why are you paralyzed?

PHILOCTETES: Ai, ai!

NEOPTOLEMUS: What is the matter?

PHILOCTETES: Nothing serious—go on, son.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Are you in pain from the disease that frequents you?

PHILOCTETES: No, indeed no. I think it is better now.—Gods, oh!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Why do you groan like this and call on the gods?

PHILOCTETES: That they may come to me with power to save and soothe.—Ai! Ai!

NEOPTOLEMUS: What troubles you? Speak, do not keep so silent. It is plain enough that you are suffering somehow.

PHILOCTETES: I am destroyed, boy—I can never conceal my suffering when you are close. Ah! Ah! It shoots through me, shoots straight through! Oh, the pain,the misery! I am destroyed, boy—I am devoured! Ah, by the gods I beg you, if you have a sword ready to hand, strike at my ankle—cut it off now! Do not spare my life! Quick, boy, quick!

NEOPTOLEMUS: What new thing has come on you so suddenly that you wail for yourself with these loud shrieks?

PHILOCTETES: You know, son.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What is it?

PHILOCTETES: You know, boy.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What ails you? I do not know.

PHILOCTETES: How could you not know? Oh, oh!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Yes, terrible is the burden of your disease.

PHILOCTETES: Terrible beyond telling! Oh, pity me!

NEOPTOLEMUS: What shall I do?

Part 10

PHILOCTETES: Do not betray me because of fear. This plague comes only now and then,—perhaps when she has been sated with her roamings elsewhere.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Ah, poor wretch! Poor man, truly for all your sufferings! Shall I support you, or somehow offer a helping hand?

PHILOCTETES: No, no. But take this bow of mine—as you earlier asked of me—and keep it in your care and safe until this present bout with my disease is past. For indeed sleep takes me as soon as this pain passes away, nor can it cease before then. But you must allow me to sleep in peace. And if those men come in the meantime, then by the gods I forbid you willingly or unwillingly, or by any skilled trickery, to give up this bow to them, lest you bring destruction at once on yourself and on me, who am your suppliant.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Have no fears as to my caution. The bow shall pass into no hands but yours and mine. Give it to me, and may good luck accompany it!

PHILOCTETES: There, take it boy. And humble yourself before the jealous gods, so that the bow may not prove baneful for you, as it did for me and for him who owned it before me.

NEOPTOLEMUS: O gods, grant this to the two of us! And grant us a voyage prosperous and unimpeded, to whatever goal the god may deem right and that our mission provides!

PHILOCTETES: Futile, I fear, are your prayers, boy. Look, once again the dark blood is oozing drop by drop from deep in the wound, and I look for worse to come. Ah, me, oh, oh! Cursed foot, what torment you cause me! It creeps on me, it is coming near! Ah, misery! Now you know my condition. Do not flee, no! Oh, alas! Odysseus of Cephallene, once my friend, would that this anguish might stick to you, and pierce your chest! Ah, me! Ah, me! O you twin marshalls, Agamemnon, and you, Menelaus, may your flesh instead of mine nourish this plague, and for as long! Oh, Ah, me! O Death, Death, though I am always summoning you day after day, why do you never come? O son, noble youth, seize me, burn me up, true friend, in that fire famed as Lemnian. I, too, once deemed it lawful to do that very service for the son of Zeus, in return for which I received these same arms, which are now in your keeping. What do you say, boy, what do you say? Why this silence? Where are your thoughts, son?

NEOPTOLEMUS: My heart has long been aching for your load of pain.

PHILOCTETES: Stop, then, and take courage; this visitor comes sharply, but goes quickly. Yet, I beg you, do not leave me alone.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Take heart, we will remain.

PHILOCTETES: Will you?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Be sure of it.

PHILOCTETES: Indeed, I do not think it right to put you under oath.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Rest assured; it is not lawful for me to leave without you.

PHILOCTETES: Give me your hand in pledge!

NEOPTOLEMUS: I give it—to stay.

PHILOCTETES: Now take me there, over there!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Where do you mean?

PHILOCTETES: Up there!

NEOPTOLEMUS: What is this new delirium? Why do you gaze at the dome above us?

Part 11

PHILOCTETES: Let me go, let me go!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Where will you go, if I do so?

PHILOCTETES: Let me go, I say!

NEOPTOLEMUS: I will not.

PHILOCTETES: You will kill me, if you touch me further.

NEOPTOLEMUS: There, then, I release you—if in fact you believe it is for the better.

PHILOCTETES: Wide Earth, embrace me now on the verge of death! This pain no longer lets me stand up.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Sleep, I think, will take him before long. See, his head sinks backward. Yes, a sweat runs over his whole body, and a dark, hemorrhaging vein has burst from his heel. Come, friends, let us leave him in quietness, so that he may fall asleep.

CHORUS: Divine Sleep, god who knows no pain, Sleep, stranger to anguish, come in favor to us, come happy, and giving happiness, great King! Keep before his eyes such light as is spread before them now. Come to him, I pray you, come with power to heal! Son, consider what position you will take, and to what strategy you will next direct our course. You see his condition now! Why should we hesitate to act? Opportunity, the umpire of all contests, often wins a great victory by one swift stroke.

NEOPTOLEMUS: No, even though he hears nothing, I see that we have made this bow our quarry to no end, if we sail without him. His must be the victor’s crown. It is he that the god commanded we bring. It would be a foul disgrace upon us to boast of deeds in which failure and fraud had equal parts.

CHORUS: Well, the god must look to that, son. But when you answer me again, softly, please, softly whisper your words. For sick men’s restless sleep is quick to vision. But, please, use your utmost care to win that prize, that great prize, by stealth. For if you maintain your present purpose towards this man—you know what purpose I mean—then truly there are irremediable troubles in store, which a shrewd mind can foresee.

CHORUS: Now, son, a fair wind blows you on your way: sightless and helpless, the man lies stretched in darkness—sleep in the heat is sound— with no command of hands or feet, but stripped of all his powers, like one who rests with Hades. Take note, see if your pronouncements are seasonable. So far as my thoughts can seize the truth, boy, the best strategy is that which stirs no alarm.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Quiet, I say, and do not abandon your wits—the man is opening his eyes and lifts his head.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, light succeeding upon sleep! Ah, friendly watchers, sight unlooked for even in my dreams! I could never have expected this, son— that you would have the patience to wait so tenderly upon my sufferings by staying close beside me and helping to relieve me. The Atreids, certainly, those valiant generals, had no heart to bear this burden so lightly. But your nature is noble and drawn of a noble line, and so you have made little of all this, though loud cries and stenches afflicted you. And now, since the plague seems to allow me a space of forgetfulness and peace at last, lift me up yourself and set me on my feet, so that, when the faintness releases me at length, we may set out to the ship, and not hold back our sailing.

NEOPTOLEMUS: It pleases me to see you living unpained and breathing still, however contrary to my expectation. For in view of your persistent sufferings, your symptoms seemed to speak of death. But now lift yourself, or, if you prefer, these men will carry you. The labor will not be grudged, since you and I are of one mind.

PHILOCTETES: Thank you, son, and help me up, as you will. Yet do not trouble your men, so that they may not suffer from the foul stench before it is necessary. It will be trial enough for them to live on board with me.

NEOPTOLEMUS: So be it. Now stand up, and take hold of me.

PHILOCTETES: Do not worry, my habitual method will help me to my feet.

NEOPTOLEMUS: God! What am I to do next?

PHILOCTETES: What is the matter? Where strays your speech?

Part 12

NEOPTOLEMUS: I do not know where to turn my tongue when my thoughts are so confused.

PHILOCTETES: Confused? How so? No, do not say it!

NEOPTOLEMUS: My mind is indeed brought to that condition.

PHILOCTETES: It cannot be that offense at my sickness has persuaded you not to take me aboard your ship?

NEOPTOLEMUS: All is offense when a man has abandoned his true nature and does what does not suit him.

PHILOCTETES: But you, at least, are not departing from your begetter’s example either in word or deed, when you help a man who is noble.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I shall be found to have no honor—this is the thought that long torments me.

PHILOCTETES: Not because of your present deeds, at least. But because of your words, I worry.

NEOPTOLEMUS: O Zeus, what shall I do? Must I be twice found base—by disloyal silence, as well as by shameful speech?

PHILOCTETES: Unless I am lacking in judgment, he means to betray me, leave me behind and sail away!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Leave you? No, not I. Rather, to your pain, I will bring you along. That is my torment.

PHILOCTETES: What do you mean, son? I do not understand.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I will conceal nothing. You must sail to Troy, back to the Achaeans and the forces of the Atreids.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, no! What have you said?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Do not wail in grief, before you understand!

PHILOCTETES: Understand what? What do you intend to do to me?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Save you, first, from this misery, and then, together with you, go and plunder Troy’s plains.

PHILOCTETES: And this is your true intent?

NEOPTOLEMUS: A harsh necessity governs these events, so do not be angered at hearing of them.

PHILOCTETES: I am destroyed—ah, misery!—betrayed! What have you done to me, stranger? Return my bow at once!

Part 13

NEOPTOLEMUS: No, it is not possible. My duty and my interest alike constrain me to obey those in power.

PHILOCTETES: You destroying fire, you utter monster, you hateful masterpiece of astounding wickedness! What treachery you have done to me! How thoroughly you have deceived me! And are you, you wretch, unashamed to look at me, the suppliant who turned to you for mercy? In taking my bow, you have robbed me of my life. Return it, I beg you, return it, I pray you, son! By the gods of your fathers, do not rob me of my life! Ah, me! He speaks to me no more. He looks away, as if he will never give it up! O you inlets and headlands, you wild creatures of the hills who have shared my life, and you jagged cliffs, to you—for you alone hear me—to you my accustomed companions, I bewail the treacherous treatment I have received from the son of Achilles. Although he swore to take me to my home, it is to Troy that he takes me. Although he gave me his right hand in pledge of his word, he has taken my bow, the sacred bow, once belonging to Zeus’s son Heracles, and he keeps it, and wants to show it to the Argives as his own. By force he drags me away, as if he had captured a strong man, and does not see that he is cutting down a corpse, the shadow of smoke, a mere phantom. In my strength he could not have taken me—no!—nor even in my present condition, save by deceit. But now, because of my rotten fate, I have been tricked. What should I do? Wait, give it back! Now, at least, recover your true self! What do you say? Silence! I am nothing! Double-gated cave, back, back again I return to you, but now stripped and lacking the means to live. Yes, in that chamber I will wither away alone, bringing down with that bow no winged bird, no beast that roams the hills. Rather I myself shall die in misery, and supply a feast for those who fed me, becoming the prey of those on whom I preyed. Ah, in requital for blood my own blood will flow, shed at the hands of a man who seemed all unknowing of evil! May destruction seize you!—but no, not yet, not before I learn whether you will change your mind. But if not, may you die a cruel death!

CHORUS: What shall we do? It rests with you, my king, whether we now sail, or move forward to answer his pleas.

NEOPTOLEMUS: A startling pity for him has come upon me—and not now for the first time, but long ago.

PHILOCTETES: Show mercy, boy, for the love of the gods, and do not give men cause to reproach you for having cheated me.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Ah, no, what shall I do? I wish I had never left Scyros, so pained am I by these doings.

PHILOCTETES: You are not in and of yourself wicked, but you seem to have come to me after learning the shameless lessons of wicked masters. Now leave such behavior to others, whom it suits, and sail from here—once you have given me back my weapons.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What shall we do, friends?

ODYSSEUS: Traitor, what are you doing? Come back here and surrender that bow to me!

PHILOCTETES: Who is that? Do I hear Odysseus?

ODYSSEUS: Yes, Odysseus, be sure of it. Here I am before your eyes.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, me, I am sold, destroyed! It was he, then, who entrapped me and robbed me of my arms.

ODYSSEUS: Yes, I and no other. I avow it.

PHILOCTETES: Give back my bow, boy, give it up.

ODYSSEUS: That he shall never do, even if he wished to. And, what is more, you must come along with it, or my men will bring you by force.

PHILOCTETES: Me, you basest and boldest of scoundrels, they will take me by force?

ODYSSEUS: Unless you come of your own free will.

PHILOCTETES: O Lemnos, and you all-conquering flame kindled by Hephaestus, will you indeed endure it that this man should take me from your domain by force?

ODYSSEUS: Zeus it is, I tell you, Zeus, who rules this land, and it is by Zeus that these actions are decreed. I am his servant.

PHILOCTETES: Hated creature, what clever pleading you devise! By sheltering yourself behind the gods, you make the gods liars.

Part 14

ODYSSEUS: No, but true prophets. Now our march must begin.

PHILOCTETES: Never!

ODYSSEUS: Now, I say. You must obey.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, misery! Clearly, then, my father sired me to be a slave and no free man.

ODYSSEUS: Not so, but to be the peer of the best and bravest, with whom you are destined to take Troy and force it to the ground.

PHILOCTETES: No, never—even if I must suffer every torment, so long as I have this island’s steep cliffs beneath me!

ODYSSEUS: What do you plan to do?

PHILOCTETES: Throw myself now from the rock and shatter my head on the rocks below!

ODYSSEUS: Quick, seize him, both of you! Do not give him the chance!

PHILOCTETES: O my arms, what shames you suffer for lack of your cherished bow, now that you are made that man’s bound quarry! And you, who cannot think one healthy or one noble thought, how stealthily you have once more ambushed and trapped me, taking this boy for your screen, because he was a stranger to me. He is too good for your company, but worthy of mine, since he had no thought but to execute his orders, and he already shows remorse for his own errors and for the wrongs done me. But your corrupt mind, always on the lookout from some position of ambush, trained him well—unsuited and unwilling though he was— to be cunning in evil. And now, wretch, for me you plan bonds and passage from the very shore on which you had me flung away, friendless, abandoned, citiless, a corpse in the eyes of the living. Ah! Hades take you! Indeed I have often so prayed for you. But, because the gods grant me nothing that is sweet, you remain alive and you laugh, while I live miserably among countless sufferings, mocked by you and by the sons of Atreus, the two generals whom you serve on this errand. And yet you sailed with them only when brought under their yoke by trickery and compulsion. But me, when, to my utter ruin, I sailed of my own accord as their mate with seven ships, me they cast out of ship and honor, as you claim, while they say that it was your doing. And now, why would you take me? Why have me led away? For what purpose? I am nothing, and, as far as you were concerned, I have long been dead. You creature abhorred by the gods, how is it that you no longer find me crippled and foul-smelling? How, if I sail with you, can you burn sacrifices to the gods, or make libations any more? That was your pretext for casting me away in the first place. A cruel death for you!—and die you shall for your unjust treatment of me, if the gods care for justice. But I know that they do care for it, since you would never have made this voyage for one so miserable, unless some god-sent goad had driven you after me. O, fatherland, and you watchful gods, bring your vengeance, bring your vengeance on them all after so long, if at all you pity me! Yes, my life merits pity. Yet if I were to see those men overthrown, I would believe that I had escaped my plague.

CHORUS: Bitter is the stranger, and bitter his words, Odysseus. They do not bend before the storm of his troubles.

ODYSSEUS: I could say much in answer to his claims, if time allowed; but now I can say one thing only. What kind of man the occasion demands, that kind of man am I. And accordingly, where the judgment at hand is of just and good men, you could find no man more pious than me. Victory, however, is my inborn desire in every field—save with regard to you. To you, in this case, I will gladly give way. Yes, release him, and lay not another finger upon him. Let him stay here. We have no further need of you, now that we have these weapons. For Teucer is there among our forces, well-skilled in this craft, as am I, and I believe that I can master this bow in no way worse than you, and point it with no worse a hand. So what need is there of you? Farewell! Enjoy your strolls on Lemnos! We must be going. And perhaps your onetime prize will bring me the honor which ought to have been your own.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, no, what shall I do? Are you to shine before the Argives graced with my arms?

ODYSSEUS: Argue with me no more. I am going.

PHILOCTETES: Seed of Achilles, will you, too, grant me your voice no more, but leave without a word?

ODYSSEUS: Come on! Do not look at him, kind and noble though you are. Do not obliterate our good fortune.

PHILOCTETES: And will you also, friends, leave me so desolate and show me no pity?

CHORUS: The boy commands our ship. Whatever he says to you, that is our answer also.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I shall be told by Odysseus here that I am too soft-hearted; but remain here, if that one agrees, until the sailors have readied everything on board, and we have made our prayers to the gods. In the interval, perhaps, he will obtain a better attitude towards us. And so we two are going. And you, when we call you, be quick to come. Exeunt Odysseus and Neoptolemus.

PHILOCTETES: Hollow in the caverned rock, now hot, now frosty, how true it seems, then, that I was sadly fated never to leave you! No, you will witness my death, too. Ah, ah, me! Sad dwelling, so long filled with the pain welling from my flesh, what will be my daily portion hereafter? Where, from what provision, shall I, unhappy, find any hope of sustenance? Above my head the tremulous doves will go on their way through the whistling wind. I can stop their flight no more.

Part 15

CHORUS: It was you, you, I say, doomed one, that chose this fate; and this fortune to which you are captive comes from no other source, nor from a stronger man’s compulsion. For when in fact it was in your power to show sense, you chose to reject the better fate, and to accept the worse.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, miserable, miserable, then, am I, and shamed by hardship, who next must hereafter dwell in my misery here, with no man for companion in the days to come, and waste away. I can no longer bring food to my home, no longer gain it by the winged weapons held in my strong hands. But the unsuspected and stealthy fictions of a treacherous mind deceived me. If only I could watch him, the contriver of this plot, doomed to endure my anguish for as long a time!

CHORUS: Doom, god-sent doom constrained you to suffer this, not, I tell you, any treachery to which my hand was lent. Aim your hate-filled, baneful curse elsewhere, since I prefer that you not reject my friendship.

PHILOCTETES: Alas! No doubt sitting on the white ocean shore he mocks me, brandishing the weapon that nourished my unhappy life, the weapon which no one else had carried! Cherished bow, ah, friend forced from my loving hands, if you have the power to feel, surely you see with pity that the comrade of Heracles will now no longer use you anymore! Now you are handled by another, a man of craftiness; you see the shameless deceptions and the face of that hated enemy by whom countless wrongs, springing from shameless designs, have been contrived against me. O Zeus!

CHORUS: A man must always assert what is right. But, when he has done so, he must not let loose malignant, stinging taunts. The man was the sole representative of the whole army, and at their mandate he achieved a universal benefit for his friends.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, my winged prey, and you tribes of bright-eyed creatures held by this place in its upland pastures, leap no more in flight from your lairs, for I do not grasp in my hands those shafts which were once my strength—but now, gone, are my undoing! Roam at will now; the place has no more terrors—for you! The time is ripe for you to take blood for blood, to sate yourselves to your heart’s desire on my discolored flesh! Soon I will leave life, for from what source can I find the means to live? Who can feed, as I will have to, on the winds, when he no longer owns any of the bounty that the life-giving earth supplies?

CHORUS: In the name of the gods, if you have any reverence for a friend who approaches you in all kindness, approach him! But know this, and know it well: it is in your power to escape this plague. Cruel is it that you feed it with your own flesh, and that there is no way for you to learn to endure the countless torments that dwell with it.

PHILOCTETES: Again, again, you have recalled the old agony to my thoughts—kindest though you are of all who have visited before! Why have you ruined me? What have you done to me?

CHORUS: What do you mean?

PHILOCTETES: That it was your hope to take me to that Trojan land I abhor.

CHORUS: Yes, I believe that to be the best course.

PHILOCTETES: Leave me, then—immediately!

CHORUS: Pleasant, pleasant, indeed, is the task you set me, and I am ready to obey. Come, let us be going, each to his station in the ship!

PHILOCTETES: By Zeus who hears men’s curses, do not go, I implore you!

CHORUS: Be moderate.

PHILOCTETES: Friends, in the name of the gods, stay!

CHORUS: Why do you call?

PHILOCTETES: Ayee, ayee! Doom, Doom! My suffering kills me! Foot, my foot, what shall I do with you in the days to come? O friends, return, come back to me!

CHORUS: To do what that has a different spirit from that of your former commands?

PHILOCTETES: There is no reason for indignation when the words of one crazed by a storm of pain are senseless.

Part 16

CHORUS: Come with us, then, poor man, as we bid you.

PHILOCTETES: Never, never—of that be certain! Not even if the lord of the fiery lightning comes to wrap me in the blaze of his thunderbolts! Ilium be damned, and as many of the men before its walls as dared reject this foot of mine! But oh, friends, grant me one wish!

CHORUS: What would you ask?

PHILOCTETES: A sword, if you can find one, or an axe, or any weapon— please, pass it to me!

CHORUS: That you may execute what scheme?

PHILOCTETES: Mangle all this body, and sever limb from limb with my own hand! Death, death is my thought now!

CHORUS: Why, why ever would you—

PHILOCTETES: I am seeking my father—

CHORUS: In what land?

PHILOCTETES: In Hades; he dwells in the sunlight no more. Ah, my city, city of my fathers! I crave to see you, unhappy man that I truly am for leaving your sacred stream and going to help the Danaans, my enemies! I am nothing now, nothing anymore! Exit Philoctetes into the cave.

CHORUS: Long ago I would have left you to go to my ship, had I not seen Odysseus approaching, and the son of Achilles, too, coming here for us.

ODYSSEUS: Will you not tell me why you make this return journey with such eager speed?

NEOPTOLEMUS: I come to undo the mistake that I made earlier.

ODYSSEUS: Your words alarm me—what mistake was that?

NEOPTOLEMUS: The one I made when I obeyed you and all the army.

ODYSSEUS: What did you do that was unworthy of you?

NEOPTOLEMUS: I captured a man by disgraceful deceits and treachery.

ODYSSEUS: What man? Oh! Can you be planning something rash?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Rash, no. But to Poeas’ son—

ODYSSEUS: What are you going to do? Suddenly a certain fear comes over me.

Part 17

NEOPTOLEMUS: —From whom I took this bow, back to him—

ODYSSEUS: Zeus! What will you say? Certainly you do not intend to give it back?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Yes, I do, because disgracefully and unjustly I got hold of it.

ODYSSEUS: In the name of the gods, are you saying this to mock me?

NEOPTOLEMUS: If it is mockery to speak the truth.

ODYSSEUS: What do you mean, Neoptolemus? What are you saying?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Must I repeat the same words twice and three times?

ODYSSEUS: I would not have wished to hear them even once.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Know for certain that I have nothing more to say.

ODYSSEUS: There is someone, I tell you, who will prevent your deed.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What do you mean? Who will oppose me in this?

ODYSSEUS: The whole host of the Achaeans, and I for one.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Wise though you were born, your threats are void of wisdom.

ODYSSEUS: And your words are not wise, nor is that which you want to do.

NEOPTOLEMUS: And yet if they are just, they are better than wise.

ODYSSEUS: And how is it just for you to give up what was won by means of my plans?

NEOPTOLEMUS: My error was to my dishonor, and now I must try to retrieve it.

ODYSSEUS: The army of the Achaeans causes you no fear, when you do this?

NEOPTOLEMUS: With justice on my side, I do not tremble at the terrors you name.

ODYSSEUS: [...]

Part 18

NEOPTOLEMUS: No, not even at the threat of your hand do I yield obedience.

ODYSSEUS: Then our battles shall be not with the Trojans, but with you.

NEOPTOLEMUS: So be it, if that is what the future holds.

ODYSSEUS: Do you see my right hand clasping my sword hilt?

NEOPTOLEMUS: You will see me do the same, and not slowly.

ODYSSEUS: However, I will let you be. But I will go report this to all the army, and by them you will be punished.

NEOPTOLEMUS: You have come to your senses. And if you are so prudent hereafter, perhaps you may steer clear of trouble. Odysseus feigns departure, but conceals himself nearby.

But you, son of Poeas, Philoctetes, come out! Leave the shelter of your rocky home!

PHILOCTETES: What is this disruptive cry once more rising beside my cave? Why do you call me? What do you want of me? He appears at the mouth of the cave, and sees Neoptolemus. Oh, no! This business will bring me no good. Have you come bringing me new misery on top of the old?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Take heart and listen to my words.

PHILOCTETES: I am afraid. Beautiful words did me evil once before, when I believed your promises.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Is there no room, then, for repentance?

PHILOCTETES: You spoke just like this, when you were seeking to steal my bow—a professed friend, with my destruction in his treacherous heart.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I assure you, I am not so now. I merely wish to know whether you have resolved to stay here and endure, or to sail with us.

PHILOCTETES: Stop, not another word! Whatever you may say will be said in vain.

NEOPTOLEMUS: You are so resolved?

PHILOCTETES: More firmly, believe me, than words can say.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Well, I could have wished that you had listened to my words, but if nothing that I say will help,then I am finished.

PHILOCTETES: Yes, all your pleas will be in vain. You will never gain my mind’s good will, since first you fraudulently seized my means of life and robbed me of it, and then you have come here to admonish me, you most hateful descendant of so noble a father! Ruin seize you all, the Atreids first, and next the son of Laertes, and you!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Speak no more curses, and instead receive these weapons from my hand.

Part 19

PHILOCTETES: What did you say? Am I being tricked a second time?

NEOPTOLEMUS: No, I swear it by the pure majesty of Zeus most high!

PHILOCTETES: O welcome words—if your words are true!

NEOPTOLEMUS: The deed will soon make it plain. Come, stretch out your right hand and be master of your bow! As he hands the bow and arrows to Philoctetes, Odysseus suddenly appears.

ODYSSEUS: But I forbid it, as the gods are my witnesses, in the name of the Atreids and the entire army!

PHILOCTETES: Son, whose voice was that? Do I hear Odysseus?

ODYSSEUS: Be sure of it, and you see him at your side, who will carry you to the plains of Troy by force, whether or not the son of Achilles is willing.

PHILOCTETES: But it will bring you no joy, if this arrow fly straight. Odysseus flees from the stage.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Wait—by the gods, no! Do not let it fly!

PHILOCTETES: Let go of me, in the name of the gods, dear boy!

NEOPTOLEMUS: I will not.

PHILOCTETES: Alas! Why did you take from me the chance to kill my hated enemy with my bow?

NEOPTOLEMUS: It would have been honorable neither for me, nor for you.

PHILOCTETES: Well, you may be sure of one thing, at least: the army’s chiefs, the lying heralds of the Greeks, though bold with words, are cowards in the fight.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Good; the bow is yours, and you have no cause for anger or complaint against me.

PHILOCTETES: Agreed. You have revealed the true stock, my son, from which you spring. You are no child of Sisyphus, but of Achilles, whose fame was the fairest when he was among the living, as it is now with the dead.

NEOPTOLEMUS: I delight at your praise of my father, and of myself. But hear what I desire to gain from you. It is true that men are compelled to bear the fortunes given by the gods; but when they cling to self-inflicted miseries, as you do, no one can justly excuse or pity them. You have become savage: you welcome no counsellor, and if someone admonishes you, even if he speaks in all good will, you detest him and consider him an enemy who wishes you ill. All the same I will speak to you, calling Zeus who guards oaths to witness. And you remember these words and write them in your heart: you suffer this plague’s affliction in accordance with god-sent fate, because you came near to Chryse’s guardian, the serpent who secretly watches over her home and guards her roofless sanctuary. Know also that you will never gain relief from this grave sickness, as long as the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, until of your own free will you come to the plains of Troy, find there the sons of Asclepius, our comrades, be relieved of this infection, and, with this bow’s aid and mine, be hailed as the sacker of Troy’s towers. How I know these things are so ordained, I will tell you. We have a Trojan prisoner, Helenus, foremost among seers, who says plainly that all this must come to pass, and further, that this very summer must see the complete capture of Troy. Otherwise he willingly gives himself over for execution, if these prophecies of his prove false. Therefore, now that you understand everything, give way graciously. It is a glorious addition to your gain to be singled out as best of the Greeks—first, for coming into healing hands, and then for taking Troy rich in tears, and so winning a matchless renown.

PHILOCTETES: Hateful life, why, why do you keep me in the light of day, instead of letting me go to Hades’ domain? Ah, me, what shall I do? How can I ignore this man’s words, when he has advised me with good will? But shall I yield, then? How, after doing that, shall I, ill-fated, come into men’s sight? Whom will I be able to talk to? You orbs that have watched my every suffering, how could you endure to see me consorting with the sons of Atreus, who caused my ruin, or with the accursed son of Laertes? It is not my resentment for what has already been done that stings me, rather it is the many troubles which I seem to foresee I must suffer at the hands of these men in the future. For when the mind of men has once mothered wrongdoing, it trains those men to be wrongdoers in all else thereafter. And in you, too, I wonder at this. You should never yourself revisit Troy, and should prevent me from going there, seeing that those men have done you outrage by stripping you of your father’s arms . After that, will you go to fight at their side, and compel me to do the same? No, do not do it, son, but, as you swore to me, escort me home. You yourself remain in Scyros, and leave those evil men to their evil doom. So shall you win double thanks from me, as from your father, and you will not appear through your service to bad men to be like them in your nature.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Your recommendation is reasonable, but nevertheless, I wish that you would put your trust in the gods and in my words, and sail from this land with me, your friend.

PHILOCTETES: What! To the plains of Troy and to the abhorred son of Atreus, with this miserable foot?

Part 20

NEOPTOLEMUS: No, rather to those who will free you and your pus-filled limb from pain, and will save you from your sickness.

PHILOCTETES: You giver of frightening advice, what have you said?

NEOPTOLEMUS: I recognize what will be best in the end for you and for me.

PHILOCTETES: Have you no shame before the gods for saying that?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Why should a man be ashamed of benefiting his friends?

PHILOCTETES: Do you mean a benefit to the Atreids, or for me?

NEOPTOLEMUS: For you, certainly, since I am your friend and speak in friendship.

PHILOCTETES: How can that be, when you would give me up to my enemies?

NEOPTOLEMUS: Please, sir, learn to be less defiant in misfortune.

PHILOCTETES: You will ruin me—I know it—with these words.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Not I. But you, I say, will not understand.

PHILOCTETES: Do I not know already that the Atreids cast me away?

NEOPTOLEMUS: They cast you out, yes, but look if they will not in turn restore you.

PHILOCTETES: Never—if I must first consent to see Troy.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What can I do, then if my pleading fails to persuade you of anything that I recommend? The easiest course for me is to stop talking, and for you to live, just as you do now, without deliverance.

PHILOCTETES: Let me bear the sufferings that are fated me. But what you promised me with your right hand in mine—to bring me home,—that promise fulfil for me, son, and do not delay, or remind me further of Troy. I have had my fill of grief and lamentations.

NEOPTOLEMUS: If it is your will, let us go.

PHILOCTETES: O noble words!

NEOPTOLEMUS: Now lean your steps firmly upon mine.

PHILOCTETES: As far as my strength allows.

Part 21

NEOPTOLEMUS: But how shall I escape blame from the Achaeans?

PHILOCTETES: Disregard it.

NEOPTOLEMUS: What if they ravage my country?

PHILOCTETES: I will be there—

NEOPTOLEMUS: And what aid will you render?

PHILOCTETES: —And with the shafts of Heracles—

NEOPTOLEMUS: What?

PHILOCTETES: —I will keep them away.

NEOPTOLEMUS: Then say your farewell to this island, and leave with me.

HERACLES: Not yet, not until you have heard my commands, son of Poeas. Know that your ears perceive the voice of Heracles, and that you look upon his face. For your sake I have left my divine seat and come to reveal to you the purposes of Zeus, and to halt the journey on which you are departing. Hearken to my words. First I would tell you of my own fortunes—how, by toiling through and enduring so many toils to the end, I have won the glory of deathlessness, as you witness. And for you, be sure, this fate is ordained, that through these toils of yours you will make your life far-famed. You shall go with this man to the Trojan city, where, first, you shall be healed of your cruel sickness, and then, chosen out as foremost among the warriors in prowess, with my bow you shall sever Paris, the author of these evils, from life. You shall sack Troy and shall receive from the army the spoils of supreme valor to carry home to the heights of your native Oeta for the delight of your father Poeas. And whatever spoils you receive from that army, from them carry to my pyre a thank-offering for my bow. And these counsels hold for you also, son of Achilles, for you have not the might to subdue the Trojan realm without him, nor he without you. Rather, like twin lions with the same quarry, each of you must guard the other’s life. For the healing of your sickness, I will send Asclepius to Troy, since it is doomed to fall a second time before my arrows. But of this be mindful, when you plunder the land—that you show reverence towards the gods. Do this because Father Zeus regards all else as of less account, and because Piety does not die along with mortals. Whether they are alive or dead, their piety does not perish.

PHILOCTETES: Ah, friend whose voice I have longed to hear, whose shape I see at long last, I will not disobey your commands!

NEOPTOLEMUS: I, too, consent.

HERACLES: Then do not long delay, for the occasion and the fair wind there at your stern urge you forward.

PHILOCTETES: Come, then, let me hail this land as I depart. Farewell, chamber that shared my watches. Farewell, nymphs of stream and meadow, and you, strong pounding of the sea-lashed cape, where often in the cavern’s inmost recess my head was wetted by the south wind’s blasts, and where many times the Hermaean mount sent an echo to my sad groans in the gale of my sorrow! But now, clear springs and Lycian fount, I am leaving you, leaving you at last, though such a hope had never buoyed me! Farewell, sea-wrapped Lemnos, and send me off with sailing fair to my heart’s content, send me to the destination appointed me by mighty Fate and the will of my friends, and by the all-taming god who has brought these things to pass.

CHORUS: Now let us all leave together, once we have prayed to the nymphs of the sea to come be the guides of our safe return.