Free Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles Page A

city its father-killer," he cries,
"Show it its mother's . . . ." He spoke the word, I can't.
He wants to banish himself from the land,
1480 not curse this house any longer
by living here under his own curse.
He's so weak now, though, he needs to be helped.
No one could stand up under a sickness like his.
Look there. The doorbolts are sliding open.
You will witness a vision of suffering
even those it revolts must pity.
(Oedipus emerges from the slowly opening palace doors. He is blinded, with blood on his face and clothes, but the effect should arouse more awe and pity than shock. He moves with the aid of a servant.)

     

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LEADER An eerie terror fills men's eyes
at this pure and helpless anguish,
more moving than any
1490 my eyes have ever touched.
Man of pain,
what madness has claimed you?
Name the god who leapt
from beyond our knowledge
to make your naked life his enemy.
(Moans.)
I cannot look at you
though I want so powerfully
to speak with you, to learn from you,
though your suffering grips my eyes
1500 so strong are the shivers of awe
you send through me.
OEDIPUS Ahhh! My whole life,
my whole being is wretched.
Where am I?
Where does my misery lead?
Is my voice
fluttering lost out there
like a stunned bird's?
Where has my god thrown me down?
1510 LEADER In a cruel place, unbearable to see or hear.
OEDIPUS Darkness buries me in her hate, she
takes me in her black hold.
It's an unspeakable blackness,
it can't be fought off,
it keeps coming,
blowing evil all over me.
Ahhh.
Two things together strike deep in me:
the pins plunged in my eyes,
1520 those crimes driving through my mind.
LEADER It is no wonder you feel
nothing but pain now
in both your mind and your flesh.
OEDIPUS Ah friend, my faithful servant still,
how gentle you are to the blind man.

     

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I know you are near me: your voice
finds me in my darkness.
LEADER What you did terrifies us. How could you
kill your eyes? What god raised your hand?
1530 OEDIPUS Apollo, friends, it was Apollo
who did this. He made evil,
perfect evil of my life.
But the hand
that struck these eyes
was my hand.
It was I in my wretchedness
who struck, no one else.
What good was there left for my eyes to see?
I could see nothing in this world now
1540 with a glad heart.
LEADER You are right to say it.
OEDIPUS Who could I look at? Or love?
Whose greeting could I
answer with fondness, friends?
Drive me quickly from this place,
the most ruined, most cursed,
most god-hated man who ever lived.
LEADER You're broken by what happened, you're broken
by what's happening in your mind.
1550 I wish you'd never learned the truth.
OEDIPUS May the man die
who found me in the pasture,
who cut the thongs from my feet,
who saved me from that death for a worse life,
a life I cannot thank him for.
Had I died then, I would have caused
no great grief to my people and myself.
LEADER I wish he had let you die.
OEDIPUS I'd not have come home to kill my father,
1560 no one could call me lover
of her from whose body I came.
I have no god now.
I'm son to a fouled mother,
I fathered children in the bed
where my father gave me
deadly life. If ever an evil

     

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rules all other evils
it is my evil, it is the life
god gave to Oedipus.
1570 LEADER How can I say you acted wisely? You
blinded yourself. Why didn't you choose death?
OEDIPUS There was no other way but mine.
Don't try to persuade me now. No more advice.
If I had eyes, how could those eyes
bear the sight of my father among the dead?
Or my poor wronged motherlook at her? I've done them
violence hanging could not justly punish.
Should I ache to see my children,
children born to the life that mine must live?
1580 Never. Not with my eyes. Nor this city,
its towers, nor the light shining
from our stone gods. I lost my right to these loves
when I commanded we outlaw the vile killer
myself!totally wretched, though I won power
like no other Theban, now proven by the gods
the defiled son of our dead king.
Once I found out my