Oedipus Trilogy Part 10

OEDIPUS Ah me! ah me! all brought to pa.s.s, all true!

O light, may I behold thee nevermore!

I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed, A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed!

[Exit OEDIPUS]

CHORUS (Str. 1) Races of mortal man Whose life is but a span, I count ye but the shadow of a shade!

For he who most doth know Of bliss, hath but the show; A moment, and the visions pale and fade.

Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall Warns me none born of women blest to call.

(Ant. 1) For he of marksmen best, O Zeus, outshot the rest, And won the prize supreme of wealth and power.

By him the vulture maid Was quelled, her witchery laid; He rose our savior and the land's strong tower.

We hailed thee king and from that day adored Of mighty Thebes the universal lord.

(Str. 2) O heavy hand of fate!

Who now more desolate, Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?

O Oedipus, discrowned head, Thy cradle was thy marriage bed; One harborage sufficed for son and sire.

How could the soil thy father eared so long Endure to bear in silence such a wrong?

(Ant. 2) All-seeing Time hath caught Guilt, and to justice brought The son and sire commingled in one bed.

O child of Laius' ill-starred race Would I had ne'er beheld thy face; I raise for thee a dirge as o'er the dead.

Yet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath, And now through thee I feel a second death.

[Enter SECOND MESSENGER.]

SECOND MESSENGER Most grave and reverend senators of Thebes, What Deeds ye soon must hear, what sights behold How will ye mourn, if, true-born patriots, Ye reverence still the race of Labdacus!

Not Ister nor all Phasis' flood, I ween, Could wash away the blood-stains from this house, The ills it shrouds or soon will bring to light, Ills wrought of malice, not unwittingly.

The worst to bear are self-inflicted wounds.

CHORUS Grievous enough for all our tears and groans Our past calamities; what canst thou add?

SECOND MESSENGER My tale is quickly told and quickly heard.

Our sovereign lady queen Jocasta's dead.

CHORUS Alas, poor queen! how came she by her death?

SECOND MESSENGER By her own hand. And all the horror of it, Not having seen, yet cannot comprehend.

Nathless, as far as my poor memory serves, I will relate the unhappy lady's woe.

When in her frenzy she had pa.s.sed inside The vestibule, she hurried straight to win The bridal-chamber, clutching at her hair With both her hands, and, once within the room, She shut the doors behind her with a crash.

"Laius," she cried, and called her husband dead Long, long ago; her thought was of that child By him begot, the son by whom the sire Was murdered and the mother left to breed With her own seed, a monstrous progeny.

Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood, Husband by husband, children by her child.

What happened after that I cannot tell, Nor how the end befell, for with a shriek Burst on us Oedipus; all eyes were fixed On Oedipus, as up and down he strode, Nor could we mark her agony to the end.

For stalking to and fro "A sword!" he cried, "Where is the wife, no wife, the teeming womb That bore a double harvest, me and mine?"

And in his frenzy some supernal power (No mortal, surely, none of us who watched him) Guided his footsteps; with a terrible shriek, As though one beckoned him, he crashed against The folding doors, and from their staples forced The wrenched bolts and hurled himself within.

Then we beheld the woman hanging there, A running noose entwined about her neck.

But when he saw her, with a maddened roar He loosed the cord; and when her wretched corpse Lay stretched on earth, what followed--O 'twas dread!

He tore the golden brooches that upheld Her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote Full on his eye-b.a.l.l.s, uttering words like these: "No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, Deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; Henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see Those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those Whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know."

Such was the burden of his moan, whereto, Not once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift His eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs Bedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop, But one black gory downpour, thick as hail.

Such evils, issuing from the double source, Have whelmed them both, confounding man and wife.

Till now the storied fortune of this house Was fortunate indeed; but from this day Woe, lamentation, ruin, death, disgrace, All ills that can be named, all, all are theirs.

CHORUS But hath he still no respite from his pain?

SECOND MESSENGER He cries, "Unbar the doors and let all Thebes Behold the slayer of his sire, his mother's--"

That shameful word my lips may not repeat.

He vows to fly self-banished from the land, Nor stay to bring upon his house the curse Himself had uttered; but he has no strength Nor one to guide him, and his torture's more Than man can suffer, as yourselves will see.

For lo, the palace portals are unbarred, And soon ye shall behold a sight so sad That he who must abhorred would pity it.

[Enter OEDIPUS blinded.]

CHORUS Woeful sight! more woeful none These sad eyes have looked upon.

Whence this madness? None can tell Who did cast on thee his spell, prowling all thy life around, Leaping with a demon bound.

Hapless wretch! how can I brook On thy misery to look?

Though to gaze on thee I yearn, Much to question, much to learn, Horror-struck away I turn.

OEDIPUS Ah me! ah woe is me!

Ah whither am I borne!

How like a ghost forlorn My voice flits from me on the air!

On, on the demon goads. The end, ah where?

CHORUS An end too dread to tell, too dark to see.

OEDIPUS (Str. 1) Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.

Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot, What pangs of agonizing memory?

CHORUS No marvel if in such a plight thou feel'st The double weight of past and present woes.

OEDIPUS (Ant. 1) Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind, Thou carest for the blind.

I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes, Thy voice I recognize.

CHORUS O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?

OEDIPUS (Str. 2) Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was That brought these ills to pa.s.s; But the right hand that dealt the blow Was mine, none other. How, How, could I longer see when sight Brought no delight?

CHORUS Alas! 'tis as thou sayest.

OEDIPUS Say, friends, can any look or voice Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice?

Haste, friends, no fond delay, Take the twice cursed away Far from all ken, The man abhorred of G.o.ds, accursed of men.

CHORUS O thy despair well suits thy desperate case.

Would I had never looked upon thy face!

OEDIPUS (Ant. 2) My curse on him whoe'er unrived The waif's fell fetters and my life revived!

He meant me well, yet had he left me there, He had saved my friends and me a world of care.

CHORUS I too had wished it so.

OEDIPUS Then had I never come to shed My father's blood nor climbed my mother's bed; The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled, Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child.

Was ever man before afflicted thus, Like Oedipus.

CHORUS I cannot say that thou hast counseled well, For thou wert better dead than living blind.

OEDIPUS What's done was well done. Thou canst never shake My firm belief. A truce to argument.