Eksodos
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.
1370
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—
1375
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,
1380
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.
1385
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,
1390
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—
1395
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,
1400
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—
1405
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
1410
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.
1420
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
1425
kinfolk alone should see and hear a kinsman’s woes.
1430
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?
1435
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.
1440
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.
1445
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.
1450
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:
1455
