Stasimon 5
[Episode]
I am the one who came into high songs of victory,
Oedipus
because I guessed the baffling riddle of the girl, half-maiden.
1730
Antigone
You are bringing up again the reproach of the Sphinx. Talk no more of past success. This misery was in store for you all the while,
to become an exile from your country and die anywhere.
1735
Leaving to my girlhood friends sad tears, I go forth from my native land, to roam as no maiden should.
Ah! This dutiful resolve towards my father’s suffering will make me famous. Alas for the insults heaped on you and on my brother, whose dead body goes from the house unburied,
1740
poor boy! I will bury him secretly, though I have to die for it, father.
1745
Oedipus
Show yourself to your companions.
Antigone
My own laments suffice.
Oedipus
Go pray at the altars.
Antigone
They have enough of my piteous tale.
1750
Oedipus
At least go seek the Bromian god in his untrodden sanctuary among the Maenads’ hills.
Antigone
Bromius, for whom I once dressed in the Theban fawn-skin and
danced upon the hills in the holy choir of Semele—shall I now offer the gods homage that is not homage?
1755
Oedipus
O citizens of a famous country, look at me; I am Oedipus, who solved the famous riddle, and was the greatest of men,
I, who alone controlled the murderous Sphinx’s power, am now myself driven from the land in dishonor and misery. But why do I make this moan and useless lamentation? As a mortal, I must bear the constraint that the gods decree.
1760
Chorus
Greatly revered Victory,
may you occupy my life and never cease to crown me!
1765
