Epeisodion 5
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.
990
Creon
What is it, old Teiresias? What is your news?
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.
995
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.
1000
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;
1005
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.
1010
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,
1015
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.
1020
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.
1025
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.
1030
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,
1035
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.
1040
But even the exceedingly clever, old Teiresias, falls
with a shameful fall, when they couch shameful thoughts in fine phrasing
for profit’s sake.
1045
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?
1050
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.
1055
Teiresias
And the race sprung from tyrants loves shameful gain.
