University of Virginia Library

VI. VOL. VI.

AGAMEMNON

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

• Agamemnon . . . . King of Argos.
• Clytemnestra . . . his Queen.
• Ægisthus . . . . his Cousin.
• Cassandra . . . Daughter of King Priam .
• Herald.
• Chorus of Ancient Councillors.

The scene is at Argos.
[Agamemnon's Palace: a Warder on the Battlements.]
Warder.

[Exit Warder. Daylight gradually dawns, and enter slowly Chorus.
Chorus.

Clytemnestra.
Oh, never yet did Night—
Night of all Good the Mother, as men say,
Conceive a fairer issue than To-day!
Prepare your ears, Old man, for tidings such
As youthful hope would scarce anticipate.

Chorus.
I have prepared them for such news as such
Preamble argues.

Clytemnestra.
What if you be told—
Oh mighty sum in one small figure cast!—
That ten-year-toil'd-for Troy is ours at last?

Chorus.
‘If told!’—Once more!—the word escaped our ears,
With many a baffled rumour heretofore
Slipp'd down the wind of wasted Expectation.

Clytemnestra.
Once more then; and with unconditional
Assurance having hit the mark indeed
That Rumour aim'd at—Troy, with all the towers
Our burning vengeance leaves aloft, is ours.
Now speak I plainly?

Chorus.
Oh! to make the tears,
That waited to bear witness in the eye,
Start, to convict our incredulity!

Clytemnestra.
Oh, blest conviction that enriches you
That lose the cause with all the victory!

Chorus.
Ev'n so. But how yourself convinced before?

Clytemnestra.
By no less sure a witness than the God.

Chorus.
What, in a dream?

Clytemnestra.
I am not one to trust
The vacillating witnesses of Sleep.

Chorus.
Ay—but as surely undeluded by
The waking Will, that what we strongly would
Imaginates?

Clytemnestra.
Ay, like a doating girl.

Chorus.
Oh, Clytemnestra, pardon mere Old Age
That, after so long starving upon Hope,
But slowly brooks his own Accomplishment.
The Ten-year war is done then! Troy is taken!
The Gods have told you, and the Gods tell true—
But—how? and when?

Clytemnestra.
Ev'n with the very birth
Of the good Night which mothers this best Day.

Chorus.
To-day! To-night! but of Night's work in Troy
Who should inform the scarce awaken'd ear
Of Morn in Argos?

Clytemnestra.
Hephaistos, the lame God,
And spriteliest of mortal messengers;
Who, springing from the bed of burning Troy,
Hither, by fore-devised Intelligence
Agreed upon between my Lord and me,
Posted from dedicated Height to Height
The reach of land and sea that lies between.
And, first to catch him and begin the game,
Did Ida fire her forest-pine, and, waving,
Handed him on to that Hermæan steep
Of Lemnos; Lemnos to the summit of
Zeus-consecrated Athos lifted; whence,
As by the giant taken, so despatch'd,
The Torch of Conquest, traversing the wide
Ægæan with a sunbeam-stretching stride,
Struck up the drowsy watchers on Makistos;
Who, flashing back the challenge, flash'd it on
To those who watch'd on the Messapian height.
With whose quick-kindling heather heap'd and fired
The meteor-bearded messenger refresh'd,
Clearing Asopus at a bound, struck fire
From old Kithæron; and, so little tired
As waxing even wanton with the sport,
Over the sleeping water of Gorgopis
Sprung to the Rock of Corinth; thence to the cliffs
Which stare down the Saronic Gulf, that now
Began to shiver in the creeping Dawn;
Whence, for a moment on the neighbouring top
Of Arachnæum lighting, one last bound
Brought him to Agamemnon's battlements.
By such gigantic strides in such a Race
Where First and Last alike are Conquerors,
Posted the travelling Fire, whose Father-light
Ida conceived of burning Troy To-night.

Chorus.
Woman, your words man-metal ring, and strike
Ev'n from the tuneless fibre of Old Age
Such martial unison as from the lips
Shall break into full Pæan by and by.

Clytemnestra.
Ay, think—think—think, old man, and in your soul,
As if 'twere mirror'd in your outward eye,
Imagine what wild work a-doing there—
In Troy—to-night—to-day—this moment—how
Harmoniously, as in one vessel meet
Esil and Oil, meet Triumph and Despair,
Sluiced by the sword along the reeking street,
On which the Gods look down from burning air.
Slain, slaying—dying, dead—about the dead
Fighting to die themselves—maidens and wives
Lock'd by the locks, with their barbarian young,
And torn away to slavery and shame
By hands all reeking with their Champion's blood.
Until, with execution weary, we
Fling down our slaughter-satiated swords,
To gorge ourselves on the unfinish'd feasts
Of poor old Priam and his sons; and then,
Roll'd on rich couches never spread for us,
Ev'n now our sleep-besotted foreheads turn
Up to the very Sun that rises here.
Such is the lawful game of those who win
Upon so just a quarrel—so long fought:
Provided always that, with jealous care,
Retaliation wreaking upon those
Who our insulted Gods upon them drew,
We push not Riot to their Altar-foot;
Remembering, on whichever mortal side
Engaged, the Gods are Gods in heav'n and earth,
And not to be insulted unavenged.
This let us take to heart, and keep in sight;
Lest, having run victoriously thus far,
And turn'd the very pillar of our race,
Before we reach the long'd-for goal of Home
Nemesis overtake, or trip us up;
Some ere safe shipp'd: or, launch'd upon the foam,
Ere touch'd the threshold of their native shore;
Yea, or that reach'd, the threshold of the door
Of their own home; from whatsoever corner
The jealous Power is ever on the watch
To compass arrogant Prosperity.
These are a woman's words; for men to take,
Or disregarded drop them, as they will;
Enough for me, if having won the stake,
I pray the Gods with us to keep it still.

[Exit Clytemnestra.
Chorus.

Herald.
Oh, Fatherland of Argos, back to whom
After ten years do I indeed return
Under the dawn of this auspicious day!
Of all the parted anchors of lost Hope
That this, depended least on, yet should hold;
Amid so many men to me so dear
About me dying, yet myself exempt
Return to live what yet of life remains
Among my own; among my own at last
To share the blest communion of the Dead!
Oh, welcome, welcome, welcome once again
My own dear Country and the light she draws
From the benignant Heav'ns; and all the Gods
Who guard her; Zeus Protector first of all;
And Phœbus, by this all-restoring dawn
Who heals the wounds his arrows dealt so fast
Beside Scamander; and not last nor least
Among the Powers engaged upon our side,
Hermes, the Herald's Patron, and his Pride;
Who, having brought me safely through the war,
Now brings me back to tell the victory
Into my own belovèd country's ear;
Who, all the more by us, the more away,
Beloved, will greet with Welcome no less dear
This remnant of the unremorseful spear.
And, oh, you Temples, Palaces, and throned
Colossi, that affront the rising sun,
If ever yet, your marble foreheads now
Bathe in the splendour of returning Day
To welcome back your so long absent Lord;
Who by Zeus' self directed to the spot
Of Vengeance, and the special instrument
Of Retribution put into his hands,
Has undermined, uprooted, and destroy'd,
Till scarce one stone upon another stands,
The famous Citadel, that, deeply cast
For crime, has all the forfeit paid at last.

Chorus.
Oh hail and welcome, Herald of good news!
Welcome and hail! and doubt not thy return
As dear to us as thee.

Herald.
To me so dear,
After so long despair'd of, that, for fear
Life's after-draught the present should belie,
One might implore the Gods ev'n now to die!

Chorus.
Oh, your soul hunger'd after home!

Herald.
So sore,
That sudden satisfaction of once more
Return weeps out its surfeit at my eyes.

Chorus.
And ours, you see, contagiously, no less
The same long grief, and sudden joy, confess.

Herald.
What! Argos for her missing children yearn'd
As they for her, then?

Chorus.
Ay; perhaps and more,
Already pining with an inward sore.

Herald.
How so?

Chorus.
Nay, Silence, that has best endured
The pain, may best dismiss the memory.

Herald.
Ev'n so. For who, unless the God himself,
Expects to live his life without a flaw?
Why, once begin to open that account,
Might not we tell for ten good years to come
Of all we suffer'd in the ten gone by?
Not the mere course and casualty of war,
Alarum, March, Battle, and such hard knocks
As foe with foe expects to give and take;
But all the complement of miseries
That go to swell a long campaign's account.
Cramm'd close aboard the ships, hard bed, hard board:
Or worse perhaps while foraging ashore
In winter time; when, if not from the walls,
Pelted from Heav'n by Day, to couch by Night
Between the falling dews and rising damps
That elf'd the locks, and set the body fast
With cramp and ague; or, to mend the matter,
Good mother Ida from her winter top
Flinging us down a coverlet of snow.
Or worst perhaps in Summer, toiling in
The bloody harvest-field of torrid sand,
When not an air stirr'd the fierce Asian noon,
And ev'n the sea sleep-sicken'd in his bed.
But why lament the Past, as past it is?
If idle for the Dead who feel no more,
Idler for us to whom this blissful Dawn
Shines doubly bright against the stormy Past;
Who, after such predicament and toil,
Boast, once more standing on our mother soil,
That Zeus, who sent us to revenge the crime
Upon the guilty people, now recalls
To hang their trophies on our temple walls
For monumental heir-looms to all time.

Chorus.
Oh, but Old age, however slow to learn,
Not slow to learn, nor after you repeat,
Lesson so welcome, Herald of the Fleet!
But here is Clytemnestra; be you first
To bless her ears, as mine, with news so sweet.

Clytemnestra.
I sang my Song of Triumph ere he came,
Alone I sang it while the City slept,
And these wise Senators, with winking eyes,
Look'd grave, and weigh'd mistrustfully my word,
As the light coinage of a woman's brain.
And so they went their way. But not the less
From those false fires I lit my altar up,
And, woman-wise, held on my song, until
The City taking up the note from me,
Scarce knowing why, about that altar flock'd,
Where, like the Priest of Victory, I stood,
Torch-handed, drenching in triumphant wine
The flame that from the smouldering incense rose.
Now what more needs? This Herald of the Day
Adds but another witness to the Night;
And I will hear no more from other lips,
Till from my husband Agamemnon all,
Whom with all honour I prepare to meet.
Oh, to a loyal woman what so sweet
As once more wide the gate of welcome fling
To the loved Husband whom the Gods once more
After long travail home triumphant bring;
Where he shall find her, as he left before,
Fix'd like a trusty watchdog at the door,
Tractable him-ward, but inveterate
Against the doubtful stranger at the gate;
And not a seal within the house but still
Inviolate, under a woman's trust
Incapable of taint as gold of rust.

[Exit Clytemnestra.
Herald.
A boast not misbeseeming a true woman.

Chorus.
For then no boast at all. But she says well;
And Time interprets all. Enough for us
To praise the Gods for Agamemnon's safe,
And more than safe return. And Menelaus,
The other half of Argos—What of him?

Herald.
Those that I most would gladden with good news,
And on a day like this—with fair but false
I dare not.

Chorus.
What, must fair then needs be false?

Herald.
Old man, the Gods grant somewhat, and withhold
As seems them good: a time there is for Praise,
A time for Supplication: nor is it well
To twit the celebration of their largess,
Reminding them of somewhat they withhold.

Chorus.
Yet till we know how much withheld or granted,
We know not how the balance to adjust
Of Supplication or of Praise.

Herald.
Alas,
The Herald who returns with downcast eyes,
And leafless brow prophetic of Reverse,
Let him at once—at once let him, I say,
Lay the whole burden of Ill-tidings down
In the mid-market place. But why should one
Returning with the garland on his brow
Be stopp'd to name the single missing leaf
Of which the Gods have stinted us?

Chorus.
Alas,
The putting of a fearful question by
Is but to ill conjecture worse reply!
You bring not back then—do not leave behind—
What Menelaus was?

Herald.
The Gods forbid!
Safe shipp'd with all the host.

Chorus.
Well but—how then?
Surely no tempest—

Herald.
Ay! by that one word
Hitting the centre of a boundless sorrow!

Chorus.
Well, but if peradventure from the fleet
Parted—not lost?

Herald.
None but the eye of Day,
Now woke, knows all the havoc of the Night.
For Night it was; all safe aboard—sail set,
And oars all beating home; when suddenly,
As if those old antagonists had sworn
New strife between themselves for our destruction,
The sea, that tamely let us mount his back,
Began to roar and plunge under a lash
Of tempest from the thundering heavens so fierce
As, falling on our fluttering navy, some
Scatter'd, or whirl'd away like flakes of foam:
Or, huddling wave on wave, so ship on ship
Like fighting eagles on each other fell,
And beak, and wing, and claws, entangled, tore
To pieces one another, or dragg'd down.
So when at last the tardy-rising Sun
Survey'd, and show'd, the havoc Night had done,
We, whom some God—or Fortune's self, I think—
Seizing the helm, had steer'd as man could not,
Beheld the waste Ægæan wilderness
Strown with the shatter'd forest of the fleet,
Trunk, branch, and foliage; and yet worse, I ween,
The flower of Argos floating dead between.
Then we, scarce trusting in our own escape,
And saving such as yet had life to save,
Along the heaving wilderness of wave
Went ruminating, who of those we miss'd
Might yet survive, who lost: the saved, no doubt,
As sadly speculating after us.
Of whom, if Menelaus—and the Sun
(A prayer which all the Gods in Heav'n fulfil!)
Behold him on the water breathing still;
Doubt not that Zeus, under whose special showers
And suns the royal growth of Atreus towers,
Will not let perish stem, and branch, and fruit,
By loss of one corroborating root.

Chorus.

Enter Agamemnon in his chariot, Cassandra following in another.
Agamemnon.
First, as first due, my Country I salute,
And all her tutelary Gods; all those
Who, having sent me forth, now bring me back,
After full retribution wrought on those
Who retribution owed us, and the Gods
In full consistory determined; each,
With scarce a swerving eye to Mercy's side,
Dropping his vote into the urn of blood,
Caught and consuming in whose fiery wrath,
The stately City, from her panting ashes
Into the nostril of revolted Heav'n
Gusts of expiring opulence puffs up.
For which, I say, the Gods alone be thank'd;
By whose contrivance round about the wall
We drew the belt of Ares, and laid bare
The flank of Ilium to the Lion-horse,
Who sprung by night over the city wall,
And foal'd his iron progeny within,
About the setting of the Pleiades.
Thus much by way of prelude to the Gods.
For you, oh white-hair'd senators of Argos,
Your measured Welcome I receive for just;
Aware on what a tickle base of fortune
The monument of human Glory stands;
And, for humane congratulation, knowing
How, smile as may the mask, the man behind
Frets at the fortune that degrades his own.
This, having heard of from the wise, myself,
From long experience in the ways of men,
Can vouch for—what a shadow of a shade
Is human loyalty; and, as a proof,
Of all the Host that fill'd the Grecian ship,
And pour'd at large along the field of Troy,
One only Chief—and he, too, like yourself,
At first with little stomach for the cause—
The wise Odysseus—once in harness, he
With all his might pull'd in the yoke with me,
Through envy, obloquy, and opposition:
And in Odysseus' honour, live or dead—
For yet we know not which—shall this be said.
Of which enough. For other things of moment
To which you point, or human or divine,
We shall forthwith consider and adjudge
In seasonable council; what is well,
Or in our absence well deserving, well
Establish and requite; what not, redress
With salutary caution; or, if need,
With the sharp edge of Justice; and to health
Restore, and right, our ailing Commonwealth.
Now, first of all, by my own altar-hearth
To thank the Gods for my return, and pray
That Victory, which thus far by my side
Has flown with us, with us may still abide.

Enter Clytemnestra from the Palace.
Clytemnestra.
Oh Men of Argos, count it not a shame
If a fond wife, and one whom riper years
From Youth's becoming bashfulness excuse,
Dares own her love before the face of men;
Nor leaving it for others to enhance,
Simply declares the wretched widowhood
Which these ten years she has endured, since first
Her husband Agamemnon went to Troy.
'Tis no light matter, let me tell you, Sirs,
A woman left in charge of house and home—
And when that house and home a Kingdom—and
She left alone to rule it—and ten years!
Beside dissent and discontent at home,
Storm'd from abroad with contrary reports,
Now fair, now foul; but still as time wore on
Growing more desperate; as dangerous
Unto the widow'd kingdom as herself.
Why, had my husband there but half the wounds
Fame stabb'd him with, he were before me now,
Not the whole man we see him, but a body
Gash'd into network; ay, or had he died
But half as often as Report gave out,
He would have needed thrice the cloak of earth
To cover him, that triple Geryon
Lies buried under in the world below.
Thus, back and forward baffled, and at last
So desperate—that, if I be here alive
To tell the tale, no thanks to me for that,
Whose hands had twisted round my neck the noose
Which others loosen'd—my Orestes too
In whose expanding manhood day by day
My Husband I perused—and, by the way,
Whom wonder not, my Lord, not seeing here;
My simple mother-love, and jealousy
Of civic treason—ever as you know,
Most apt to kindle when the lord away—
Having bestow'd him, out of danger's reach,
With Strophius of Phocis, wholly yours
Bound by the generous usages of war,
That make the once-won foe so fast a friend.
Thus, widow'd of my son as of his sire,
No wonder if I wept—not drops, but showers,
The ten years' night through which I watch'd in vain
The star that was to bring him back to me;
Or, if I slept, a sleep so thin as scared
Even at the slight incursion of the gnat;
And yet more thick with visionary terrors
Than thrice the waking while had occupied.
Well, I have borne all this: all this have borne,
Without a grudge against the wanderer,
Whose now return makes more than rich amends
For all ungrateful absence—Agamemnon,
My Lord and Husband; Lord of Argos; Troy's
Confounder: Mainstay of the realm of Greece;
And Master-column of the house of Atreus—
Oh wonder not if I accumulate
All honour and endearment on his head!
If to his country, how much more to me,
Welcome, as land to sailors long at sea,
Or water in the desert; whose return
Is fire to the forsaken winter-hearth;
Whose presence, like the rooted Household Tree
That, winter-dead so long, anew puts forth
To shield us from the Dogstar, what time Zeus
Wrings the tart vintage into blissful juice.
Down from the chariot thou standest in,
Crown'd with the flaming towers of Troy, descend,
And to this palace, rich indeed with thee,
But beggar-poor without, return! And ye,
My women, carpet all the way before,
From the triumphal carriage to the door,
With all the gold and purple in the chest
Stored these ten years; and to what purpose stored,
Unless to strew the footsteps of their Lord
Returning to his unexpected rest!

Agamemnon.
Daughter of Leda, Mistress of my house,
Beware lest loving Welcome of your Lord,
Measuring itself by his protracted absence,
Exceed the bound of rightful compliment,
And better left to other lips than yours.
Address me not, address me not, I say
With dust-adoring adulation, meeter
For some barbarian Despot from his slave;
Nor with invidious Purple strew my way,
Fit only for the footstep of a God
Lighting from Heav'n to earth. Let whoso will
Trample their glories underfoot, not I.
Woman, I charge you, honour me no more
Than as the man I am; if honour-worth,
Needing no other trapping but the fame
Of the good deed I clothe myself withal;
And knowing that, of all their gifts to man,
No greater gift than Self-sobriety
The Gods vouchsafe him in the race of life:
Which, after thus far running, if I reach
The goal in peace, it shall be well for me.

Clytemnestra.
Why, how think you old Priam would have walk'd
Had he return'd to Troy your conqueror,
As you to Hellas his?

Agamemnon.
What then? Perhaps
Voluptuary Asiatic-like,
On gold and purple.

Clytemnestra.
Well, and grudging this,
When all that out before your footstep flows
Ebbs back into the treasury again;
Think how much more, had Fate the tables turn'd,
Irrevocably from those coffers gone,
For those barbarian feet to walk upon,
To buy your ransom back!

Agamemnon.
Enough, enough!
I know my reason.

Clytemnestra.
What! the jealous God?
Or, peradventure, yet more envious Man?

Agamemnon.
And that of no small moment.

Clytemnestra.
No; the one
Sure proof of having won what others would.

Agamemnon.
No matter—Strife but ill becomes a woman.

Clytemnestra.
And frank submission to her simple wish
How well becomes the Soldier in his strength!

Agamemnon.
And I must then submit?

Clytemnestra.
Ay, Agamemnon,
Deny me not this first Desire on this
First Morning of your long-desired Return.

Agamemnon.
But not till I have put these sandals off,
That, slave-like, too officiously would pander
Between the purple and my dainty feet.
For fear, for fear indeed, some Jealous eye
From heav'n above, or earth below, should strike
The Man who walks the earth Immortal-like.
So much for that. For this same royal maid,
Cassandra, daughter of King Priamus,
Whom, as the flower of all the spoil of Troy,
The host of Hellas dedicates to me;
Entreat her gently; knowing well that none
But submit hardly to a foreign yoke;
And those of Royal blood most hardly brook.
That if I sin thus trampling underfoot
A woof in which the Heav'ns themselves are dyed,
The jealous God may less resent his crime,
Who mingles human mercy with his pride.

Clytemnestra.
The Sea there is, and shall the sea be dried?
Fount inexhaustibler of purple grain
Than all the wardrobes of the world could drain;
And Earth there is, whose dusky closets hide
The precious metal wherewith not in vain
The Gods themselves this Royal house provide;
For what occasion worthier, or more meet,
Than now to carpet the victorious feet
Of Him who, thus far having done their will,
Shall now their last About-to-be fulfil?

[Agamemnon descends from his chariot, and goes with Clytemnestra into the house, Cassandra remaining.]
Chorus.

Clytemnestra
(re-entering).
Yet for a moment let me look on her—
This, then, is Priam's daughter—
Cassandra, and a Prophetess, whom Zeus
Has giv'n into my hands to minister
Among my slaves. Didst thou prophesy that?
Well—some more famous have so fall'n before—
Ev'n Herakles, the son of Zeus, they say
Was sold, and bow'd his shoulder to the yoke.

Chorus.
And, if needs must a captive, better far
Of some old house that affluent Time himself
Has taught the measure of prosperity,
That drunk with sudden superfluity.

Clytemnestra.
Ev'n so. You hear? Therefore at once descend
From that triumphal chariot—And yet
She keeps her station still, her laurel on,
Disdaining to make answer.

Chorus.
Nay, perhaps,
Like some stray swallow blown across the seas,
Interpreting no twitter but her own.

Clytemnestra.
But, if barbarian, still interpreting
The universal language of the hand.

Chorus.
Which yet again she does not seem to see,
Staring before her with wide-open eyes
As in a trance.

Clytemnestra.
Ay, ay, a prophetess—
Phœbus Apollo's minion once—Whose now?
A time will come for her. See you to it:
A greater business now is on my hands:
For lo! the fire of Sacrifice is lit,
And the grand victim by the altar stands.

[Exit Clytemnestra.
Chorus
(continuing).
Still a mutter'd and half-blind
Superstition haunts mankind,
That, by some divine decree
Yet by mortal undivined,
Mortal Fortune must not over-
Leap the bound he cannot see;
For that even wisest labour
Lofty-building, builds to fall,
Evermore a jealous neighbour
Undermining floor and wall.
So that on the smoothest water
Sailing, in a cloudless sky,
The wary merchant overboard
Flings something of his precious hoard
To pacify the jealous eye,
That will not suffer man to swell
Over human measure. Well,
As the Gods have order'd we
Must take—I know not—let it be.
But, by rule of retribution,
Hidden, too, from human eyes,
Fortune in her revolution,
If she fall, shall fall to rise:
And the hand of Zeus dispenses
Even measure in the main:
One short harvest recompenses
With a glut of golden grain;
So but men in patience wait
Fortune's counter-revolution
Axled on eternal Fate;
And the Sisters three that twine,
Cut not short the vital line;
For indeed the purple seed
Of life once shed—

Cassandra.
Phœbus Apollo!

Chorus.
Hark!
The lips at last unlocking.

Cassandra.
Phœbus! Phœbus!

Chorus.
Well, what of Phœbus, maiden? though a name
'Tis but disparagement to call upon
In misery.

Cassandra.
Apollo! Apollo! Again!
Oh, the burning arrow through the brain!
Phœbus Apollo! Apollo!

Chorus.
Seemingly
Possess'd indeed—whether by—

Cassandra.
Phœbus! Phœbus!
Thorough trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain,
Over water seething, and behind the breathing
Warhorse in the darkness—till you rose again—
Took the helm—took the rein—

Chorus.
As one that half asleep at dawn recalls
A night of Horror!

Cassandra.
Hither, whither, Phœbus? And with whom,
Leading me, lighting me—

Chorus.
I can answer that—

Cassandra.
Down to what slaughter-house?
Foh! the smell of carnage through the door
Scares me from it—drags me tow'rd it—
Phœbus! Apollo! Apollo!

Chorus.
One of the dismal prophet-pack, it seems,
That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault—
This is no den of slaughter, but the house
Of Agamemnon.

Cassandra.
Down upon the towers
Phantoms of two mangled Children hover—and a famish'd man,
At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours!

Chorus.
Thyestes and his children! Strange enough
For any maiden from abroad to know,
Or, knowing—

Cassandra.
And look! in the chamber below
The terrible Woman, listening, watching,
Under a mask, preparing the blow
In the fold of her robe—

Chorus.
Nay, but again at fault:
For in the tragic story of this House—
Unless, indeed, the fatal Helen—
No woman—

Cassandra.
No Woman—Tisiphone! Daughter
Of Tartarus—love-grinning Woman above,
Dragon-tail'd under—honey-tongued, Harpy-claw'd,
Into the glittering meshes of slaughter
She wheedles, entices, him into the poisonous
Fold of the serpent—

Chorus.
Peace, mad woman, peace!
Whose stony lips once open vomit out
Such uncouth horrors.

Cassandra.
I tell you the lioness
Slaughters the Lion asleep; and lifting
Her blood-dripping fangs buried deep in his mane,
Glaring about her insatiable, bellowing,
Bounds hither—Phœbus, Apollo, Apollo, Apollo!
Whither have you led me, under night alive with fire,
Through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire,
From my slaughter'd kinsmen, fallen throne, insulted shrine,
Slave-like to be butcher'd, the daughter of a Royal line?

Chorus.
And so returning, like a nightingale
Returning to the passionate note of woe
By which the silence first was broken!

Cassandra.
Oh,
A nightingale, a nightingale, indeed,
That, as she ‘Itys! Itys! Itys!’ so
I ‘Helen! Helen! Helen!’ having sung
Amid my people, now to those who flung
And trampled on the nest, and slew the young,
Keep crying ‘Blood! blood! blood!’ and none will heed!
Now what for me is this prophetic weed,
And what for me is this immortal crown,
Who like a wild swan from Scamander's reed
Chaunting her death-song float Cocytus-down?
There let the fatal Leaves to perish lie!
To perish, or enrich some other brow
With that all-fatal gift of Prophecy
They palpitated under Him who now,
Checking his flaming chariot in mid sky,
With divine irony sees disadorn
The wretch his love has made the people's scorn,
The raving quean, the mountebank, the scold,
Who, wrapt up in the ruin she foretold
With those who would not listen, now descends
To that dark kingdom where his empire ends.

Chorus.
Strange that Apollo should the laurel wreath
Of Prophecy he crown'd your head withal
Himself disgrace. But something have we heard
Of some divine revenge for slighted love.

Cassandra.
Ay—and as if in malice to attest
With one expiring beam of Second-sight
Wherewith his victim he has cursed and blest,
Ere quench'd for ever in descending night;
As from behind a veil no longer peeps
The Bride of Truth, nor from their hidden deeps
Darkle the waves of Prophecy, but run
Clear from the very fountain of the Sun.
Ye call'd—and rightly call'd—me bloodhound; ye
That like old lagging dogs in self-despite
Must follow up the scent with me; with me,
Who having smelt the blood about this house
Already spilt, now bark of more to be.
For, though you hear them not, the infernal Choir
Whose dread antiphony forswears the lyre,
Who now are chaunting of that grim carouse
Of blood with which the children fed their Sire,
Shall never from their dreadful chorus stop
Till all be counter-pledged to the last drop.

Chorus.
Hinting at what indeed has long been done,
And widely spoken, no Apollo needs;
And for what else you aim at—still in dark
And mystic language—

Cassandra.
Nay, then, in the speech,
She that reproved me was so glib to teach—
Before yon Sun a hand's-breadth in the skies
He moves in shall have moved, those age-sick eyes
Shall open wide on Agamemnon slain
Before your very feet. Now, speak I plain?

Chorus.
Blasphemer, hush!

Cassandra.
Ay, hush the mouth you may,
But not the murder.

Chorus.
Murder! But the Gods—

Cassandra.
The Gods!
Who even now are their accomplices.

Chorus.
Woman!—Accomplices—With whom?—

Cassandra.
With Her,
Who brandishing aloft the axe of doom,
That just has laid one victim at her feet,
Looks round her for that other, without whom
The banquet of revenge were incomplete.
Yet ere I fall will I prelude the strain
Of Triumph, that in full I shall repeat
When, looking from the twilight Underland,
I welcome Her as she descends amain,
Gash'd like myself, but by a dearer hand.
For that old murder'd Lion with me slain,
Rolling an awful eyeball through the gloom
He stalks about of Hades up to Day,
Shall rouse the whelp of exile far away,
His only authentic offspring, ere the grim
Wolf crept between his Lioness and him;
Who with one stroke of Retribution, her
Who did the deed, and her adulterer,
Shall drive to hell; and then, himself pursued
By the wing'd Furies of his Mother's blood,
Shall drag about the yoke of Madness, till
Released, when Nemesis has gorged her fill,
By that same God, in whose prophetic ray
Viewing To-morrow mirror'd as To-day,
And that this House of Atreus the same wine
Themselves must drink they brew'd for me and mine;
I close my lips for ever with one prayer,
That the dark Warder of the World below
Would ope the portal at a single blow.

Chorus.

Clytemnestra.
(Appearing from within, where lies Agamemnon dead.)
Spare your pain.
Look! I who but just now before you all
Boasted of loyal wedlock unashamed,
Now unashamed dare boast the contrary.
Why, how else should one compass the defeat
Of him who underhand contrives one's own,
Unless by such a snare of circumstance
As, once enmesh'd, he never should break through?
The blow now struck was not the random blow
Of sudden passion, but with slow device
Prepared, and levell'd with the hand of time.
I say it who devised it; I who did;
And now stand here to face the consequence.
Ay, in a deadlier web than of that loom
In whose blood-purple he divined a doom,
And fear'd to walk upon, but walk'd at last,
Entangling him inextricably fast,
I smote him, and he bellow'd; and again
I smote, and with a groan his knees gave way;
And, as he fell before me, with a third
And last libation from the deadly mace
I pledged the crowning draught to Hades due,
That subterranean Saviour—of the Dead!
At which he spouted up the Ghost in such
A burst of purple as, bespatter'd with,
No less did I rejoice than the green ear
Rejoices in the largess of the skies
That fleeting Iris follows as it flies.

Chorus.
Oh woman, woman, woman!
By what accursèd root or weed
Of Earth, or Sea, or Hell, inflamed,
Darest stand before us unashamed
And, daring do, dare glory in the deed!

Clytemnestra.
Oh, I that dream'd the fall of Troy, as you
Belike of Troy's destroyer. Dream or not,
Here lies your King—my Husband—Agamemnon,
Slain by this right hand's righteous handicraft.
Like you, or like it not, alike to me;
To me alike whether or not you share
In making due libation over this
Great Sacrifice—if ever due, from him
Who, having charged so deep a bowl of blood,
Himself is forced to drink it to the dregs.

Chorus.
Woman, what blood but that of Troy, which Zeus
Foredoom'd for expiation by his hand
For whom the penalty was pledged? And now,
Over his murder'd body, Thou
Talk of libation!—Thou! Thou! Thou!
But mark! Not thine of sacred wine
Over his head, but ours on thine
Of curse, and groan, and torn-up stone,
To slay or storm thee from the gate,
The City's curse, the People's hate,
Execrate, exterminate—

Clytemnestra.
Ay, ay, to me how lightly you adjudge
Exile or death, and never had a word
Of counter-condemnation for Him there;
Who, when the field throve with the proper flock
For Sacrifice, forsooth let be the beast,
And with his own hand his own innocent
Blood, and the darling passion of my womb—
Her slew—to lull a peevish wind of Thrace.
And him who cursed the city with that crime
You hail with acclamation; but on me,
Who only do the work you should have done,
You turn the axe of condemnation. Well;
Threaten you me, I take the challenge up;
Here stand we face to face; win Thou the game,
And take the stake you aim at; but if I—
Then, by the Godhead that for me decides,
Another lesson you shall learn, though late.

Chorus.
Man-mettled evermore, and now
Manslaughter-madden'd! Shameless brow!
But do you think us deaf and blind
Not to know, and long ago,
What Passion under all the prate
Of holy justice made thee hate
Where Love was due, and love where—

Clytemnestra.
Nay, then, hear!
By this dead Husband, and the reconciled
Avenging Fury of my slaughter'd child,
I swear I will not reign the slave of fear
While he that holds me, as I hold him, dear,
Kindles his fire upon this hearth: my fast
Shield for the time to come, as of the past.
Yonder lies he that in the honey'd arms
Of his Chryseides under Troy walls
Dishonour'd mine: and this last laurell'd wench,
Prophetic messmate of the rower's bench,
Thus far in triumph his, with him along
Shall go, together chaunting one death-song
To Hades—fitting garnish for the feast
Which Fate's avenging hand through mine hath dress'd.

Chorus.
Woe, woe, woe, woe!
That death as sudden as the blow
That laid Thee low would me lay low
Where low thou liest, my sovereign Lord!
Who ten years long to Trojan sword
Devoted, and to storm aboard,
In one ill woman's cause accurst,
Liest slain before thy palace door
By one accursedest and worst!

Clytemnestra.
Call not on Death, old man, that, call'd or no,
Comes quick; nor spend your ebbing breath on me,
Nor Helena: who but as arrows be
Shot by the hidden hand behind the bow.

Chorus.
Alas, alas! The Curse I know
That round the House of Atreus clings,
About the roof, about the walls,
Shrouds it with his sable wings;
And still as each new victim falls,
And gorged with kingly gore,
Down on the bleeding carcase flings,
And croaks for ‘More, more, more!’

Clytemnestra.
Ay, now, indeed, you harp on likelier strings.
Not I, nor Helen, but that terrible
Alastor of old Tantalus in Hell;
Who, one sole actor in the scene begun
By him, and carried down from sire to son,
The mask of Victim and Avenger shifts;
And, for a last catastrophe, that grim
Guest of the abominable banquet lifts
His head from Hell, and in my person cries
For one full-grown sufficient sacrifice,
Requital of the feast prepared for him
Of his own flesh and blood—And there it lies.

Chorus.
Oh, Agamemnon! Oh, my Lord!
Who, after ten years toil'd;
After barbarian lance and sword
Encounter'd, fought, and foil'd:
Returning with the just award
Of Glory, thus inglorious by
Thine own domestic Altar die,
Fast in the spider meshes coil'd
Of Treason most abhorr'd!

Clytemnestra.
And by what retribution more complete,
Than, having in the meshes of deceit
Enticed my child, and slain her like a fawn
Upon the altar; to that altar drawn
Himself, like an unconscious beast, full-fed
With Conquest, and the garland on his head,
Is slain? and now, gone down among the Ghost,
Of taken Troy indeed may make the most,
But not one unrequited murder boast.

Chorus.
Oh Agamemnon, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead!
What hand, what pious hand shall wash the wound
Through which the sacred spirit ebb'd and fled!
With reverend care compose, and to the ground
Commit the mangled form of Majesty,
And pour the due libation o'er the mound!

Clytemnestra.
This hand, that struck the guilty life away,
The guiltless carcase in the dust shall lay
With due solemnities: and if with no
Mock tears, or howling counterfeit of woe,
On this side earth; perhaps the innocent thing,
Whom with paternal love he sent before,
Meeting him by the melancholy shore,
Her arms about him with a kiss shall fling,
And lead him to his shadowy throne below.

Chorus.
Alas! alas! the fatal rent
Which through the house of Atreus went,
Gapes again; a purple rain
Sweats the marble floor, and falls
From the tottering roof and walls,
The Dæmon heaving under; gone
The master-prop they rested on:
And the storm once more awake
Of Nemesis; of Nemesis
Whose fury who shall slake!

Clytemnestra.
Ev'n I; who by this last grand victim hope
The Pyramid of Vengeance so to cope,
That—and methinks I hear him in the deep
Beneath us growling tow'rd his rest—the stern
Alastor to some other roof may turn,
Leaving us here at last in peace to keep
What of life's harvest yet remains to reap.

Chorus.
Thou to talk of reaping Peace
Who sowest Murder! Woman, cease!
And, despite that iron face—
Iron as the bloody mace
Thou bearest—boasting as if Vengeance
Centred in that hand alone;
Know that, Fury pledged to Fury,
Vengeance owes himself the debts
He makes, and while he serves thee, whets
His knife upon another stone,
Against thyself, and him with thee
Colleaguing, as you boast to be,
The tools of Fate. But Fate is Zeus;
Zeus—who for a while permitting
Sin to prosper in his name,
Shall vindicate his own abuse;
And having brought his secret thought
To light, shall break and fling to shame
The baser tools with which he wrought.

Ægisthus: Clytemnestra: Chorus.
All hail, thou daybreak of my just revenge!
In which, as waking from injurious sleep,
Methinks I recognize the Gods enthroned
In the bright conclave of eternal Justice,
Revindicate the wrongs of man to man!
For see this man—so dear to me now dead—
Caught in the very meshes of the snare
By which his father Atreus netted mine.
For that same Atreus surely, was it not?
Who, wrought by false Suspicion to fix'd Hate,
From Argos out his younger brother drove,
My sire—Thyestes—drove him like a wolf,
Keeping his cubs—save one—to better purpose.
For when at last the home-heartbroken man
Crept humbly back again, craving no more
Of his own country than to breathe its air
In liberty, and of her fruits as much
As not to starve withal—the savage King,
With damnable alacrity of hate,
And reconciliation of revenge,
Bade him, all smiles, to supper—such a supper,
Where the prime dainty was—my brother's flesh,
So maim'd and clipt of human likelihood,
That the unsuspecting Father, light of heart,
And quick of appetite, at once fell to,
And ate—ate—what, with savage irony
As soon as eaten, told—the wretched man
Disgorging with a shriek, down to the ground
The table with its curst utensil dash'd,
And, grinding into pieces with his heel,
Cried, loud enough for Heav'n and Hell to hear,
‘Thus perish all the race of Pleisthenes!’
And now behold! the son of that same Atreus
By me the son of that Thyestes slain
Whom the kind brother, sparing from the cook,
Had with his victim pack'd to banishment;
Where Nemesis—(so sinners from some nook,
Whence least they think assailable, assail'd)—
Rear'd me from infancy till fully grown,
To claim in full my father's bloody due.
Ay, I it was—none other—far away
Who spun the thread, which gathering day by day
Mesh after mesh, inch upon inch, at last
Reach'd him, and wound about him, as he lay,
And in the supper of his smoking Troy
Devour'd his own destruction—scarce condign
Return for that his Father forced on mine.

Chorus.
Ægisthus, only things of baser breed
Insult the fallen; fall'n too, as you boast,
By one who plann'd but dared not do the deed.
This is your hour of triumph. But take heed;
The blood of Atreus is not all outrun
With this slain King, but flowing in a son,
Who saved by such an exile as your own
For such a counter-retribution—

Ægisthus.
Oh,
You then, the nether benchers of the realm,
Dare open tongue on those who rule the helm?
Take heed yourselves; for, old and dull of wit,
And harden'd as your mouth against the bit,
Be wise in time; kick not against the spurs;
Remembering Princes are shrewd taskmasters.

Chorus.
Beware thyself, bewaring me;
Remembering that, too sharply stirr'd,
The spurrer need beware the spurr'd;
As thou of me; whose single word
Shall rouse the City—yea, the very
Stones you walk upon, in thunder
Gathering o'er your head, to bury
Thee and thine Adultress under!

Ægisthus.
Raven, that with croaking jaws
Unorphean, undivine,
After you no City draws;
And if any vengeance, mine
Upon your wither'd shoulders—

Chorus.
Thine!
Who daring not to strike the blow
Thy worse than woman-craft design'd,
To worse than woman—

Ægisthus.
Soldiers, ho!

Clytemnestra.
Softly, good Ægisthus, softly; let the sword that has so deep
Drunk of righteous Retribution now within the scabbard sleep!
And if Nemesis be sated with the blood already spilt,
Even so let us, nor carry lawful Justice into Guilt.
Sheathe your sword; dismiss your spears; and you, Old men, your howling cease,
And, ere ill blood come to running, each unto his home in peace,
Recognizing what is done for done indeed, as done it is,
And husbanding your scanty breath to pray that nothing more amiss.
Farewell. Meanwhile, you and I, Ægisthus, shall deliberate,
When the storm is blowing under, how to settle House and State.

THE DOWNFALL AND DEATH OF KING ŒDIPUS

A Drama in Two Parts CHIEFLY TAKEN FROM THE ŒDIPUS TYRANNUS AND COLONEUS OF SOPHOCLES.

I. PART I
ŒDIPUS IN THEBES

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

• Œdipus . . . . . King of Thebes.
• Iocasta . . . . . his Queen.
• Creon . . . . . her brother.
• Teiresias . . . . Prophet of Apollo.
• Priest.
• Herald from Corinth.
• Shepherd of King Laius.
• Chorus of Theban Elders.

The Scene is at Thebes, before the Palace of King Œdipus.
Œdipus, Priest and Suppliants assembled before his palace-gate, Chorus.
Œd.
Children of Cadmus, and as mine to me,
When all that of the plague-struck city can
With lamentation loud, and sacrifice
Beset the shrines and altars of the Gods
Through street and market, by the Temples twain
Of Pallas, and before the Tomb that shrouds
Ismenus' his prophetic ashes—why
Be you thus gather'd at my palace-door,
Mute, with the Suppliant's olive-branch in hand?
Asking, or deprecating, what? which I,
Not satisfied from other lips to learn,
Myself am come to hear it from your own.
You, whose grave aspect and investiture
Announce the chosen oracle of all,
Tell me the purport: I am here, you see,
As King, and Father of his people too,
To listen and what in me lies to do;
For surely mine were but a heart of stone
Not to be moved by such an embassy,
Nor feel my people's sorrows as my own.

Priest.
O Œdipus, our Father, and our King!
Of what a mingled company you see
This Supplication gather'd at your door;
Ev'n from the child who scarce has learn'd to creep,
Down to old age that little further can,
With all the strength of life that breathes between.
You know how all the shatter'd city lies
Reeling a-wreck, and cannot right herself
Under the tempest of this pestilence,
That nips the fruitful growth within the bud,
Strangles the struggling blossom in the womb,
With sudden death infects the living man,
Until the realm of Cadmus wastes, and Thebes
With her depopulation Hades feeds.
Therefore, myself and this mute company
In supplication at your altar sit,
Looking to you for succour; looking not
As to a God, but to the Man of men,
Most like the God in man's extremity:
Who, coming here a stranger to the land,
Didst overcome the Witch who with her song
Seduced, and slew the wisest and the best;
For which all but divine deliverance Thebes
Call'd the strange man who saved her to the throne
Left void by her hereditary king.
And now the kingdom looks to you once more—
To you, the Master of the master-mind,
To save her in a worse extremity:
When men, not one by one, but troop by troop,
Fall by a plague more deadly than the Sphinx,
Till Thebes herself is left to foreign arms
Assailable—for what are wall and tower,
Divinely built and founded as they be,
Without the rampart of the man within?—
And let not what of Cadmus yet survives
From this time forth regard you as the man
Who saved them once, by worse to perish now.

Œd.
Alas, my children! telling me of that
My people groans with, knowing not yourselves
How more than any man among you, I,
Who bear the accumulated woes of all;
So that you find me, coming when you may,
Restlessly all day pacing up and down,
Tossing all night upon a sleepless bed,
Endeavouring all that of myself I can,
And all of Heaven implore—thus far in vain.
But if your King have seem'd to pause awhile,
'Tis that I wait the issue of one hope,
Which, if accomplish'd, will accomplish all.
Creon, my brother, and my second self
Beside the throne I sit on, to the shrine
Of Delphian Phœbus, man's assured appeal
In all his exigence, I have despatch'd:
And long before you gather'd at my door
Within my soul was fretting, lest To-day
That should have lighted him from Delphi back
Pass over into night, and bring him not.
But come he must, and will; and when he comes,
Do I not all, so far as man may do,
To follow where the God shall point the way,
Denounce me traitor to the State I saved
And to the people who proclaim'd me King.

Cho.
Your words are as a breath from Delphi, King,
Prophetic of itself; for even now
Fore-running Rumour buzzes in our ear
That he whose coming all await is here.

Œd.
And as before the advent of a God,
The moving multitude divides—O Phœbus!
Be but the word he carries back to me
Auspicious as well-timed!

Chorus.
And shall no less;
For look! the laurel wreath about his brow
Can but announce the herald of Success.

Œdipus, Creon, Chorus.
Œd.
Son of Menœceus! Brother! Brother-king!—
Oh, let impatience for the word you bring
Excuse brief welcome to the messenger!
Be but the word as welcome!—

Cre.
As it shall,
Have you your ancient cunning to divine
The darker word in which the God of Light
Enshrines his answer.

Œd.
Speak! for till I hear,
I know not whether most to hope or fear.

Cre.
Am I to speak before the people here,
Or to yourself within?

Œd.
Here, before all,
Whose common cause it is.

Cre.
To all then thus:
When Delphi reach'd, and at the sacred shrine
Lustration, sacrifice, and offering made,
I put the question I was charged withal,
The Prophetess of the three-footed throne,
Conceiving with the vapour of the God
Which wrapt her, rising from Earth's centre, round,
At length convulsed to sudden answer broke:
‘O seven-gated City, by the Lyre
Compact, and peopled from a Dragon Sire!
Thebes feeds the Plague that slays her nourishing
Within her walls the slayer of her King.’

Œd.
The slayer of her King? What king?

Cre.
None else
I know than Laius, son of Labdacus,
Who occupied the throne before you came;
That much of Oracle, methinks, is plain.

Œd.
A story rises on me from the past.
Laius, the son of Labdacus—of whom
I know indeed, but him I never saw.

Cre.
No; he was slain before you set your foot
Over the country's threshold.

Œd.
Slain! By whom?

Cre.
That to divine were to interpret all
That Œdipus himself is call'd to answer.
Thus much is all we know,
The King was murder'd by some roving band
Of outlaws, who waylaid him on his road
To that same Delphi, whither he had gone
On some such sacred mission as myself.

Œd.
Yet of those roving outlaws, one at least
Yet breathes among us in the heart of Thebes.

Cre.
So saith the Oracle.

Œd.
In the midst of all
The citizens and subjects of the King
He slew?

Cre.
So saith the Oracle.

Œd.
But hold!
The story of this treason—all, you say,
Now known of it, how first made known in Thebes?

Cre.
By the one man of the King's retinue,
Who having 'scaped the fate which took the rest,
As if the assassin's foot were at his heels,
Half dead with fear, just reach'd the city gates
With breath to tell the story.

Œd.
And breathes still
To tell it once again?

Cre.
I know not that:
For having told it, the bewilder'd man,
As fast as hither he had fled, fled hence,
Where, if the assassin's foot not on him then,
His eye, the God declares, were on him now—
So fled he to his native field again
Among his flocks and fellow-husbandmen.

Œd.
And thus the single witness you let slip,
Whose eye might ev'n have singled out the man,
As him the man's!—Oh, had I but been by,
I would have driv'n interrogation home,
Would the bewilder'd memory so have sifted
Of each minutest grain of circumstance—
How many, accoutred how, what people like—
Now by the lapse of time and memory,
Beyond recall into oblivion pass'd!
But not to lose what yet of hope there is—
Let him be sent for, sought for, found and brought.

Cre.
Meanwhile, default of him for whom you send,
Or of uncertain memory when he comes,
Were it not well, if still the God withhold
His revelation of the word we need,
To question it of his Interpreter?

Œd.
Of his Interpreter!

Cre.
Of whom so well,
As of Teiresias, the blind Seer of Thebes,
Whose years the God hath in his service counted
Beyond all reach of human memory?

Œd.
So be it. But I marvel yet why Thebes,
Letting the witness slip, then unpursued,
Or undetected, left the criminal,
Whom the King's blood, by whomsoever spilt,
Cried out aloud to be revenged upon.

Cre.
What might be done we did. But how detect
The roving robber, in whatever land,
Of friend or foe alike, outlaw'd of all,
Where ever prey to pounce on on the wing,
Or housed in rock or forest, save to him
Unknown, or inaccessible? Besides,
Thebes soon had other business on her hand.

Œd.
Why, what of business to engage her more
Than to revenge the murder of her King?

Cre.
None other than the riddle-singing Sphinx
Who, till you came to silence her, held Thebes
From thinking of the dead to save herself.

Œd.
And leaving this which then you might have guess'd,
To guess at that which none of you could solve,
You have brought home a riddle on your heads
Inextricable and more fatal far!
But I, who put the riddling Witch to rest,
This fatal riddle will unravel too,
And by swift execution following
The revelation, once more save the realm,
And wipe away the impiety and shame
Of Laius' yet unexpiated death.
For were no expiation to the God,
And to the welfare of this people due,
Were't not a shame thus unrevenged so long
To leave the slaughter of so great a King—
King Laius, the son of Labdacus,
Who from his father Polydore his blood
Direct from Cadmus and Agenor drew?
Shame to myself, who, sitting on the throne
He sat on, wedded to the very Queen
Who should have borne him children, as to me
She bore them, had not an assassin's hand
Divorced them ere their wedded life bore fruit!
Therefore to this as 'twere my father's cause,
As of my people's—nay, why not my own,
Who in his death am threaten'd by the hand
Of him, whose eye now follows me about?—
With the Gods' aid do I devote myself.
And hereto let the city's Herald all
Her population summon, from my lips
To hear and help in what I shall devise:
And you, that with bow'd head and olive wand,
Have since the dawn been gather'd at my door,
Beseeching me with piteous silence, rise,
And by their altars supplicate the Gods,
And Phœbus chief of all, that he may turn
His yet half-clouded word into full light,
And with one shaft of his unerring bow
Smite dead the Plague which back into the dust
Whence Cadmus raised them lays the People low,

Chorus.

Œdipus, Chorus.
Œd.
You came to me for counsel; hearken then,
And do as well as hearken, like myself
Following the pointed finger of the God
Which thus far leads us, all may yet be well.
I, Œdipus, albeit no Theban born,
By Thebes herself enthroned her sovereign King,
Thus to the citizens of Thebes proclaim;
That whosoever of them knows by whom
King Laius, son of Labdacus, was slain,
Forthwith let him disclose it undismay'd;
Yea, though the criminal himself he were,
Let not the dread of deadly consequence
Revolt him from confession of the crime;
For he shall suffer nothing worse than this,
Instant departure from the city, but
Uninjured, uninsulted, unpursued;
For though feloniously a King he slew
Yet haply as a stranger unaware
That king was Laius; and thus the crime
Half-clear'd of treason, half absolved by time.
Nor, on the other hand, if any knows
Another guilty, let him not for love,
Or fear, or whatsoever else regard,
Flinch from a revelation that shall win
More from myself than aught he fears to lose—
Nay, as a second saviour of the State
Shall after me be call'd; and who should not
Save a whole people at the cost of one?
But Him—that one—who would not at the cost
Of self-confession save himself and all—
Him—were he nearest to my heart and hearth—
Nearest and dearest—thus do I denounce;
That from the very moment that he stands,
By whatsoever, or by whom, reveal'd,
No man shall him bespeak, at home, abroad,
Sit with at table, nor by altar stand,
But, as the very Pestilence he were
Incarnate which this people now devours,
Him slay at once, or hoot and hunt him forth,
With execration from the city walls.
But if, in spite of promise or of threat,
The man who did, or knows who did, this deed,
Still hold it in his bosom unreveal'd—
That man—and he is here among us now—
Man's vengeance may escape when he forswears
Participation in the crime, but not
The Gods', himself involving in the Curse
Which, with myself and every man in Thebes,
He shall denounce upon the criminal,
The Gods invoking to withhold from him
That issue of the earth by which he lives,
That issue of the womb by which himself
Lives after him; that in the deadly curse
By which his fellows perish he and his
May perish, or, if worse there be, by worse!

Cho.
Beside Apollo's altar standing here,
That oath I swear, that neither I myself
Nor did myself, nor know who did this deed:
And in the curse I join on him who did,
Or, knowing him who did, will not reveal.

Œd.
'Tis well: and, all the city's seven gates closed,
Thus solemnly shall every man in Thebes
Before the altars of his country swear.

Cho.
Well have you done, O Master, in so far
As human hand and wit may reach; and lo!
The sacred Seer of Thebes, Teiresias,
To whom, next to the God himself, we look
For Heaven's assistance, at your summons comes,
In his prophetic raiment, staff in hand,
Approaching, gravely guided as his wont,
But with a step, methinks, unwonted slow. Œdipus, Teiresias, Chorus.

Teiresias, Minister and Seer of God,
Who, blind to all that others see without,
See that within to which all else are blind;
Sequester'd as you are with Deity,
You know, what others only know too well,
The mortal sickness that confounds us all;
But you alone can tell the remedy.
For since the God whose Minister you are
Bids us, if Thebes would be herself again,
Revenge the murder of King Laius
By retribution on the murderer,
Who undetected walks among us now;
Unless by you, Teiresias, to whose lips,
As Phœbus his Interpreter we cling,
To catch the single word that he withholds,
And without which what he reveals is vain—
Therefore to you, Teiresias, you alone,
Do look this people and their Ruler—look,
Imploring you, by that same inward light
Which sees, to name the man who lurks unseen,
And whose live presence is the death of all.

Tei.
Alas! how worse than vain to be well arm'd
When the man's weapon turns upon himself!

Œd.
I know not upon whom that arrow lights.

Tei.
If not on him that summon'd, then on him
Who, summon'd, came. There is one remedy;
Let those who hither led me lead me hence.

Œd.
Before the single word—which you alone
Can speak—be spoken? How is this, Teiresias,
That to your King on such a summons come,
You come so much distemper'd?

Tei.
For the King,
With all his wisdom, knows not what he asks.

Œd.
And therefore asks that he may know from you,
Seeing the God hath folded up his word
From human eyesight.

Tei.
Why should I reveal
What He I serve has chosen to conceal?

Œd.
Is't not your office to interpret that
To man which he for man vouchsafes from Heaven?

Tei.
What Fate hath fix'd to come to pass come will,
Whether reveal'd or not.

Œd.
I know it must;
But Fate may cancel Fate, foretelling that
Which, unpredicted, else would come to pass.

Tei.
Yet none the less I tell you, Œdipus,
That you, though wise, not knowing what you ask,
I, knowing, shall not answer.

Œd.
You will not!
Inexorable to the people's cries—
Plague-pitiless, disloyal to your King—

Tei.
Oh! you forsooth were taunting me but now
With my distemper'd humour—

Œd.
Who would not,
When but a word, which you pretend to know,
Would save a people?

Tei.
One of them at least
It would not.

Œd.
Oh, scarce any man, methinks,
But would himself, though guiltless, sacrifice,
If that would ransom all.

Tei.
Yet one, you see,
Obdurate as myself—

Œd.
You have not heard, perchance, Teiresias,
(Unless from that prophetic voice within,)
How through the city, by my herald's voice,
With excommunication, death, or banishment,
I have denounced, not him alone who did,
But him who, knowing who, will not reveal?

Tei.
I hear it now.

Œd.
And are inflexible
To Fear as Pity?

Tei.
It might be, to Fear
Inflexible by Pity; else, why fear
Invulnerable as I am in Truth,
And by the God I serve inviolate?

Œd.
Is not your King a Minister of Zeus,
As you of Phœbus, and the King of Thebes
Not more to be insulted or defied
Than any Priest or Augur in his realm?

Tei.
Implore, denounce, and threaten as you may,
What unreveal'd I would, I will not say.

Œd.
You will not! Mark then how, default of your
Interpretation, I interpret you:
Either not knowing what you feign to know,
You lock your tongue in baffled ignorance;
Or, knowing that which you will not reveal,
I do suspect—Suspect! why, stand you not
Self-accused, self-convicted, and by me
Denounced as he, that knowing him who did,
Will not reveal—nay, might yourself have done
The deed that you with some accomplice plann'd,
Could those blind eyes have aim'd the murderous hand?

Tei.
You say so! Now then, listen in your turn
To that one word which, as it leaves my lips,
By your own Curse upon the Criminal
Denounced, should be your last in Thebes to hear.
For by the unerring insight of the God
You question, Zeus his delegate though you be
Who lay this Theban people under curse
Of revelation of the murderer
Whose undiscover'd presence eats away
The people's life—I tell you—You are he!

Cho.
Forbear, old man, forbear! And you, my King,
Heed not the passion of provoked old age.

Œd.
And thus, in your blind passion of revenge,
You think to 'scape contempt or punishment
By tossing accusation back on me
Under Apollo's mantle.

Tei.
Ay, and more,
Dared you but listen.

Cho.
Peace, O peace, old man!

Œd.
Nay, let him shoot his poison'd arrows out;
They fall far short of me.

Tei.
Not mine, but those
Which Fate had fill'd my Master's quiver with,
And you have drawn upon yourself.

Œd.
Your Master's?
Your Master's; but assuredly not His
To whom you point, albeit you see him not,
In his meridian dazzling overhead,
Who is the God of Truth as well as Light,
And knows as I within myself must know
If Memory be not false as Augury,
The words you put into his lips a Lie!
Not He, but Self—Self only—in revenge
Of self-convicted ignorance—Self alone,
Or with some self whom Self would profit by—
As were it—Creon, say—smooth, subtle Creon,
Moving by rule and weighing every word
As in the scales of Justice—but of whom
Whispers of late have reach'd me—Creon, ha!
Methinks I scent another Master here!
Who, wearied of but secondary power
Under an alien King, and would belike
Exalt his Prophet for good service done
Higher than ever by my throne he stood—
And, now I think on't, bade me send for you
Under the mask of Phœbus—

Cho.
Oh, forbear—
Forbear, in turn, my lord and master!

Tei.
Nay,
Let him, in turn, his poison'd arrows, not
From Phœbus' quiver, shoot, but to recoil
When his mad Passion having pass'd—

Œd.
O vain
Prerogative of human majesty,
That one poor mortal from his fellows takes,
And, with false pomp and honour dressing up,
Lifts idol-like to what men call a Throne,
For all below to worship and assail!
That even the power which unsolicited
By aught but salutary service done
The men of Thebes committed to my hands,
Some, restless under just authority,
Or jealous of not wielding it themselves,
Ev'n with the altar and the priest collude,
And tamper with, to ruin or to seize!
Prophet and Seer forsooth and Soothsayer!
Why, when the singing Witch contrived the noose
Which strangled all who tried and none could loose,
Where was the Prophet of Apollo then?
'Twas not for one who poring purblind down
Over the reeking entrail of the beast,
Nor gaping to the wandering bird in air,
Nor in the empty silence of his soul
Feigning a voice of God inaudible,
Not he, nor any of his tribe—but I—
I, Œdipus, a stranger in the land,
And uninspired by all but mother-wit,
Silenced and slew the monster against whom
Divine and human cunning strove in vain.
And now again when tried, and foil'd again,
This Prophet—whether to revenge the past,
And to prevent discomfiture to come,
Or by some traitor aiming at my throne
Suborn'd to stand a greater at his side
Than peradventure e'er he stood at mine,
Would drag me to destruction! But beware!
Beware lest, blind and agèd as you are,
Wrapt in supposititious sanctity,
You, and whoever he that leagues with you,
Meet a worse doom than you for me prepare.

Tei.
Quick to your vengeance, then; for this same day
That under Phœbus' fiery rein flies fast
Over the field of heaven, shall be the last
That you shall play the tyrant in.

Œd.
O Thebes,
You never called me Tyrant, from the day
Since first I saved you!

Tei.
And shall save again;
As then by coming, by departing now.
Enough: before the day that judges both
Decide between us, let them lead me home.

Œd.
Ay, lead him hence—home—Hades—anywhere!
Blind in his inward as his outward eye.

Tei.
Poor man! that in your inward vision blind,
Know not, as I, that ere this day go down,
By your own hand yourself shall be consign'd
To deeper night than now you taunt me with;
When, not the King and Prophet that you were,
But a detested outcast of the land,
With other eyes and hands you feel your way
To wander through the world, begging the bread
Of execration from the stranger's hand
Denied you here, and thrust from door to door,
As though yourself the Plague you brought from Thebes;
A wretch, self-branded with the double curse
Of such unheard, unnatural infamy,
As shall confound a son in the embrace
Of her who bore him to the sire he slew!

Chorus

Iocasta, Chorus, then Œdipus.
Ioc.
A noise has reach'd me through the palace-wall
Of words between Teiresias and the King,
In which my brother's name was all misused.
You who were here, and heard, can tell me all.

Cho.
Words there have been indeed on either side,
By provocation into passion blown,
Which after-thought as likely will disown.

Ioc.
But to what purport?

Cho.
I would not repeat
What those who utter'd now may wish unsaid,
Much more, unheard. But look! the King himself
To answer for himself.

Ioc.
As one who dreams.
In Heaven's name, husband, tell me what has fired
This wrath between you and Teiresias,
So fierce that e'en my brother Creon's name
Was scorcht withal, and in its ashes now
Still smoulders in your face?

Œd.
That has been said
On either side that should not; but on his,
Relying on protection from his God,
Treason so foul against his King—

Ioc.
But what?

Œd.
Why need tell now, if, as the Prophet says,
This very day shall not go down without
To Thebes, as you, revealing?—What if I—
If I, that have with banishment or death
Denounced the assassin of King Laius—
Myself am he?

Ioc.
You! Œdipus?

Œd.
So says
Apollo's prophet.

Ioc.
You!—Teiresias!—You!
On what presumption, Human or Divine?

Œd.
On His whose chariot shall not cross the sky,
But dragging me to Night along with it.

Ioc.
Which cannot be—we know, which cannot be
Of the God's self—you of yourself more sure
Than any mortal Prophet sure of Him.

Œd.
So might I think. But if not from the God,
From whom then, Iocasta?

Ioc.
Only not
From Creon—Whosoever else, not he!—
My brother, and your brother, being mine!

Œd.
Yet brother against brother, son 'gainst sire,
Such things have been between them, and shall be,
For things of less ambition than a throne.

Ioc.
Oh, strangle such suspicion in its birth
Of one more innocent than babe unborn!
Why, had he minded empire, could he not
Have seized it for his own before you came,
And Thebes was looking for a sovereign?
Or, after-minded to unseat you King,
Would have contrived and hatch'd his priestly plot
Ere you so firmly seated on the throne,
And life with him at least so much for-spent
As makes ev'n just possession—and much more,
Unjust—of little moment unto all!

Œd.
So be it. From the God of Light and Truth
Less likely than from him of Sleep and Dream,
Whose-ever be the Prophet.

Ioc.
Had you not
Provoked the Prophet first?

Œd.
As who would not,
Who either knowing would withhold the word
On which a people's whole salvation hung,
Then, taunted into malice by just wrath,
Or to collusion with some traitor leagued,
Belied his God, and me.

Ioc.
The man is old,
And testy, and perhaps incensed by you,
Mere human passion with the lees
Of Divination mixing—

Œd.
Be it so;
And so, methinks, I might have let it pass,
But for a parting threat, which though in wrath
And malice, like the rest it may have been,
Woke up the echo of another Word
Told me by Delphi's self, so long ago
As with its unfulfilment to have died
Almost from memory.

Ioc.
What Oracle
Which, if the Prophet fail'd, has fail'd as well?

Œd.
You know I am the son of Polybus,
Of Corinth King, and Merope his Queen,
And till a chance, of which you may not know,
Slight as it seem'd, but fraught with grave result,
Methought the first in Corinth after them.
One day at table, when the cup went round,
One of the company whom I, belike
Flushed with the wine and youthful insolence,
Had twitted with his meaner parentage,
Bade me beware; for, proudly as I sate
Above them all beside the royal twain
A superstition linger'd, that because
Of some ill-omen'd accident of birth
Their son should never to their throne succeed.
The word awhile sank in the flowing wine,
But when the wine went off the word was there,
And all night long kept stirring in my brain.
So that, with morning when I woke again,
Unable to endure it unsuppress'd,
I challenged King and Queen to answer me
The challenge thrown out by the nameless guest.
Indignantly they heard; denounced the man
Whoever it might be, for false or fool,
And with endearing re-assurances
Recomforted me awhile. Nevertheless,
Spite re-assurance and redoubled love,
That random word still rankled in my heart,
And I resolved on quenching all misdoubt
From the head fountain of all truth at Delphi.
Thither, without a word of whither gone,
I went, and put my question. But the God
Vouchsafed no revelation of the past,
But prophesied far worse for me to come;
That I should slay my father: then with her
Who bore me wed, and bring into the world
A race the world would loathe to look upon.
Whereat affrighted—as what man were not?—
From Corinth and from those I was to wrong
I fled—I scarce knew whither, so from them—
Fled hither; and in spite of prophecies,
All that I lost regain'd, except the bliss
Of prospering in a loving mother's eyes.

Ioc.
And see! the father whom you were to slay,
With that Queen-mother whom you were to wed,
Lives to a ripe old age in Corinth, far
Beyond his reach who should have wrong'd them both,
Himself fast wedded and enthroned in Thebes!

Œd.
And yet this blunted shaft of long ago,
And rusted with oblivion, had the Seer
Snatch'd from his Master's armoury To-day,
For malediction's last and master blow!

Ioc.
Which from his Master's hand had fail'd before!
And would you listen to a woman's voice
I could requite your story, Œdipus,
With one so like as almost to be one,
Save that in mine the Sire it was who foil'd
Predestination, as in yours the Son.

Œd.
In this dumb pause between despair and hope,
Whose voice to me more welcome than your own?

Ioc.
When first I wedded with King Laius,
Whose murder now perplexes Thebes and you,
A Prophecy from Delphi reached his ears—
But whether from the God, or from his Priest,
I know not—but there went the Prophecy;
That he should die slain by the hand of him
Who should be born between himself and me.
Whereat, like you, affrighted, when the child
But three days born had seen the light of day,
He had him, spite of all a mother's cries,
Not slain, but left in some such desert place
As where with cold and hunger, he must die.
So, at the sacrifice of that poor life
Saving his own, he lived himself in peace,
Till slain, not as the Oracle foretold
Slain by the son himself had slain before,
But by that undetected alien hand
Which the fond Prophet pointed at in you.
Of such account are such vaticinations,
Whether from Phœbus, or his Minister;
Of which take you no heed. For, surely, what
Fate has determined, Fate shall bring to pass,
Whether by prophecy foretold or not.

Œd.
So seems it.

Ioc.
Nay, beyond denial is.
And yet you seem to hesitate as one
Who in broad daylight cannot see his way.

Œd.
Was it not said that Laius your King
Upon some sacred errand by the road
Was set upon and murder'd?

Ioc.
Even so;
To that same Delphi where yourself had been,
As much to be misled.

Œd.
And whereabout?

Ioc.
Somewhere in Phocis which his road went through;
As went the story.

Œd.
And how long ago?

Ioc.
Nay, just before you came to Thebes yourself
To save us from the Sphinx, and occupy
The throne left empty by my husband's death.
What makes you muse?

Œd.
And this King Laius
About what age, and what to look upon?

Ioc.
Lofty and large of stature, and of port
And aspect that becomes a King; his hair
Just whitening with the earliest frost of age—

Œd.
And how accompanied?

Ioc.
With such a train
Accompanied as may become a King
Upon a peaceful errand of his own,
And through a friendly people travelling.

Œd.
And, as the story went, but one of those
Who, witnessing, escaped to tell the tale.

Ioc.
Ev'n so it was.

Œd.
And him they let depart
With half his tale untold?

Ioc.
Nay, all he could,
Half dead with terror. Meanwhile Œdipus,
What is't that, when I thought to clear your brow
With dissipation of prophetic fear,
Darkens it more and more?

Œd.
Is it not strange—
Strange—that your second husband, like your first,
With such a cross-related Prophecy
Threaten'd, like him should have defeated it?

Ioc.
Strange as it is, but most assuredly.

Œd.
O Iocasta, what if secret Fate
Avenged the God, who sometimes speaks for her,
Two thwarted utterances by one blow
On Laius and myself unprophesied?

Ioc.
I know not what this aims at.

Œd.
You shall hear.
When, as I told you, in my youth at Corinth,
I had resolved to cross that Prophecy
Which from the God's own lips myself had heard,
By flying those I was foredoom'd to wrong—
Nay, from the very country of my birth,
Leaving them all behind me for the stars
Alone to tell me of their whereabout,
I fled: and flying as at random on,
I came—now mark me, Iocasta, came—
Whether in Phocis, or elsewhere, I know not—
Where two main roads which lead two nations on
To Delphi, shrink into a narrow gorge;
When, coming up the narrow road, Behold!
A Herald first, and then a chariot,
In which, erect beside his charioteer,
There rode the stately semblance of a King,
And so came on, not swerving left or right,
As if the road were but for them, and I
A cur, to slink aside and let them by.
Whereat, no cur, but a King's son, enraged,
With the stout staff I carried in my hand
I smote the charioteer; on which the King
Struck me with his—for which he paid too dear
With such a fatal counter-blow from mine
As roll'd him headlong dead into the dust:
And, after him, his Herald, and all his
Who came against me one by one I slew.
Now if the royal man—for such he was—
Were—as by such consent of circumstance
I scarce dare think were not—

Ioc.
Oh, many a King
Of a like presence, and like retinue,
Has been that road to learn the word of Fate
Which he, like you, had vainly learn'd before.

Œd.
But one escaped, they say; and if he live—
And if maintain the tale that first he told,
That Laius, not by one, but many men,
Was in his chariot set upon and slain,
Then was it surely not King Laius
Whom single-handed, and alone, I slew.
But if he falter from that first report—

Ioc.
How should he?

Œd.
Whether out of present fear,
Or after, to excuse a coward flight,
One man to numbers multiply he might—

Ioc.
He cannot—whether by device or fear,
He cannot falter from his first report—
Unless the sudden presence of his King,
And the disquiet of your looks affright him
Into the confirmation of false fear.
But meanwhile, Œdipus, come in with me,
And let not troubled Thebes new troubles see
Writ in your brows, augmenting present ill,
And Prophecy that Fate shall not fulfil.

Chorus.

Iocasta, Chorus.
Ioc.
Ancients of Thebes, in this extremity
When ev'n the very steersman of the realm,
To whom we look for our deliverance,
Veering himself with every wind that blows
Of rumour, helplessly resigns the helm,
I come, albeit with these poor woman's hands,
To offer wreath and incense on the shrines
And altars of our tutelary Gods:
And first to thee, Apollo, first to thee,
Whose altar nearest to the palace stands,
And on whose word depends the life of Thebes,
Lest any unconsider'd word against
Thy Minister, revolt thy face from us;
Imploring thee with all the Gods in Heav'n
To help where all of human help is vain.

Chorus
Barb'd with Death, there are among
The gold-enquiver'd arrows hung
About Apollo's shoulder; whence,
As over heav'n his chariot burns
The land he loves to harvest turns,
And cities swell with opulence;
Ev'n so, where yet unexpiated sin
Cries out, or undetected lurks within,
The God his lustre turns to pestilence;
And contrite man must worship and abide,
Till, Nemesis and Justice satisfied,
When men least dream it, one relenting ray—
Oh grant, Apollo, grant it as we pray!—
Strikes through sheer midnight, and lets in the day.

Herald, Iocasta, Chorus.
Her.
Tell me who will among you, men of Thebes,
Which is the palace of King Œdipus,
And, further, if the King himself within.

Cho.
This is the palace; and the King himself
Within; and she that by that altar stands
Offering her garland to the God, his Queen.

Her.
Oh, to the prayer she offers at the shrine
She lays the wreath on, be the God benign!

Ioc.
A Herald! whence, and on what embassy?

Her.
From Corinth, as the message that I bring.

Ioc.
Good may the tidings be where all goes ill.

Her.
If, as things human, not unmix'd with pain,
To you and yours auspicious in the main.

Ioc.
So far so well; but tell me—

Her.
This in sum—
The citizens of Corinth, by my voice,
Proclaim King Œdipus of Thebes their King

Ioc.
Œdipus King of Corinth?

Her.
Even so.

Ioc.
But does not Polybus in Corinth reign?

Her.
No; the long years that kept him on the Throne,
At length have laid him in his father's tomb.

Ioc.
The King of Corinth dead! Polybus dead!
Summon the King! You Oracles of Heaven,
Of what account shall men hereafter hold
Your Ministers—or you? This was the Sire
Whom Œdipus, for fear of slaying, fled,
Now by the common course of Nature dead!

Œdipus, Iocasta, Herald, Chorus.
Œd.
What tidings? Is the man I sent for here?

Ioc.
Not he, but one whose coming shall go far
To make his coming needless. Herald, speak.

Her.
I come from Corinth, by the people there
Charged with a mission to King Œdipus,
Whom, in the room of Polybus now dead,
They call upon to fill the sovereign chair.

Œd.
My father dead?

Ioc.
And by no hand of yours!

Her.
No, nor by any hand but Nature's own,
That lightly rocks, you know, old age to sleep.

Œd.
And this is he whom by the Oracle
From Phœbus his own lips, myself I heard
Foredoom'd to slay—
Yet with whose death I have no more to do
Than leaving him to languish for the son
Whose hand was to have slain him had he stay'd!

Ioc.
Did not I say?

Œd.
But who would not be scared
By such prediction from the God himself—
Of which yet half hangs dark above my head!

Ioc.
This word from Corinth is a Signal-fire
Assuring us that Oracle, half slain,
Must all lie buried in your father's tomb.

Œd.
The agèd King is dead, you tell me, Herald—
But Merope, his Queen?

Her.
Lives, and may live
As one that hath not reached her winter yet;
And longer yet to live if you return,
Whose sudden flight from Corinth neither she
Nor Corinth cease to wonder at, and mourn.

Œd.
Yet, Herald, she herself it was whose love,
That would have held me there, thence banish'd me.

Her.
If one, a simple subject as I am,
Might ask of him he now salutes for King—

Œd.
A Prophecy of Phœbus, from the lips
Of Phœbus' self, and utter'd in these ears,
Involving me in worse calamity
With Merope, my mother, who survives,
Than by my father's death I have escaped.

Her.
I understand not wholly, but thus much,
That 'twas the fear of some mysterious wrong
Against them both which drove you from their side
And from your country.

Œd.
That, and that alone.

Her.
I know not if for better or for worse,
But certainly for strangest, Œdipus,
If now for the first time, and from my lips,
You learn that you are not indeed the son
Of those you fled from in what two-fold fear.

Œd.
You seem a loyal as well-season'd man,
As near in age to him you lately served
As trusted, and I think to me and mine
Well-minded now.

Her.
If not, I had not told
What told I have.

Œd.
And would reiterate?

Her.
By the most solemn oath by which mankind
Adjure the Gods to witness human word.

Œd.
That I am not in very deed the son
Of Polybus, and Merope his Queen?

Her.
No more their son than—might I so dare say—
Than son of mine—and that is, not at all.

Œd.
But was this known in Corinth?

Her.
To none else
Save to the King and Queen themselves, and me.

Œd.
Yet 'twas in Corinth when the cup went round
At table, that a guest once startled me
With a light taunt of somewhat like to that
Which now you gravely tell.

Her.
The random shot
Of idleness, or malice freed by wine,
That sometimes nears the mark.

Œd.
But how was it
That only you beside the King and Queen
Knew for a truth?

Her.
Would Œdipus know all?

Œd.
Yea—on the allegiance you profess to him,
Whom now you have saluted as your King.

Her.
Thus then I know it: for that I alone
Laid you a new-born babe into their hands
Who, childless as they were, and like to be,
Ev'n took what fortune sent them for their own.

Cho.
This man bears stranger tidings from himself
Than from his country he was charged withal.

Œd.
You—and you solely—brought me to their hands—
From whose received me then?

Ioc.
O Œdipus,
When all, beyond all hope, has ended well,
Why tempt the God, still jealous of success,
By questioning the means?

Œd.
I bid you speak!

Her.
You charge me for an answer, Œdipus,
Which, were you not my King who bids me speak,
Yet might resent when spoken—

Œd.
But one word
Of ev'n unwelcome truth from human lip
Were welcome in the night of mystery
That Fate has gather'd round me.

Her.
Listen, then.
Long ere in favour of these whitening locks,
And recompence of faithful service done,
King Polybus had made me what I am,
I was his shepherd; and, upon a time
Keeping my flock upon Kithæron's side,
One of like calling with myself, though not
Of the same country, who that summer through
Had fed his sheep beside me, came one day,
And listening first, and looking all about,
With those rough hands of his he laid in mine
As tenderly as any mother might,
A naked infant—say, some three days born—
And fasten'd foot to foot, like some poor lamb,
Which some one of the land from which he came,
Warm from the bosom of its mother took
To perish on the barren mountain's side,
Of cold and hunger. Which the kindly man
Not finding in himself the heart to do,
But yet as fearful if he left undone,
Gave you—for you, King Œdipus, it was—
The very name you bear, remembering
The pitiful condition of the babe—
Gave you to me, to carry far away
And pitifully cherish for my own
Beyond all search of those who wish'd you dead.
So to his country he, and I to mine:
Which when I reach'd, and to my King and Queen
Show'd them the prettiest lamb of all my flock,
They, whether by some instinct of their own
Inspired, or somewhat royal in the Child
Prophetic of the Man that was to be,
Took, nursed, and rear'd to manhood for their own,
And set beside themselves upon the throne.

Cho.
The Gods upon the mountain-top, men tell,
Do sometimes light, and through the tangled dell,
And forest-shade—

Œd.
A shepherd like yourself,
But not of Corinth. Whence then?

Her.
Thebes, he said,
To which your destiny recall'd you.

Œd.
Thebes!

Ioc.
O Œdipus, by all the Gods in heav'n,
And all that upon earth you hold most dear,
Heed not these stories of the past, patch'd up
By the fallacious memory of old age!

Œd.
He were by nature baser than base-born
Who would not find and follow to its source
The current of the blood by which he lives.
This Shepherd—and from whom took he the child—
Charged with that ruthless errand?

Her.
Either I
With mine own duty busied did not ask,
Or he not answer.

Œd.
But to answer lives?

Her.
Those of his country best can answer that.

Œd.
Does any man of all the people here
Remember such a man?

Cho.
May be the same
Already sent for, who, as I remember,
Like this good Herald, shepherded the flocks
Of Laius, then our Master. But the Queen—

Ioc.
No more! No more! For your sake, Œdipus,
If not for mine—no more!

Œd.
Whatever shame
My birth betray, your blood it cannot taint;
Not were I proved the issue of a sire
Three generations deep in slavery.

Ioc.
Forbear! once more, for one last time, forbear!

Œd.
If aught you know—and your wild looks and words
But argue somewhat than conjecture worse—
At once reveal it all: for ask I will
Till all be answered.

Ioc.
Wretched man! the last
These lips shall ever utter you have heard!

Cho.
She is gone as one distracted. O my Lord,
What should this sudden passion of the Queen
Forbode of ill!

Œd.
Forbode what ill it may,
But I will solve the riddle of my birth.
The Queen belike, of royal birth herself
And haughty-minded as such women are,
Resents her husband's baser parentage;
But I, regardless of the accident
That oft from royal blood provokes a slave,
I do account myself the royal heir
Of Destiny, who found me where I lay,
By man's blind foresight which defeats itself
Cradled to perish on Kithæron's side,
And taking from a simple shepherd's hand,
So laid me in the lap of Royalty,
And through the days and years of human growth
Rear'd to the kingly stature that I am.
And when, affrighted by vain prophecies,
From Corinth, and the throne prepared me there,
I fled, inalienable Destiny
Pursuing drove me but from throne to throne,
Till, doubling back my course to reach my height,
Now Thebes and Corinth claim me for their own.

Chorus.

Œdipus, Shepherd, Herald, Chorus.
Œd.
Whether or not the man we have so long
Been looking after, one at least whose age
Evens with his whose story we have heard.

Cho.
Whether the same of whom the stranger tells
I know not, but the man himself I know
For an old shepherd of King Laius.

Her.
And I for him with whom I shepherded
Upon Kithæron's side so long ago.

Œd.
Approach, old man—still nearer—unafraid;
For nothing but my favour need you fear,
If, looking straight at me, as I at you,
Straightforwardly you answer what I ask.
You, in the days gone by, and long ere Time
Had strewn his silver honour on your head—
You were a servant of King Laius?

Shep.
His servant—not his slave—no less than he,
Myself a freeman of the soil of Thebes.

Œd.
As such I understand; and in that wise,
As a free servant of King Laius,
You kept his flocks?

Shep.
Upon a time I might.

Œd.
And folding them at home in winter-time,
Led them in Summer forth?

Shep.
So shepherds use,
Where'er the more and sweeter pasture grew.

Œd.
And ever on Kithæron's grassy sides
In summer-time, remember you this man,
Old as yourself, keeping his flock with yours?

Shep.
Time that has silver'd, as you say, my locks,
Has somewhat dimm'd both eyes and memory.

Œd.
None older than your fellow-shepherd here,
Who with his locks as silver-touch'd as yours,
Sees, and recalls in you the man of yore.

Shep.
May be; but all men are not all alike,
And he may err as well remembering me,
As I forgetting him.

Her.
Listen to me,
And let my voice, and what it has to tell,
Recall to you the man your eyes do not.
Can you not call to mind, though long ago,
Keeping your flock with one whose flock, like yours,
Grazed on Kithæron, one long summer through—

Shep.
With more than one, may be.

Her.
Nay, but with one
To whom, just as that same long summer closed,
And cold Arcturus warn'd the shepherd home,
You brought a naked infant—

Shep.
Brought? who brought?

Her.
Tied by the feet—

Shep.
What should one know of that?

Her.
Being myself the man you gave it to.

Shep.
Methinks this man, whoever he may be,
And howsoever gifted with good eyes,
Is something weaker in his wits than I,
Recounting all such idle rhapsody.

Œd.
And you, sharp-witted as you are, methinks
Seem looking round about you for escape
In hesitation—but escape shall not.
Look you! Beware!

Shep.
What have I said amiss?

Œd.
Not said, but will not say.

Shep.
What would you have?

Œd.
The babe your fellow-shepherd asks about—
That naked, new-born, ankle-fetter'd babe,
Did not you bring and put into his hands?

Shep.
And would to Heaven had died before I did!

Œd.
And death you shall not have to pray for long,
If, knowing what prevarication proves
You know, you not reveal.

Shep.
And if reveal!
Have you not heard enough?

Œd.
No, if not all.
The babe you put into this shepherd's hands
Was not your own?

Shep.
Oh, not mine own!

Œd.
Then whose?

Shep.
O Œdipus, my master, and my lord!
In mercy question me no more!

Œd.
No more
In mercy if you answer not at once.

Shep.
O me! The terror of your countenance
Scatters what little memory age has left!
What if I found the little helpless thing
There laid alone and none to tell me whose?
Or he from whom I took it knew no more
Than he to whom I gave it?

Œd.
Bind his hands:
The lash must loose the tongue.

Shep.
O Œdipus,
Shame not white hairs!

Œd.
Nay, shame them not yourself
By false prevarication with your King.
That helpless babe—me—Œdipus—your King—
Who gave into your hands?

Shep.
Alas! alas!
One of the household of the King that was!—

Œd.
Slave? Servant? Who?

Shep.
Alas! one now within
Can answer all!

Œd.
Answer yourself then, who?

Shep.
Woe's me! I drift into destruction's mouth!

Œd.
And I with you. But who?

Shep.
Alas! The Queen!

Œd.
The Queen!

Shep.
Ev'n Iocasta's sacred self!

Œd.
But not her own?

Shep.
I said not that—

Œd.
Her own?

Shep.
Yourself have said.

Cho.
The man is turn'd to stone!

[After a silence.]
Œd.
The God of Delphi has revenged himself!
His oracle defied of long ago,
And his insulted prophet's of to-day,
Break in one judgment o'er my head, who now,
Myself sole witness and interpreter,
Divine that half reveal'd is all fulfill'd,
And on myself myself pronounce my doom.

Cho.
O Œdipus, my lord—

Œd.
Speak to me not,
Approach me not, unless at once to slay,
Or thrust with execration from the walls,
The wretch convicted of the double crime
Of parricide, and—Ha! the prophet said
That, ere the Day which all beholds go down,
I shall have look'd my last upon the Sun
Which all accomplishes—and, ere we pass
To darkness, somewhat yet is to be done.

Chorus.

Messenger, Chorus.
Mess.
O venerable Senators of Thebes,
O liege-men of the house of Labdacus,
What shall you hear—what not behold—of such
Pollution in the Palace of your Kings,
Which all the waters in one volume drown'd
Of Nile and Ister could not wash away!

Cho.
What we already have beheld and heard
Were but prophetic of yet worse to come;
Tell us the worst.

Mess.
If breath I have to tell,
If not the worst, the worse that first befell.
The light of Iocasta's life is quench'd!

Cho.
Alas, not strange as terrible! But how?

Mess.
By her own hand; as by my eyes indeed
I cannot, but from others can, avouch,
With such bewilder'd senses as I may—
When, as you witness'd for yourselves, from hence
She fled, and flew distractedly within,
Shrieking, and tearing her grey locks, she ran
Along the echoing walls until she reach'd
The nuptial chamber, shot the bolt within,
And by the affrighted women lock'd without
Was heard calling on ‘Laius, Laius!
Her husband Laius, father of the Son
Who slew, and worse dishonour'd him when dead!’
This, and much more, and much more terrible,
They heard: and then a silence as of death,
Through all the house; till with the sudden yell
As of some wild beast closing on his prey,
King Œdipus along the corridor
With imprecations half articulate,
Fearful to hear—too fearful to relate—
With thrice the force of the mad Herakles
He flung himself against the chamber-door,
And bursting in, to all who dared to look
Disclosed the wretched woman hanging dead.
Whom when he saw, roaring, he sprang upon,
And tearing from the beam flung down aheap,
And spurn'd; and then, most horrible of all,
Wide open tore the raiment from her breast,
From which himself recoiling with a shriek,
He struck the golden clasp into his eyes,
Which having seen such things, henceforth, he said,
Should in the light of Day behold no more
Those whom he loved, nor, in the after-dark
Of Hades, those he loathed, to look upon.
Then rising, blind, and bleeding as he was,
He groped and stagger'd back the way he came,
Vociferating as he went along
That none who would not share the curse with him
Should touch unless to slay him—till he reach'd
The palace-door, and would, methinks, have that,
As of the nuptial chamber, open burst,
Had not King Creon bid them lead him in
Where none henceforth should hear, and none behold,
Till Thebes his fate determine.—All is told.

Chorus.
Oh men of Thebes, this famous man behold,
Who coming here a stranger to the gate,
The Sphinx's fatal riddle did unfold,
And chosen King, as Saviour of the State
So greatly ruled, and rose to such Renown
As not a King but envied: now by Fate
To such a Depth precipitated down
As not a Wretch but may commiserate.
Beholding which, and counsell'd by the wise,
That Nemesis regards with jealous eyes
Man's over-much, and at his elbow stands
To shake the full cup in the steadiest hands,
Deem not the wisest of To-morrow sure,
Nor fortunate account him till he dies.

II. PART II
ŒDIPUS AT ATHENS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

• Œdipus.
• Antigone . . . . . his Daughter.
• Polynices . . . . . his Son.
• Creon of Thebes.
• Theseus . . . . . King of Athens.
• An Athenian Citizen.
• An Athenian Messenger.
• Herald from Thebes.
• Chorus of Athenian Elders.

Scene: A road near Athens, bordered by the Sacred Grove of the Eumenides.
Œdipus, Antigone
Œd.
The dawn which breaks not on my sightless eyes
Salutes my forehead with reviving warmth:
Here let us rest awhile, Antigone,
From this brief travel stol'n by fear from night.
But know you whither it hath led us, and
Among what strangers, who from charity
Shall with sufficient for the day provide
For one with less than little satisfied?

Ant.
I know from one who cross'd us in the dusk,
With steps as hurried as our own, the land
Is Attica.

Œd.
Ay, I remember now.

Ant.
And not far off I see the shining walls
And marble temple-fronts, and citadel,
As of some stately city: and the place
We stand on, as for some peculiar use
Sequester'd from the daily track of men,
Where a pure rill of water rambles through
Untrampled herbage, overshaded all
With laurel, and with olive, poplar-topt,
As you may guess from many a nightingale
About us warbling, well assured of home.

Œd.
And might not, haply, some poor hunted thing,
With but a sorry burden for his song,
Here, too, some breathing-while of refuge find?

Ant.
And in good time comes of the country one
Who shall advise us, lest, as strangers here,
We trespass on the usages of those
To whom we look for shelter and support. Enter an Athenian.

O stranger—

Ath.
Hush! Before another word—
Where ev'n a word unlawful—how much more
With the soil'd foot of Travel trespassing
On consecrated ground!

Œd.
I yet dare ask
Whether to Deity, or Demigod,
Thus consecrate?

Ath.
To Deity, and such
As least of all will Men's intrusion brook
Within their hallow'd precincts.

Œd.
Who be they?

Ath.
None other but those awful Sisters Three,
Daughters of Earth and Darkness.

Œd.
By what name
Invoked of men?

Ath.
By whatsoever name
Elsewhere invoked, here, with averted eyes,
And with an inward whisper—‘The Benign.’

Œd.
Benign then, as their name and nature is
To those who suffer and who do no wrong,
May they receive the sightless suppliant, who,
By no false Insight, howbeit unaware,
Within their Sanctuary first setting foot,
Alive shall never leave it but to die.

Ath.
Your words I understand not; but I know,
Whether to live or die, depart you must.

Œd.
But what, if rather fearing unjust Man
Than the just God, and those same awful Three,
If stern to guilt, not unbenign to me,
I leave their hallow'd refuge?

Ath.
Nay, for that
The land itself is dedicated all
To God or Demigod, who, Just themselves,
Protect and vindicate the Just: for here
Poseidon rules, the Master of the Seas,
And there Prometheus, with his torch of Life;
The ground about us glories in the name
Of King Colonus of the Horse; and this
Same highway running by the Sacred Grove
Leads to the City and the Citadel
Surnamed of Her who keeps them for her own.

Œd.
As such I do salute her!—And the King
That, under her, her chosen people rules—

Ath.
Theseus, the son of Ægeus, and, like him,
Though mortal yet, almost the Demigod.

Œd.
Theseus, the son of Ægeus,—ay, I know
And know indeed that no delusive light
Led me to him with whom I have to do.
Shall one among your fellow-citizens
Bear your King word from one who once was King,
And who, unkinglike as his presence now,
Can tell him that which, if he hearken to,
Shall, for a little service done to me,
Do to his kingdom and himself much more?

Ath.
Strange as the message from so strange a man,
Yet shall King Theseus hear of it. Meanwhile,
If in despite of warning and advice
You still refuse to leave this holy ground,
I, that am but a simple citizen,
Dare not enforce; but forthwith shall apprize
Those of the City who shall deal with you,
As in their wisdom best they shall advise.

Œdipus, Antigone.
Œd.
Is he departed?

Ant.
We are all alone.

Œd.
Daughters of Earth and Darkness! In whose womb
Unborn till Sovereign Order the new World
From Chaos woke, yourselves you still secrete,
With those three Fatal Sisters who the thread
Of Human Life do spin among the Dead,
While you the scourge of human Wrong prepare;
If peradventure with unlicensed feet
The consecrated earth I have profaned,
That veils your Presence from this upper air,
Renounce me not: no, nor in me the God
Who destined, nor the God who prophesied,
That, after drifting the blind wreck I am
About the world, a Horror to Mankind,
Within the Temple of that Triple wrath
That Nemesis unyoked to scourge me down,
At last the haven of my rest should find;
If satisfied at last be wrath Divine,
And men err not who name its ministers,
Though not without a shudder—‘The Benign,’
Let your avenging Justice, that so long
Hath chased the guiltless instrument of Wrong,
Here grant him rest until the Power whose throne
You dwell beside in Darkness give the sign.

Chorus, Œdipus, Antigone.
Cho.
These are the strangers—this the sightless man,
And this the maiden that he told us of,
Who impiously this consecrated ground
Have ventured to profane.

Œd.
Not impiously,
But ignorantly, who first setting foot
Upon this alien soil—

Cho.
But impiously,
When warn'd upon what consecrated ground,
With honey-flowing waters running through
The inviolable herbage still persist—
A stranger too, where no Athenian born,
Not only dares not enter, but pass by
Save with averted eyes, and inward prayer,
That holy lips scarce dare articulate.

Ant.
We must obey them, Father, as we should,

Œd.
You will not, if I quit the Sanctuary,
Do, nor let others do me violence?

Cho.
Fear not the wrath of men, but that of those
Who watch you through the soil which you profane.

Œd.
But who, if of their counsel more you knew,
As sooner than you look for know you may,
Would not resent, as you, the wrong I do them.
Meanwhile, on no worse usage than from them
Relying when committed to your hands—
Lead me, Antigone.

Cho.
Till you have pass'd
The bound of sequestration—further yet—
And yet a little further—so, enough.
There, travel-wearied, and, perchance, in years
Well stricken, rest upon the bank awhile.
But, ere I bid you welcome to the land
Whose sanctity your foot at first profaned,
Tell who you are, and whence.

Œd.
To tell you ‘Who’
Would tell you all: and if I hesitate—

Cho.
Not to declare your country and your name
Augurs but evil for yourself or it.

Œd.
You of that City have heard tell, whose walls
To Music rose, and whose Inhabitants,
From the sown Dragon's teeth sprung up arm'd men?

Cho.
Of Thebes? Ay, much of olden times, and of
The worse than Dragon Sphinx that in our day
The Dragon seed devour'd.

Œd.
And of the man
Who slew that worse than Dragon—

Cho.
Œdipus!
As by the signal of those sightless eyes,
And lingering self-avowal, I divine—

Œd.
Revolt not from me.

Cho.
And for You! for You—
May be, the monster most unnatural—
To set your foot upon the holiest spot
Of this all-consecrated Athens! You!
Who, were your very presence not enow
Contamination to the land, and shame,
May bring on us the plague you left at Thebes!
I should not wrong a promise half implied
If with these hands I tore you from the Land
Your impious presence doubly violates,
Where e'en the guiltless dare not enter—Hence!
Begone! Pollute our land no more! Begone!

Ant.
O men of Athens! if you will not hear
My Father pleading for himself, hear me,
Not for myself, but for my Father pleading,
As to a Father, by the love you bear
The Daughter by yon Altar-hearth at home,
And by the Gods we worship as yourselves.

Cho.
Daughter, the Gods whom you adjure us by,
Repudiating Œdipus from Thebes,
From Athens also do repudiate.

Œd.
O then of Fame that blows about the world
The praise of men and nations, what the worth,
If Athens—Athens, through the world renown'd
For hospitable generosity—
Athens, who boasts the power as much as will
To save and succour the misfortunate—
If she that honour forfeit at your hands,
Who, from the very horror of my name,
And shapeless rumour of the terrible things
Which I have suffer'd, rather than have done,
Would thrust me from the Sanctuary forth
Of those whose law you violate no less
By broken Faith, than with unwary foot
Did I their consecrated soil transgress?
One, too, that howsoe'er you know it not,
Ev'n with the Ban that drives him from his own
Carries a Blessing with him to the Land
That shall accept him, and a Curse to those
Who, being his, henceforth shall be their foes.
All which, unto my inward eye as clear
As yonder Sun that shines in Heav'n to yours,
I shall reveal to him who governs here,
If hearing he deny me not. Meanwhile,
I do adjure you, by those Deities
Whose Sanctuary you have drawn me from,
Do me no violence; remembering
That, if Benign they be, Avengers too,
As of all outraged Law, so not the less
Of violated hospitality.

Cho.
We have discharged ourselves in warning you,
And to King Theseus, whom you summon'd here,
Your cause and self henceforward we commit
To deal with, and adjudge as seems him fit.

Theseus, Œdipus, Antigone, Chorus
Thes.
I have been hither summon'd at the call
Of one from whom, 'twas said, the light of Day
Together with his Kingdom pass'd away:
And, knowing of one such, and one alone,
Reported in the roll of living men,
Nor uninstructed in the destiny
Which from the glory it had raised him to
Precipitated to a depth so low,
Amid the ruin of this fallen man
I know that Œdipus of Thebes is he.
I too remember when like him forlorn,
I wandered friendless in a foreign land,
And with an alien people much endured:
And, had I always been what now I am,
Yet none the less by what myself have known
Than by the records of Mankind, aware
That, howsoever great a King To-day,
No surer of To-morrow than yourself;
Therefore whatever Athens or her King
Of hospitable service can supply,
Let him demand: for much indeed it were
For Œdipus to ask and me withhold.

Œd.
O Theseus, if indeed the King I was
Look through the ruin of the wretch I am,
No less doth full assurance of a King,
Although to these quench'd eyes insensible,
Breathe through the generous welcome of your word,
And ere of my necessities I tell,
Assure me of the boon as yet unask'd.
For the detested story of my life,
Unask'd, you know it—whence, and what I was,
To what catastrophe reserved you see—
Yet not so ignominious to myself,
No, nor to Athens so unprofitable,
Will you but listen, and do that for me,
Which, howsoever strange from lips like mine,
Is sure as Fate itself, as Fate it is.

Thes.
Doubt not, however strange, whether or not
To Athens profitable, if to you,
What Œdipus demands shall Theseus do.

Œd.
But profitable shall it be to both,
Unless the Spokesman of Futurity
From Delphi shall have prophesied a lie:
For this unsightly remnant of a king—
Though while it breathes a burden to us both,
But when the breath is out of it, to be
More serviceable to you than good looks—
I do consign to you for sepulture
Under the walls that, as they shelter'd me
While living, after death will I defend.

Thes.
But of the life you have to live between
This hour and that why take you no account?

Œd.
No; for the life between this hour and that
In that sepulture is provided for.

Thes.
You ask an easy favour at my hands,
Whether for life or death.

Œd.
Nevertheless,
May be, to promise easier than to do.

Thes.
How so?

Œd.
Those loving friends of mine in Thebes,
Who would not when I pray'd them, now, perforce,
If not per-suasion, when myself would not,
Will have me back with them.

Thes.
And what if Thebes,
Relenting, or repenting, Œdipus—

Œd.
O, not repenting or relenting, Thebes,
But by an Oracle of Phœbus scared,
Which told them that unless they get me home,
To live what Life they leave me, and, when dead,
Lie tomb'd outside—outside, I say—their Gates
They shall not thrive in war against the foe,
Whose walls shall overshadow what they lose.
As Thebes shall find should ever strife arise
Between herself and Athens, if their King
Vouchsafe me that which I have ask'd of him.

Thes.
But Thebes and Athens, friendly powers of old,
What quarrel should arise to make them foes?

Œd.
O Son of Ægeus! to the Gods alone
Belongs immunity from Change and Death:
All else doth all controlling Time confound.
Earth waxes old: and all that from her womb
She brings to light upon her bosom dies,
And all is mutability between.
Ev'n so with Man, who never at one stay,
No less in mind than body changeable,
Likes what he liked not, loathes where once he loved,
And then perchance to liking turns again.
And as with man, with Nation none the less.
If now with Thebes and Athens all look fair,
Yet Time his furrow'd track of Night and Day
Pursues, wherein some grain of Discord dropt,
Perhaps no bigger than an idle word,
That shall infect his kindly Brotherhood,
And ripen'd Amity to rancour turn.
As one day—for I prophesy—shall be,
When my cold ashes underneath these walls
Shall drink the warm blood of my enemies—
Ev'n as they might upon this quarrel now,
Had Thebes not other foe to deal withal.

Thes.
Rumour hath reach'd us of some warlike stir.
But on what quarrel—

Œd.
Thebes against herself.
For those two sons of mine, who for so long
In the Egyptian fashion, as I thought,
Kept house, and did the women's work within,
Now, full adult in arrogance and pride,
Assert their sex to quarrel for the throne
From which they banish'd me: Eteocles
The younger, with the subtle Creon's aid,
Not only seizes first, but yet withholds
The sceptre from his elder brother's hand;
Who, as by sure intelligence I learn,
Hath fled to Argos, and so cunningly
Made good his cause, that King Adrastus there
Gives him his daughter's hand in marriage, and
Along with her, by way of royal dower,
A host in arms that shall reconquer Thebes,
And set my elder son upon—my Throne.
And now by Phœbus' Oracle forewarn'd
That Victory no less within my Tomb
Shall live than in what now survives of me,
And fearful now of what they wish'd before,
Lest any day should find, where they might not,
Their victim, less by years than by the load
Of shame and woe they laid upon him, dead,
They dog my steps like vultures on the track
Of gathering battle, and the sharpest scent
May even now be close upon my heels.

Cho.
Whether with Argos Thebes for war prepares,
Behold a Herald, from whatever land
I know not, as a messenger of Peace
To Athens, with that Olive in his hand.

Enter Herald from Thebes.
Her.
Creon of Thebes by mine his Herald's voice
To Theseus, King of Athens, greeting sends,
Craving from him due licence to confer
With Œdipus, the King of Thebes that was,
Now by report upon Athenian soil—

Œd.
Oh, I forefelt his coming in the wind!—

Her.
Until which licence granted by the King,
With a small retinue he waits aloof
Before advancing to the City's wall.

Thes.
Your King does well; and to his courtesy
With a like greeting Athens shall reply.

Œd.
Oh, let no greeting made to him impeach
What first vouchsafed to me!

Thes.
Fear not for that:
The courtesy which courtesy returns
No less leaves Œdipus sole arbiter
To grant or to refuse what Thebes demands.

Œd.
If so, this Herald need not tarry long,
Nor overtax his memory with the word
That I shall freight him with.

Thes.
And yet methinks
That e'en from lips he loves not Œdipus
Might hear a word that should send up the scale
Which now so down against his Country weighs.
What once you heard, if when you heard it true
May, by the changing Time and Circumstance
Of which you tell me, now be Truth no more.

Œd.
More false than Creon Falsehood cannot be.
O Theseus, one of heart and speech yourself,
You know not what the double tongue can do.

Thes.
Nay, but the tongue which you so much distrust
Will have to deal not with myself but you,
Who know the man, and how to sift the word,
As once of one more cunning than himself.
And for all other argument than word,
Myself and Athens are engaged for that.

Œd.
Be't so—vouchsafe but to be here yourself,
As Witness and as Judge between us both,
And you shall hear the Truth from those false lips
Wrung out, which had been told you by the true,
Had not that busy Herald interposed
His olive leaf between yourself and me.

Thes.
Witness I may be, but of neither Judge
In that which but concerns yourself and Thebes.
But, whichsoever way the scale may turn,
Not Judgment's self, save from the God's own lip,
Against your will shall move you from my side.
Meanwhile, within the City, Œdipus,
With such observance as becomes myself
With me abide this meeting.

Œd.
Ill beseems
The mendicant demurring at the hand
That but too generously deals with him.
But the prophetic voice of Destiny,
That led me hither, will not let me hence,
Till he have giv'n the signal to be gone.

Thes.
Be't as you will; with these good men abide
Secure, as in my promise, which I call
The Power beside whose sacred grove we stand
To witness, as I pledge it with my hand.

Œd.
Theseus, ere this the Gods whom you adjure
Themselves had sworn by Fate the fore-decreed
Requital of that generosity
Which no requital looks for; and I know
That even now, escaping through their hands,
The Blessing strives to anticipate the Deed.

Cho.
But, that no evil influence thwart its way,
And to propitiate that jealous Power
Whose Sanctuary you at first profaned—
You, Œdipus, and you, whose pious hand
Leading him wrong, like expiation need—
Returning to the consecrated shade
Of one that in its inmost shadow dwells,
Its dedicated Priest and Minister,
The ceremonial he enjoins obey,
First, by lustration in the sacred stream;
Then to the sacred Earth, whereunder keep
Those Three Benign ones ever on the watch,
Thrice three libations from three vessels pour—
Or honey mix'd with water, but no wine:
Which when the forest-shaded Earth has supp'd,
Upon her bosom olive wands thrice three
Lay with a prayer within the lips suppress'd;
And then, with unreverting eyes to us
Returning, wait in confidence the rest.

Chorus.

Theseus, Œdipus, Creon, Antigone, Chorus.
Thes.
Son of Menœceus, of the realm of Thebes,
A Ruler, and its Representative;
Your peaceful advent by your Herald's voice
Duly proclaim'd as much from me demands
Of courteous welcome and acknowledgment.
The purport of your mission to this Land
Yourself have told me, as foretold by him,
Who, till to-day a stranger like yourself,
And by no Herald like yourself announced,
Yet once a King, is still a King to me.
And at his bidding am I present now,
Not as a Judge between you to decide
A question that concerns yourselves alone,
But to hear that which, though he needs it not,
Should justify that honour at my hands
Which his ill Fate has forfeited in Thebes;
And as a King in Athens to remain,
If by persuasion or just argument
You fail to move him ev'n to reign with you.

Cre.
O Theseus, Son of Ægeus, and still more
Than Ægeus' self about the world proclaim'd,
Slayer of the fiery-breathing Minotaur,
And hordes of Men than one such monster worse:
The Monarch of a State, if any in Greece,
In men and means abounding, of the Gods
Observant, and of Justice to Mankind,
With your world-famous Areopagus,
No less for Wisdom than for Arms renown'd,
Like Her whose tutelary name you boast.
On what a peaceful mission I am come,
My Herald first, and the small retinue
That follows me, sufficiently declare:
To trespass not on foreign Land or Law—
No, nor on his who, having found his way,
Hath found a home on this Athenian soil;
But whom, with what fair argument I may
Of Kindred and of Country, I would fain,
However royally entreated here,
Persuade with me back to his home again.

Cho.
You know the man, though, haply, not the man
He was, whom now you are to deal withal.

Cre.
Therefore to him will I address myself,
In words as few and unrhetorical
As simple Truth needs to be clothed withal
In summing a momentous question up:
Praying the Goddess underneath whose shade
We here are standing to direct them home.
O Œdipus! my Brother—once my King—
And King once more to be, will you but hear
What for myself, and with me Thebes, I speak;
Sore wearied both under this long divorce
From one that once the Saviour was of all,
Under a judgment which your evil Fate
Prepared, yourself invoked on your own head,
And Thebes must execute if Thebes would live.
But as no judgment wrought by human hand,
And most to him that suffers from the blow,
But of the shaking hand that dealt it tells—
What of misdeed, or of misfortune what,
Suffer'd or done—unwittingly by you
Done, and by Thebes unwillingly redress'd—
Behold at last, by Fate's accomplishment,
The Oracles of Phœbus justified,
The Gods by expiation of the Curse
Appeased, and Thebes once more herself again,
Like one recover'd from a mortal throe,
And fain to fold him to her heart once more
Who saved her once, and yet a second time
Who sacrificed himself that she might live;
Your Country reaches out beseeching arms,
Land over land, until she finds you here,
Among a People, with a King alike
In hospitality renown'd as arms,
But, welcome and entreat you as they may,
Who cannot be to you, nor you to them,
As Œdipus to Thebes, or Thebes to him.
Wherefore I do beseech you, Œdipus,
By all the ties that man to man endear
Of kindred and of country; by all those
That King to People bind, as them to him:
Yea, by the God, who, for a secret end
That Man not fathoms, having parted them,
Now, reconciled himself, would reconcile;
Be all that erring Man on either side
Hath done amiss forgotten as forgiv'n,
And Œdipus and Thebes as one again.
Look! I, more burden'd than yourself by years;
And, little as you think it, like yourself
Bow'd down with execution of the Doom
Whereunder you now labour self-condemn'd,
With long and weary travel have I come,
Half fearful of less prosperous return,
Imploring you, if I cannot persuade
With argument that shall commend itself,
If not to you, to those you trust in here,
Yet in the eyes of Athens shame me not
By sending empty-handed back to Thebes.

Cho.
The Man has spoken: and to us it seems
In well-consider'd word, King Œdipus,
And temper that invites a like reply.

Œd.
Temper and word so well consider'd, friends,
That, unaccustom'd as I long have been
To civil greeting till I lighted here,
And haply not the man I was to guess
The well-consider'd word—But thus it runs:
That, satisfied at length with all the shame
And beggary Thebes condemn'd and left me to,
To expiate the crime—

Cre.
I said not that—

Œd.
On which just Judgment done—though, by the way,
Granting the Judgment just, I yet might ask
If you, my kinsman, and those sons of mine,
Must needs become its executioner?

Cre.
To Greece do I appeal if you yourself
On your own head drew not the Judgment down
Which Fate decreed and Phœbus prophesied,
And upon which the People's Being hung;
And which who but the People's Magistrate,
Kinsman or other, needs must execute?

Œd.
By setting on the rabble pack of Thebes
To yelp me through the gates? But let that pass:
For now the rabble pack, to make amends,
Send those who set them on to hunt me back.

Cre.
If you will have it so, so must it be:
So but to good result on either side.

Œd.
Yet somewhat late amends on yours, I think,
Whether by People or by Magistrate:
Who, when the Plague by ceasing long ago
Proved Expiation duly made by me,
And I myself, worn with the load of shame
I bore about with me among strange men,
Cried out to lay my weary burden down—
Were't with my life—among mine own once more,
Then would you not to my entreaty grant
What, unbesought, you come beseeching now.

Cre.
The People, panic-stricken with the storm
That, having made such havoc in their ranks,
Had scarcely pass'd, still dreaded its return.

Œd.
And prithee, Creon, how recomforted,
And to my presence reconciled at last?

Cre.
The Magistrates whom you so much distrust,
Adding the voice of their authority
To theirs who by their sacred ministry
The will of Heaven divine—

Œd.
Teiresias still!
Whose refluent years against the base itself
Of Delphi breaking shiver out of sight?
Ay, he it was who with its breath surcharged,
First trumpeted me forth; and now perhaps,
When other Augury and Omen fail'd
People and Magistrate to reassure,
By some new summons from the Delphian shrine,
Hath quicken'd Thebes to reconciliation
By something stronger than regretful Love.

Cre.
What mean you, Œdipus?

Œd.
No more but this;
That, as I wander'd—not so long ago—
About the world begging my daily bread,
A little wind from Delphi wandering too
Came up with me, and whisper'd in my ears
That, unless Thebes should have me back again,
She would not thrive in arms against the foe
That even then was knocking at her doors.

Cre.
I scarcely thought the selfsame Œdipus,
Who scarce would heed Apollo's Prophet once,
Should for a Prophet's take the wandering voice
Of rumour in the wind.

Œd.
And, did I not,
As, spite of taunt, now better taught, I do,
The pious Creon never fail'd in faith,
And by his presence here and now attests
That wandering voice from Delphi told me true:
And somewhat more. For, to be plain with you,
Another wind, that not from Delphi blew,
But somehow slipping through your city gates,
Whisper'd how Thebes, of that same Oracle
From Delphi self-assured, but not the less,
Despite of Augur and of Soothsayer,
Still apprehensive of my presence there,
Would have me back—would have me back indeed,
Not while I lived to fold me to her heart
With those beseeching arms you tell me of,
But at arm's length—outside the city walls—
Like some infectious leper there to bide
Till Death, which surely could not come too fast,
And might perchance be quicken'd if too slow,
Even in death dishonour'd as in life,
Should safely hide me in the ground below.

Cre.
What! has some traitor been deluding you
With some swoll'n rumour of the market-place?

Œd.
Traitor to you, as true to me, but not
To you more traitor than to you yourself,
If, as I think, who cannot see your face—
I thank the Gods I cannot—but those here
Shall witness where the startled countenance
Convicts the false denial of the tongue.

Cre.
Ev'n were that babbling traitor's word as true
As he is false, I see not Œdipus
Much otherwise among his new friends here,
Than among those he counts for foes at home.

Œd.
You see not, for you know not how ere long—
How soon I know not, but not long, I know—
What others here now witness, standing round,
And some you see not watching underground,
Why from this spot, by which I first set foot,
I would not—no, not to be seated by
King Theseus' side in his Acropolis,
I would not move until I went to die.
Whether or no you guess my mystery,
Enough! you see I have unravell'd yours.
Begone! You lose but time and tongue—Begone!
And tell your people this on your return:
That, were the word from Delphi, and the word
From Thebes as false as you pretend it—yea,
False as yourself—I would not back with you;
No—not were all the Dragon brood of Thebes,
From the first armèd harvest of the teeth
That ancient Cadmus sow'd the field withal
Raised from the dust to join the living host
Who yell'd me forth—all these, and all the way
From Thebes to Athens grovelling at your heels
Back would I not with you—no, not to reign
Enthroned among them as I was before,
Much less a tainted leper like to lie
Outside your walls while living, and, when dead,
There huddled under as a thing accursed,
Save for the Victory that within me lies,
And shall but quicken as the body dies.
No; the same answer that I make to you,
Take home with you to all: on this same spot
Of earth, which now I stand a beggar on,
Beside this consecrated Grove, in which
By no delusive Inspiration drawn
I first set foot—I say, my Throne is here,
Deep-based as Hades, fix'd as Fate itself;
And this poor staff I long have lean'd upon
The Sceptre, wherewith from the world beneath
I shall direct the issues of the war
That shall determine wingèd Victory
To settle on the Land where tomb'd I lie.

Cre.
Theseus, in vain to reason with a man,
Still more the slave that evermore he was
Of Passion which inveterates with years;
Suspecting even those who mean him well,
As once myself; and when, to his own cost,
Falsely he found, as with such men it fares,
He first injustice justifies by worse.
Therefore to you, King Theseus, and to these
Grave Councillors of Athens, I appeal:
And, irrespective of the ties that bind
All men to kith and country, but which he,
Despite all loving offer on their side,
Irreconcilably repudiates—ask,
If that same Oracle which he pretends
By some vague rumour reach'd his ears say true,
And that victorious power, as he pretends,
Be lodged in him, whether alive or dead—
Is he not bound, reluctant though he be,
With his returning presence to requite
The deadly mischief which it wrought before?—
A Pestilence so terrible to Thebes
As almost to extermination thinn'd
Her people, and yet leaves but half array'd
Against the foe now knocking at her doors.
For such a foe we have to deal withal—
Adrastus, King of Argos, who, by this
Man's son, and by his own ambition, led,
Has, with some several powers allied with him,
Raised such a Force as threatens to destroy
What little life the Father left in Thebes,
And either to reconquer and there reign,
Or raze our sacred ramparts to the dust.
And on that second count I ask again—
Whether, if that wing'd Victory do indeed
Abide with him, he be not doubly bound,
By now submission to his country's will
To counter-expiate his son's revolt,
While for past wrong atoning for himself?
And furthermore I ask, would it beseem
A King and People wise and just as this,
If not with Thebes confederate, not her Foe,
Who, disregarding, as I know you do,
All visionary profit for yourselves,
Would not escape that censure in men's eyes,
Withholding—nay, before those jealous eyes
Upholding—one who, for his sake—still more
For hers who innocently shares the shame—
Were better in the bosom of his own
To veil the remnant of a life defaced
If not by Crime—yet by Calamity
So crime-akin—so terrible—twofold—
Of Parricide and—

Œd.
Shameless villain, hold
Who in the compass of this brief appeal
Before these reverend Elders and their King,
Dare show the double face and double tongue
For which of old you were notorious:
First with fair honey-sweet cajoling words
Seeking to entice; and, when the honey fail'd,
Intimidating with unsheathèd sting,
As impotent to wound as that to win.
Intimidate, I say—not me alone,
But this great People and their Sovereign,
Who dare, forsooth, who dare between us stand
With talk—O not of Crime forsooth—but of
Calamity so crime-like—'twas the word—
So cunningly confused, that when at first
You came, propitiation on your tongue,
The word of pity floated on the top,
But when that fail'd, then Crime came uppermost,
And Crime left ringing in this people's ears.
Lest which—albeit but empty breath, I know,
To good King Theseus, and his Councillors,
But with the Citizens, less well advised,
Ring out the old alarm that shall again—
And let it!—rouse the cry of baffled Thebes,
I will arrest, and from denial false,
Or the less guilty silence of consent,
Convict you once for all, and let you go.
Was't not predicted, ev'n before my birth,
By Phœbus, Fate's unerring Oracle,
That I should slay my father? And the God
Provided for his own accomplishment,
Ev'n by the very means that father took
To wrench out of my hands his destiny,
As old Kithæron wots of to this hour.
For Fate, that was not to be baffled thus,
And Phœbus, that was not to be forsworn,
There found and rear'd me till my arm was strong
To do the execution they fore-doom'd.
Yea, on the very road King Laius
Again was going to that Oracle
He fondly dream'd—as afterward his son
More vainly bragg'd—of having foil'd before,
I met—I smote—I slew—my Father—yes—
And you, before this presence, answer me!
If one you knew not save that King he were,
Upon the public thoroughfare of men
Had struck you, no less royal than himself;
Would you, sedate and pious as you are,
In youth and courage strong as I was then—
Would you have paused to think whether, in all
The roll of human possibility
The man who smote you might not in his veins
Have running blood akin to that in yours,
Or, in the sudden wrath of self-defence,
Retaliated with a counter-blow?
Yea! as the very Father whom I slew,
Could his voice reach us though the earth between,
Would ev'n now bear me witness, as he shall
When I rejoin him in the world below;
That, howsoever for the world's behoof,
The Gods, albeit with pitying eyes from heaven,
Chastise the guiltless instruments of crime
For which they know that Fate is chargeable,
They look not with a like compassion down
Upon those mortal agents of their doom
Who, with a vengeance more implacable,
Pursue and persecute—ay, let it be
The Parricide!—The Parricide!—
And for that yet more terrible mischance
That follow'd—and for which yourselves in Thebes
Were, under Destiny, responsible—
All shameless as thou art, art not ashamed
Before an alien People and their King
To breathe—as breathe thou wert about to do
Had not I swept it from thy lips unsaid
The Word which not myself alone involves,
But one—whose Memory Thou least of all
Shouldst have untomb'd—involves, I say, in that
Which unaware to have done is less shame
Than with aforethought malice to proclaim!

Cho.
If to King Creon Reason heretofore
Seem'd choked in wrath, 'tis not to wonder now
That, with this burst of Fury overwhelm'd,
He leaves in silence Theseus to reply.

Thes.
Albeit on either side appeal'd to now,
And whichsoever way myself inclined,
I shall not from my former purpose swerve;
To stand as Witness, not as Arbiter,
Between two Princes of an alien land,
Whereof one yet is Ruler, and though fall'n
From rule the other, still a King to me.
To whom, first coming to the land I rule,
I pledged an oath by those Eumenides
Beside whose sanctuary e'en now we stand,
That if Persuasion and fair Argument
Should fail with him,—as fail'd it has, you see,
Nor less with her, who, wedded to his fate,
Clings all the closer to her father's side—
No power but Heav'n's should move him from my land.
And therefore, heedless what the world may say,
Well knowing that my hospitality
To no remoter self-advantage looks,
I should not—even if not engaged by oath—
I should not from my plighted promise swerve.

Cre.
I may not, were I minded—I, with these
Few followers—in the teeth of Athens arm'd,
Arraign the adverse judgment of their King;
But to the courteous welcome I have met,
Reciprocating with a like farewell,
Must to my people leave on my return
How minded, and how temper'd, to receive
This unforeseen denial of their right.

Thes.
That you shall settle with your friends at home;
And in what temper and to what result
Among yourselves decided and declared,
Thebes shall not find our Athens unprepared.

Chorus

Œdipus, Antigone, Messenger, Chorus.
Mes.
Where is King Œdipus?

Cho.
Behold him here.

Mes.
King Œdipus, Theseus, of Athens King,
Hath sent me back with this report full speed:
That Creon with a cloud of armèd men
Whom we found ambush'd on a neighbouring height,
Without encounter, but with lowering brows,
And muttered thunder of Revenge to come,
Broke up and blew away the way they came.

Œd.
The Gods be praised, and Theseus blest withal!

Mes.
Who bids me tell you further what myself
Did also witness; that, as we returned,
Before Poseidon's Altar by the way,
Whereat we stay'd to sacrifice and pray,
A strange man, as with distant travel worn,
And low beneath a load of sorrow bow'd,
By that same Altar they both worshipp'd at
Besought a boon of Theseus; and, when ask'd
His country, name, and parentage replied,
From Argos—

Œd.
Argos!

Mes.
But himself, he said,
The Son of Œdipus, once King of Thebes,
Whom, ere he went to conquer and retrieve
By arms the throne usurp'd from both in Thebes,
With many tears King Theseus he besought
To see, perchance before he went to die:
And Theseus, moved by pity for the man,
And reverence for the shrine by which he pray'd—

Œd.
I will not see him!

Cho.
Nay, consider yet;
As by the sacred earth you stand beside
From Theseus welcome for yourself you found,
So by the shrine at which with Theseus pray'd
Your son, refuse not what to Creon granted
Of hearing and reply.

Mes.
So pray'd the King.

Ant.
Oh, Father, young and maiden as I am,
Unfit to lift my voice among these men,
Yet hear me—if not for my brother's sake,
May be less guilty than you now believe,
Or if yet guilty, not impenitent,
Who comes to plead forgiveness at your feet—
If not for his sake, Father, yet for mine—
Let me but see my brother's face once more,
And hear his voice, before he goes to die.

Œd.
You know not what you ask, Antigone;
But thus by Theseus at the altar's side
Entreated, let what has to be be done,
And leave me to such peace as may be mine.

Cho.
And yonder, lo! the solitary man
Comes slowly weeping hither.

Ant.
Oh, my brother!

Cho.
Approach, unhappy man, approach, and plead
Your sorrows, and, as you deserve, succeed.

Polynices, Œdipus, Antigone, Chorus.
Pol.

(After a long pause.)
Œd.
Hath this man said all he came charged to say?

Cho.
So from the unruffled silence into which
His words have fall'n and vanish'd I conceive.

Œd.
But that the Sovereign Ruler of this Land
Had sent this man to me, and thought it well
That I should hear and answer, hear I might,
But not a word of answer from my lips:
No, nor a sign, save with averted face,
And one blind warning of the hand—‘Begone!’
But thus entreated, by the word of one
Whose word should be the law of Love to me,
And of the friendly Council here beside,
I will not only hear, but will reply—
Such a reply as he that asks for it
Shall wish he had not come so far to hear.
Who—Wretch!—who when thou hadst the sovereign power,
Which now thy Brother to himself usurps,
Then—not cajoled nor forced, as you pretend—
For was not I, the Victim, Witness too?—
But, one with them, didst set the rabble on
To hoot me forth to shame and beggary;
Yea, when, not like yourselves implacable,
The God allow'd and I besought return,
Still shut me out, and, but to serve your ends,
Still would have let me linger till I died
In a strange country, and in such a plight
As now, forsooth, you weep to look upon!
Thou hypocrite! with those pretended tears
Of false contrition, which, were't true, too late,
Think'st to cajole me with a show of Love—
Ay, of such Love wherewith a man regards
The tool he needs to work his purpose with,
And forthwith fling regardlessly away,
Laying on those the load of infamy
Thou sharèdst with them of the royal spoil
They stole from me, and now, like other thieves,
Would keep between themselves, outwitting thee,
Who, them outwitting, to thyself wouldst keep?
Oh Fool as Hypocrite! suspecting not
How that most cunning rogue of all the three
Has been before you, and the mask you wear,
But that, behind it playing such a part
In his mid passion he was forced to drop,
And, as he fled discomfited away,
Left you to wear, and to a like result.
Fools both, as Hypocrites! suspecting not
That he you would deceive your errand knows,
Each to win back the stolen stakes you lost—
The Kingdom once without the King, but now
The King himself to bring the Kingdom back;
Who, flung before as offal from your walls,
Is now become a treasure of such price
As each of you would fain get home again,
Like stolen treasure—to be buried there.
You see I know your errand: if you fail
To guess my answer—
One way lies Argos, and another Thebes,
Which those tired feet might fail to reach in time;
But could you borrow Hermes' feather'd heel
Might catch your Rival ere the Sun goes down,
And from his lip learn all. If not from him,
Then somewhat later, from your brother there,
When you shall meet him, arm to arm, in arms,
Under the wall where you would bury me.
Then might you tell him in return, were not
The story swallow'd up enacting it,
How, as he speaks, your living Father's Ghost
Foresees you both, up-looking from the tomb
In which your hopes of conquest die with him,
You, not the Champion leading, lance-erect,
Your Argive Host to sack your native Thebes;
Nor him within it in mock majesty
Posting his people to defend the Gates:
Not thus, but in your golden feathers both,
Where one another challenging you stood,
Stretch'd in the dust, slain by each other's hand.
This, standing on the consecrated ground
Of those avenging Sisters underneath
Who hear, and even as I speak prepare
To do their destined work, I prophesy;
You never to reconquer or regain
The Kingdom lost where he shall never reign;
But ev'n before the walls that you contest,
Die, slaying him by whom yourself are slain!

Cho.
Terrible words from human lip to hear!
And by what witness from what other world
Attested, as methought heard once before,
While this man spoke, and heav'n and earth look'd clear!

Ant.
Alas! Alas! for my belovèd Brother!

Pol.
Ay, and Alas! not for myself alone,
But for all those arm'd in my cause, Alas!
To whom returning I may not reveal
The doom of death to me, to them defeat!

Ant.
Oh then by all you worship, and hold dear,
Return to Argos not; or, if return,
Revealing that you carry back with you,
Revolt them from your fatal Enterprise,
And, leaving graceless Thebes to go her way,
With those you loved, and you are loved by, live!

Pol.
Love me they would no more, Antigone,
If, having roused them at the trumpet's sound
To arms, both Men and Champions, in my cause,
Then to dissuade them, if dissuade I could,
By rumour of uncertain Prophecies,
And Malediction that to them would seem
But empty raving of impotent wrath.
Or, ev'n would they retreat, as will they not,
Could I endure in Argos to survive
My younger brother's laughing-stock in Thebes?

Ant.
Oh, better that than this unnatural war,
Which cannot end, which cannot end, I know,
But with the fatal consequence that leads
Or haunts my Father's footsteps where he goes!
While the false Creon, who has set you on,
Shall mock you both, who die that he may win!

Pol.
Too late, too late, Antigone, too late!
And when that comes which is foredoom'd, and I
Lie stark and cold before the walls of Thebes,
With him whom slaying I am doom'd to die,
Shall not one pious hand, Antigone,
Protect your lifeless brother from the dog
With some few handfuls of his Mother Earth?

Ant.
Oh, but it shall not need! You shall not go!
If not for Love, in Pity, for you both,
My Father shall relent!

Pol.
But Fate shall not.

Œd.
No, by that other roll of thunder, no!

Cho.
Again! Yet not a cloud in Heav'n above—

Œd.
These are no thunders from the hand of Zeus,
But the dark Ruler of the World below,
Reverberating from the vault of Heav'n—
Shall some one here go straightway to your King,
And bid him, whatsoever busied with—
Yea, were it by the Altar worshipping,
Forthwith unworshipp'd leave it; for the God
Who links the Fate of Athens with mine own,
By those three thunders hence has summon'd me.
Gather no dust upon the feet of him
Who goes this errand: for the God, I know,
Who, brandishing aloft his Oracles
Accomplish'd, in one compass of the sky
From my meridian drove me to my fall,
And, as himself he sank behind the Night,
Into the hands of those who therein rule
My destiny resign'd—the God, I say,
Whose rising found me here, with his descent
Shall take me down with him, and leave me there.

Chorus.
Strange things hath this day witness'd and heard tell
By the strange man whom Phœbus from the stream
Of Ocean rising with his levell'd beam
Surprised, as with a cloud of Oracle
Encompass'd, in the consecrated shade
Of those who underneath more darkly dwell,
Whose more propitious name scarce daring we
To whisper, he—seemingly not unheard—
No, nor unanswer'd—calls on undismay'd.
Strange things—and if the word of presage hold,
Not unattested by those thunders three,
Yet stranger are we likely to behold,
Prophetical of Evil if to some,
To Athens, and her People and her Kings,
Auspicious all, and for all time to come.

Theseus, Œdipus, Antigone, Chorus.
Thes.
Look, at your bidding, Œdipus, once more
I come, prepared to do as I have done
Of hospitable service all I may.

Œd.
Yea, once more, Theseus, and for one last time,
Before the God recalls me to himself,
Have I recall'd you, to solicit nought,
But the good service of a single day,
Which, were life longer, were, I know, life-long,
With Death's eternal blessing to repay:
Which when I prophesied as soon to be,
Not knowing then how soon; but knowing now.

Thes.
By what assurance, Œdipus?

Œd.
By those
Three subterranean thunders summon'd hence.

Thes.
From Athens?

Œd.
From the eyes of Athens, ay;
And yet nowhither else: a mystery
Whose peremptory resolution
The God who loves you but for you delays.

Thes.
I must believe that one whom destiny
Hath step by step oracularly led,
Reads and interprets right the wondrous Signs
Which others but attest and wonder at.

Œd.
And for a further witness and a last—
Blind as I am, and hitherto so long
Compell'd to find my way with others' eyes,
Myself shall those who led me forthwith lead
Along the road where that shall have to be
Which other eyes than Theseus' none may see.
Which having seen, King Theseus, in your heart
Keep unreveal'd; and when you come to die,
To him alone who after you the Throne
Of Athens mounts reveal it; he in turn
To him who him shall follow; and so forth,
From hand to hand, until the end of Time:
Not trusting that into the People's hand,
Who, loyal, wise, and pious, let them be,
Seducible by those seditious few
That still infest the soundest Commonweal,
Abuse the power committed to their hands,
And by disorder and revolt at home
Lay bare your bosom to the foe without.
And now the Powers to you and yours Benign,
Who thrice have call'd me from the world below,
Now that the word of vantage in your heart
Is register'd, will brook no more delay,
And the mute Hermes of the lower world,
Ev'n as I speak, prepares to lead the way.

Chorus.

Messenger, Chorus.
Mes.
O citizens of Athens, to sum up
In fewest words what, to be told at large,
Would need an apter tongue than mine to tell—
King Œdipus—

Cho.
Is dead—

Mes.
I say not that;
From human eyes departed, I will say;
And with such circumstance as, could I tell
All that myself I saw, who saw not all—

Cho.
But, if not all, yet what you saw, recount.

Mes.
How the blind King, by what interior light
Guided himself we know not, guided us,
You that were present witness for yourselves;
And how with Theseus and the woeful Maid
Beside him, and some wondering few behind,
Straightforward, with unhesitating step,
That needed not his staff to feel the way,
Led on; till, reach'd the threshold of the road
Which leads, they say, down to the nether world,
Beside the monumental stone that marks
Where our King Theseus and Peirithous,
After long warfare, plighted hands of peace,
He stopp'd, sat down, his tatter'd raiment loosed,
And bade his daughter from the running brook
Bring him wherewith himself to purify.
Which she, resorting to the nearest field
Of Ceres, with what decent haste she might,
Return'd, and wash'd him, and in raiment clean
Reclothed, as to the rite of Burial due.
And when all this was done, as for the Dead,
Weeping himself, he folded in his arms
His weeping child, and told her, from that hour,
She that so long had suffer'd for his sake,
With but the love between them to requite,
The face of him she loved must see no more.
And so they wept together for a while,
Together folded in each other's arms,
And all was silent else; when suddenly,
A thunder-speaking voice, as from the jaws
Of earth that yawn'd beneath us, call'd aloud:
‘Ho! Thou there! Why so long a-coming? Come!’
Then Œdipus, who knew the word, and whence,
Relax'd his folding arms, and, rising up,
Took Theseus' hand, and, in it laying hers,
Besought him never to desert the child,
Nor yield her up to any against her will,
But be to her the Father whom she lost.
To which King Theseus having pledged his word,
The other, folding in one last embrace,
With one last kiss, his daughter to his heart,
Bade her return with us and never once
Look back on what was not for any one
But for King Theseus and himself to know.
Which said, and all in awful wonder hush'd,
The weeping Daughter turn'd away with us,
Slowly, like those who leave a funeral pyre,
With us our way re-tracing; until I,
Seized with a longing I could not control,
Despite the word yet ringing in my ears,
Look'd back—and saw King Theseus standing there,
Stock-still, his hands before his eyes, like one
Smit with a sudden blaze: but Œdipus
There—anywhere—there was not—vanish'd—gone—
But, whether by someflash from Heav'n despatch'd,
Or by His hand who through the shatter'd Earth
Had summon'd him in thunder, drawn below,
No living man but Theseus' self may know.

Chorus.
(or as follows)