c. 442-401 BC 2026
This is an AI modernization of The Seven Tragedies into contemporary English. The original is available from Perseus Digital Library. Also available as an epub.
Sophocles lived from about 496 to 406 BC, all of it in Athens, through the city's best years and most of the war that ended them. He wrote well over a hundred plays and won the prize more often than anyone. He also held public office, and was elected one of the ten generals. Seven of the plays survive. They are the ones everybody has heard of and hardly anybody has read: a king who hunts down a murderer and finds it is himself, a young woman who buries her brother against the law and is walled up alive for it, a soldier who goes mad in the night, slaughters a field of sheep believing they are the generals who have wronged him, and kills himself when he understands what he has done.
All seven are here, which means the four that usually get dropped are here too: Heracles poisoned by his wife with what she believes is a love charm, Electra waiting fifteen years for her brother to come home and kill their mother, Philoctetes left on an island because the army could not stand the smell of his wound, and the old blind Oedipus arriving at Athens to die, which was produced after the author's own death, in 401.
The practical facts of the theatre are worth having. The plays were written for a competition at a festival of Dionysus, performed once, outdoors, in daylight, to an audience in the thousands who had to follow every word in real time. All the parts were played by men in masks, and there were only three speaking actors, so one actor took several roles and two characters could never be on stage as the same man. Alongside them stood a chorus of fifteen, who sang and danced. Sophocles is the one credited with adding that third actor.
The chorus sang; the scenes were spoken; and the Greek metre says which is which, line by line. This edition keeps the two apart, so the spoken scenes are modern prose and the sung odes are set as verse, indented and unrhymed. The rhyme in the old translations is the translator's own addition and has gone. This is one of three volumes here, with Aeschylus and Euripides, and together they hold every Greek tragedy that survives.
Nothing is softened. Ajax's reasons for killing himself are given as the argument they are. Antigone says she would not have done this for a husband or a child. The messenger describes the blinding exactly. The gods in these plays are not just, and nobody the play agrees with ever says they are.
Ajax (c. 442 BC)
Antigone (c. 441 BC)
Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC)
The Women of Trachis (date unknown)
Electra (c. 410 BC)
Philoctetes (409 BC)
Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC)
(Before Ajax's hut, at the far end of the Greek camp at Troy. Night is just over. Odysseus is studying the ground. Athena is present, but only he can hear her, and he cannot see her.)
Athena. Son of Laertes, I have always found you out on the prowl, looking for some opening against your enemies. And here you are again, at Ajax's hut down by the ships, where his post is at the edge of the camp. I have been watching you a while now, hunting, measuring his tracks — they are fresh — to work out whether he is inside or not. Your nose has brought you straight to the door, like a good Spartan hound. The man is in there. He went in just now, his face running with sweat, and his hands too, from the killing. You can stop peering through the doorway. Tell me instead what you are so set on, and hear it from someone who knows.
Odysseus. Athena — your voice, of all the gods the one I love best. I cannot see you, and still I know you at once. I catch what you say and hold it, the way you catch the note of a bronze-mouthed trumpet. You are right: I am circling the track of a man who hates me, Ajax with the great shield. It is him I have been following, and nobody else. Something happened last night that we cannot make sense of — if in fact he did it. We know nothing for certain. We are guessing. So I put myself forward for the job.
We found the cattle, all of them, dead. Our own plunder, butchered by somebody's hand, and the herdsmen with them. Everyone is laying it at his door. And I have a scout who says he saw him, alone, running across the plain with a sword still wet, and told me so. I went straight onto the trail. Some of the signs I can read. Some of them baffle me, and I cannot tell whose they are. You have come at the right moment. In everything, before and after, it is your hand that steers me.
Athena. I know, Odysseus. I have been out on the road a while, keeping watch, on your side of the hunt.
Odysseus. Then, dear mistress, am I working to any purpose?
Athena. The man did it. These are his deeds.
Odysseus. And what possessed him to raise his hand like that?
Athena. He was weighed down with rage over the arms of Achilles.
Odysseus. Then why go at the flocks?
Athena. He thought the blood he was getting on his hands was yours.
Odysseus. So this was a plot? Against the Greeks?
Athena. And he would have carried it off, if I had not been paying attention.
Odysseus. What made him so bold? What put that in his head?
Athena. He came at you in the night, on his own, in secret.
Odysseus. How close did he get? Did he reach us?
Athena. He was at the doors of the two generals.
Odysseus. Then how was his hand held back, with murder in it?
Athena. I held him back. I threw a weight across his eyes — ideas about a joy that would have finished him — and turned him aside onto the sheep, and the mixed droves under the herdsmen's guard, the spoil you had not yet divided up. He fell on them and went round in a circle cutting a slaughter through the horned animals, breaking their spines. One moment he thought he had the two sons of Atreus in his hands and was killing them himself; the next it was some other commander he was falling on. And the man ran about in a sickness of madness, and I drove him on. I kept throwing him further into the net.
Then, when he had worn himself out at it, he tied up the oxen that were still alive, and all the sheep, and brought them home — as though he had men, not a catch of cattle. And now he has them roped together indoors, and he is torturing them.
I will show you the madness too, with your own eyes, so you can go and tell every Greek what you saw. Stand your ground and do not be afraid. He will not be your ruin. I will turn the beams of his eyes aside and keep them off your face.
(She calls towards the hut.)
You there — you with your prisoners' arms strapped behind them — I am calling you. Come here. Ajax, I am calling you. Come out in front of the house.
Odysseus. Athena, what are you doing? Do not call him out.
Athena. Be quiet. Do you want a name for cowardice?
Odysseus. For the gods' sake, no. Let him stay inside. That is enough.
Athena. Afraid of what? Was he not a man before?
Odysseus. He was. My enemy then, and still is.
Athena. And is there any laughter sweeter than laughing at an enemy?
Odysseus. It is enough for me that he stays in his hut.
Athena. You are afraid to look at a madman in plain sight?
Odysseus. If he were sane I would not step out of his way.
Athena. He will not see you now, even standing beside him.
Odysseus. How, if he is looking out of the same eyes?
Athena. I will darken them. He can be staring straight at you.
Odysseus. True enough. Anything is possible when a god arranges it.
Athena. Then stand still and say nothing. Stay exactly where you are.
Odysseus. I will stay. I would rather be somewhere else.
Athena. Ajax. You. I am calling you a second time. Why so little respect for the ally at your side?
(Ajax comes out. There is blood on him, and a whip in his hand.)
Ajax. Athena — welcome. Child of Zeus, welcome. You stood by me magnificently. I will crown you with solid gold out of this catch, to thank you for it.
Athena. Well said. But tell me one thing. Did you dip your sword properly in the Greek army?
Ajax. I can boast about it. I am not going to deny it.
Athena. And did you get your armed hand as far as the sons of Atreus?
Ajax. So far that they will never dishonour Ajax again.
Athena. The men are dead — that is what you are telling me.
Ajax. Dead. Now let them try taking my arms off me.
Athena. Good. And the son of Laertes — where does he stand with you? Or has he got away?
Ajax. That damned fox. You are asking me where he is?
Athena. I am. Odysseus. The one who stands against you.
Ajax. He is inside, mistress, sitting down. My favourite prisoner. I do not want him dead yet.
Athena. Not until you do what? What more do you get out of it?
Ajax. Not until he is tied to the pillar under my roof —
Athena. And what harm will you do the poor wretch then?
Ajax. — with his back whipped red. Then he can die.
Athena. Do not torture the poor wretch like that.
Ajax. Athena, in everything else, take what pleasure you like. But he pays that price and no other.
Athena. Well, since doing it is what gives you pleasure — use your hand. Hold back from nothing you have in mind.
Ajax. I am going to the work. And I want this from you: stand by me always as you have stood by me today.
(He goes back inside.)
Athena. Do you see, Odysseus, how great the strength of the gods is? Who could you have found more level-headed than that man, or better at doing what the moment needed?
Odysseus. Nobody that I know of. And I pity him for all that, wretched as he is, enemy of mine though he is, because he is yoked under a ruin that is not to be undone. I am not thinking of his case any more than my own. I see that all of us who are alive are nothing but phantoms, or a weightless shadow.
Athena. Then, since you can see that much, never say an arrogant word yourself against the gods, and take on no swagger, if you outweigh another man in the strength of your hand or in the depth of your money. A single day tips all human things down, and lifts them up again. The gods love the man who keeps himself in hand, and they detest the bad.
(Athena is gone. The Chorus comes in: sailors from Salamis, Ajax's own men.)
Chorus. Son of Telamon, you who hold the seat of sea-washed Salamis where the water comes right up — when things go well for you I am glad. But when the stroke of Zeus falls, or a rumour comes raging out of the Greek camp with all their bad tongues in it, I am afraid. A great dread takes me, and I flinch like the eye of a dove. So it was with the night now over: a loud noise has settled on us, and it is our disgrace — that you went into the meadow where the horses run mad and destroyed the Greeks' animals, the plunder that was left, the spear-won share not yet divided, killing them with the flashing iron. These are the whispers Odysseus shapes and breathes into everybody's ear, and they believe him. What he says about you now is easy to believe, and every man who hears it is more delighted than the man who told it, and tramples on your suffering. Aim at a great spirit and you cannot miss. Say the same things about me and nobody would credit it. It is the man who has something that envy crawls towards. And yet the small without the great are a shaky tower to shelter behind. The lowly stand up best beside the great, and the great are held upright by lesser men. But there is no teaching this to fools before they need to know it. Those are the men making the noise against you, and we have no strength to fight it off without you, my lord. Once they have got out from under your eye they chatter like flocks of birds. But if you appeared — with the great vulture over them — they would drop down suddenly, silent, and not a sound out of them.
Chorus. Was it Artemis, the bull-driver, daughter of Zeus — terrible rumour, mother of my shame — who drove you against the herds that belong to us all? Some victory she got no thanks for, perhaps, or cheated of glorious spoils, or a stag brought down and no gift given? Or has the Lord of War in his bronze breastplate held some grudge over a spear shared, and paid back the insult with contrivances in the night?
Chorus. Never out of your own mind, son of Telamon, would you have gone so far wrong as to fall upon the flocks. When madness comes from the gods it arrives. But let Zeus and Apollo turn aside this evil talk of the Greeks. And if it is the great kings putting the story about behind their hands, or the man out of the worthless line of Sisyphus — then do not, my lord, do not go on sitting in the hut by the sea with your face hidden, and let them make an evil name for you.
Chorus. Get up from where you sit. Wherever you have settled into this long standstill, out of the fighting, you are letting the ruin flare up to heaven. Your enemies' outrage runs about unafraid in the glens where the wind blows, and every tongue in the army is cackling, and it is heavy to bear. The pain in me has come to a stop and will not move.
(Tecmessa comes out of the hut.)
Tecmessa. Crew of Ajax's ship, men of the line that sprang from the earth of Athens, we have cause to cry out, we who care for the house of Telamon far away. The terrible one, the great one, the man of raw force, Ajax, is lying sick under a storm that has muddied him.
Chorus. What change has this night brought, and what weight, after the day before? Daughter of Teleutas the Phrygian, speak. Ajax took you in war and holds to you and loves you, so you can tell us something, you are not without knowledge.
Tecmessa. How am I to say a thing that cannot be said? What you are going to hear weighs as much as a death. Madness took him in the night — our famous Ajax — and has left him shamed. Go inside the hut and you can see it: butchered animals soaking in blood, sacrifices, and his hand made every one.
Chorus. What news you have shown us of the man of fire, not to be borne, and not to be escaped either, spread abroad by the great Greek lords, and their loud telling of it keeps growing. I am afraid of what is coming. He will die in front of everybody, that man, with his hand knocked off its aim, having killed with the dark sword the beasts and the herdsmen who ride with them.
Tecmessa. So that was it. That was where he came from, bringing the flock in ropes behind him. Some of them he cut the throats of, there on the floor; some he struck at the ribs and tore open. And he picked up two white-footed rams, and sheared off the head of one, and the tip of its tongue, and threw them away; and the other he tied upright to a pillar, and took a heavy harness strap and beat it with the doubled lash, whistling, cursing it in language that a god taught him and no man.
Chorus. It is time for each of us to cover his head and steal away on foot, or take his seat at the fast bench of the oars and let the ship go out to sea. Such are the threats the two kings, the sons of Atreus, are driving at us. I am afraid of being stoned, beaten down beside this man, whom a fate you cannot go near has hold of.
Tecmessa. Not any more. Like a south wind that comes up hard and then drops, with no lightning in it, he is quiet. And now he is in his right mind he has a new pain. Because to look at your own suffering, when no other hand was in it, lays a sharp ache under you.
Chorus. If he has stopped, I think we may do well enough. Once the trouble is gone it counts for less.
Tecmessa. And if you were given the choice, which would you take: to hurt your friends and be happy yourself, or to share the grief and be one of the grieving?
Chorus. The double sorrow is the greater evil, lady.
Tecmessa. Then we are ruined now, and the sickness is over.
Chorus. What do you mean? I do not follow you.
Tecmessa. That man, while the sickness was on him, took pleasure in the horrors he was held by, though being near him was misery for us, who were sane. Now that it has let go of him and he can breathe, he is driven from end to end by a wretched grief, and we are no better off than we were before. Is that not two sorrows out of one?
Chorus. I agree, and I am afraid a stroke has come from a god. How else, if he is no happier now it has released him than he was when he was sick?
Tecmessa. That is how it stands. You had better know it.
Chorus. How did the trouble first swoop down on him? Tell us. We share the pain of it.
Tecmessa. You are in it with us, so you will hear all of it.
In the dead of night, when the evening lamps had burned out, he took up a two-edged sword and started feeling his way to the door on some errand that led nowhere. I went at him and said, "What are you doing, Ajax? Nobody has summoned you, no messenger came for you, you have heard no trumpet — why are you setting out? The whole army is asleep." And he said what he always says, the same few words he has worn out: "Woman, silence is what makes a woman lovely." I understood him, and I stopped, and he went out alone.
What happened out there I cannot tell you. He came back in with them roped together — bulls, herd dogs, the woolly catch. Some he took by the neck, some he turned face up and cut their throats and broke their backs; and some, still tied, he tortured as though they were men, going at cattle. At the end he darted out through the door and hauled up words at some shadow — some of it against the sons of Atreus, some about Odysseus — laughing a great deal at how much outrage he had gone and paid them back for.
Then he rushed back into the house, and slowly, somehow, over time, he came to himself. He looked round the room, and it was full of his own ruin, and he struck his head and howled. He went down in the wreckage, among the wreck of the slaughtered sheep, and sat there with his nails dug into his hair and his fist closed on it.
For a long while he sat and said nothing. Then he began threatening me with terrible things if I did not tell him everything that had happened, and he demanded to know what business it was that he had found himself in. And I was frightened, friends, of what he had done, and I told him all of it, as much as I knew for certain.
He cried out at once, and the sound was wretched. I had never heard him make it before. He had always taught that wailing like that belonged to cowards and low-hearted men; he used to grieve quietly, no loud weeping, and groan low like a bull. Now he is down in this miserable luck of his, no food, no drink, sitting still where he fell among the cattle the iron killed. And it is plain that he means to do something terrible. His words say so, and so do his laments.
Friends — this is the errand I came on — go in and help him, if there is anything you can do. Men like him can be won over by what their friends say.
Chorus. Tecmessa, daughter of Teleutas, this is terrible news you bring us: our man driven out of his mind by his own suffering.
Ajax. (inside) Oh — oh no. Oh no.
Tecmessa. And it will get worse, by the sound of it. Did you not hear Ajax? That cry he just gave?
Ajax. (inside) Oh — oh no. Oh no.
Chorus. Either the man is sick again, or he is in pain at the sight of what the sickness left behind.
Ajax. (inside) My son. My son.
Tecmessa. Oh, this is misery. Eurysaces — it is you he is calling. What is he thinking of? Where are you? Oh, this is misery.
Ajax. (inside) Teucer. Where is Teucer? Is he going to be off raiding for ever, while I am destroyed?
Chorus. He sounds sane. Open the doors. Perhaps if he looks at me he will pull himself together.
Tecmessa. There. It is open. Now you can look at what he has done, and at the state he is in himself.
(The doors are opened. Ajax is sitting among the slaughtered animals.)
Ajax. Ah — my sailors, my friends, the only friends I have left, the only ones still keeping faith, look at me. Look what a wave has just gone round me and broken, out of a storm of blood.
Chorus. It seems your evidence was all too good, lady. What he does shows there is no mind in him.
Ajax. Ah — you men who know the sea, who came aboard and pulled the blade through the salt water, you and nobody else, you and nobody else, I see as a defence against what is happening to me. Come and kill me on top of these.
Chorus. Say better words than that. Do not cure a bad thing with a bad thing, and make the hurt of the ruin worse.
Ajax. You see the bold one, the man with the great heart, the one who never shook in a battle with the enemy — you see me, terrible-handed, against animals that could not fight back. The laughter. The outrage they have done me.
Tecmessa. Ajax, my lord, I beg you, do not say these things.
Ajax. Get out. Take yourself back out of here. Ah. Ah.
Chorus. In the gods' name, give way. Get some sense.
Ajax. I am cursed. I let them go out of my hand, the men who were asking to be punished, and I fell on cattle with curled horns and fine goats and made their dark blood run.
Chorus. Why grieve over what is done? It cannot be other than it is.
Ajax. You who see everything, you tool that every crime is done with, son of Laertes, the filthiest thing in the whole army — how you must be laughing, and enjoying it.
Chorus. It is as a god allows that any man laughs or mourns.
Ajax. Let me see him even so, shattered as I am. Oh. Oh no.
Chorus. Say nothing big. Can you not see what trouble you are in?
Ajax. Zeus, father of my fathers, let me destroy that smooth-tongued creature, that hated thing, and the two kings who share the command, and then die myself.
Tecmessa. When you pray for that, pray that I die with you. What reason have I to live, once you are dead?
Ajax. Ah — Darkness, you are my light. Blackness under the earth, the brightest thing my eyes can find, take me. Take me to live with you. Take me. I am not fit any longer to look for help from the family of the gods, or for anything good from men, who live a day at a time. The daughter of Zeus, the strong goddess, is grinding me down to nothing. Where is a man to run? Where can I go and stay? If what I have done is ruined, friends, and these things lying beside me are what I have, and I have set myself to a fool's hunting — then the whole army would come at me with both hands and kill me.
Tecmessa. This is misery, that a man who was worth so much should say the kind of thing he could never once have borne to say.
Ajax. Ah — you channels of the sounding sea, you caves along the shore, you pasture at the water's edge, long, long, far too long you have held me here at Troy. But not any more. Not while I still have breath in me. Let anyone with sense understand that. Scamander, you streams nearby, you were good to the Greeks; you will not look at this man again. I will say a large thing: Troy never saw his equal come out of the land of Greece in all the army. And now I lie here, stripped of honour.
Chorus. I do not know how to hold you back, nor how to let you go on speaking, fallen into troubles like these.
Ajax. Aiai. Who would ever have thought my own name would fit my sorrows so exactly? Aias — aiai. I can cry it twice now, and three times over. These are the troubles I have run into.
My father took the first prize for courage out of this same country of Ida, the fairest in the army, and carried every glory home. I am his son. I came to the same ground at Troy with no less strength in me, and what my hand did was no smaller — and I am destroyed here, dishonoured by the Greeks.
Though I know one thing for certain: if Achilles were alive and were awarding his own arms to the best man, nobody would have taken them before me. As it is, the sons of Atreus have got them into the hands of a man who will do anything, and shoved the victories of Ajax aside. And if these eyes and this mind had not swerved off what I intended, they would never have voted a verdict like that against another man again.
Instead the daughter of Zeus, the grim-eyed goddess nobody masters, tripped me at the very moment I was fitting my hand to them, and threw a raving sickness into me, so that I could bloody my hands on livestock. And they have got away and are laughing about it — no thanks to me. But when a god does the harm, even a worthless man can slip past a better one.
So what now? What am I to do? The gods obviously hate me, the Greek army loathes me, all Troy hates me and so does this whole plain. Do I go home across the Aegean, and leave my station at the ships and the sons of Atreus to themselves? And then what face do I show my father Telamon when I get there? How is he going to bear the sight of me, standing in front of him with nothing, no prize for courage, when he himself won the great crown of it? No. I could not do it.
Well then — go at the Trojan wall, take them on alone, do something worth doing, and die at the end of it? But that, I think, would only make the sons of Atreus happy. No.
Some enterprise has to be found that will show my old father he did not father a son with nothing inside him. It is a disgrace for a man to want a long life when nothing changes in his troubles. What pleasure is there in one day after another, moving you up to the edge of death and back again? I would not give anything for the man who warms his hands at empty hopes. A man of good birth has two choices and no more: live well, or die well. That is all of it. You have heard me out.
Chorus. Nobody will ever say that was a borrowed speech, Ajax. That came out of your own mind. All the same — stop. Let your friends have charge of your thinking, and put these ideas down.
Tecmessa. Ajax, my lord — there is no greater evil for a human being than the luck they are forced to live with. My father was a free man, as strong in wealth as any in Phrygia. Now I am a slave. Somehow that is what the gods decided, and above all it was your hand that did it. And since I came into your bed, I want what is good for you, and I am begging you, by Zeus of our hearth and by the bed you and I came together in: do not leave me to the bitter talk of your enemies, do not leave me to some stranger's hand.
The day you die and widow me by dying, you can be sure that on that same day the Greeks will take me by force, and your son with me, and I will be fed as a slave is fed. And one of my masters will say something cutting, shooting words at me: "Look at the woman who shared Ajax's bed, the greatest man in the army. Look at the work she does now, after a life other women envied." That is what they will say. Fate will drive me, and the shame of the words will stain you and your family.
Have some respect for your father, whom you are leaving in a miserable old age; have some respect for your mother, with her long share of years, who prays to the gods so often that you will come home alive. And pity your son, my king. If he is robbed of the care he should be growing up in, and has to get through his days without you, in the hands of guardians who are neither family nor friends — think what you will be leaving to him and to me when you die.
There is nothing left for me to look at except you. You are the reason. Your spear made nothing of my country. Another fate took my mother and the man who fathered me and gave them a house in the world of the dead. So what homeland could I have except you? What money? Everything that keeps me safe is in you.
Remember me too. A man ought to hold on to what he remembers, if he has ever taken any pleasure anywhere. It is kindness that gives birth to kindness, always. The man who lets the memory of a good turn run out of him was never a man of any quality.
Chorus. Ajax, I wish pity would touch you the way it touches me. Then you would think well of what she says.
Ajax. She will have my good opinion, if she can bring herself to do what she is told and do it properly.
Tecmessa. Dear Ajax, I will do anything you say.
Ajax. Then bring me my son. I want to see him.
Tecmessa. I was frightened. I sent him away.
Ajax. Because of this trouble of mine? Is that what you mean?
Tecmessa. In case the poor child came across you and died of it.
Ajax. That would have suited my luck exactly.
Tecmessa. Well, I took care that it should not happen.
Ajax. I approve. That was a good thought and you were right to have it.
Tecmessa. Then how can I help you now, as things are?
Ajax. Let me speak to him. Let me see his face.
Tecmessa. He is close by. The servants are watching him.
Ajax. Then why is he not here?
Tecmessa. Child, your father is calling you. Bring him here — whichever of you has him by the hand.
Ajax. Is the man coming, or did your voice not reach him?
Tecmessa. Here he is now, one of the servants, bringing him.
(A servant brings in Eurysaces, a small boy.)
Ajax. Lift him. Lift him up here. He will not flinch at the sight of this fresh blood — not if he is really mine, his father's son. He has to be broken in early to his father's raw ways, and shaped to the same nature.
Boy, I hope you have better luck than your father, and are like him in everything else. Then you will not turn out badly. Even now there is one thing about you I could envy: you have no idea of any of this. Life is sweetest when you cannot think yet. Not being able to think is an affliction with no pain in it — until you learn what joy is, and what hurt. When you get that far, you will have to show my enemies what you are made of, and whose son you are.
Meanwhile feed on light air. Grow, and be your mother's happiness. No Greek is going to lay a hand on you, I am certain of that, or insult you, even with me gone. I will leave Teucer at your gate to keep watch, and he will not slacken in looking after you, though at the moment he is far off, hunting enemies.
My shield-men, my companions at sea — I lay this on you as I lay it on him, a service you all share. Tell Teucer my orders. He is to take this child home and show him to Telamon, and to my mother — Eriboea, I mean — so that he can be the comfort of their old age from now on, until they reach the deep places of the god below. And my arms are not to be set up as a prize for the Greeks by any master of the games, nor by the man who destroyed me.
That much you take for me, son — the broad shield you are named for. Hold it. Swing it by the strong grip. Seven layers of hide, and no spear has gone through it. The rest of my gear will be buried with me.
Now take the child, quickly. Shut the doors. And no mourning outside the house. God, women are a weepy business. Shut it, and be quick. It is no clever doctor who chants spells over a wound that wants the knife.
Chorus. I am afraid, hearing you in such a hurry. I do not like the edge on your tongue.
Tecmessa. Ajax, my lord — what is in your mind?
Ajax. Do not judge me. Do not question me. Keeping yourself in hand is a fine thing.
Tecmessa. I have no heart left. By your child, by the gods, I beg you — do not betray us.
Ajax. You are irritating me. Do you not understand that I owe the gods nothing any more?
Tecmessa. Say better words than that.
Ajax. Say them to somebody who is listening.
Tecmessa. Will you not hear me?
Ajax. You have said too much already.
Tecmessa. Because I am afraid, my king.
Ajax. Shut the doors. Now.
Tecmessa. In the gods' name, soften.
Ajax. You are a fool, I think, if you have only now decided to start training my temper.
Chorus. Famous Salamis, you sit out among the beating waves, and you are happy, and every man can see you where you are. And I, wretched, have been here a long time, making my bed month after month on the fields of Ida and not counting them, worn down by the time, with the bad expectation still in front of me that I shall get through at last to Hades, whom nobody wants and nobody sees.
Chorus. And now here is Ajax to sit down beside me, past curing, and no relief in it, sharing his tent with a madness sent by a god. Once you sent him out from home and he was master in the rush of war. Now he grazes his mind in country of his own and he has been found a great grief to his friends. What his hands did before, the highest courage there is, has fallen unloved before the unloving, fallen, fallen, before the miserable sons of Atreus.
Chorus. And his mother, who has lived with the old days, who is white with age — when she hears that his mind has been destroyed, she will not cry the way the nightingale cries, that pitiful bird. She will sing sharp songs over him, and the beat of hands will fall on her breast, and grey hair will come out in her fingers.
Chorus. Better hidden in the world below, the man sick with a madness that came to nothing, who by his father's line was the best of the Greeks who have endured so much, and is no longer steady in the temper he was born with but has gone outside himself and lives out there. Unhappy father — what news is waiting for you, the ruin that has fallen on your son, which no life in the house of Aeacus has carried before him.
(Ajax comes out with the sword in his hand. Tecmessa follows.)
Ajax. Everything is brought out of the dark by the long, uncountable years, and everything in the light is buried by them. There is nothing a man should not expect. The most terrible oath is beaten. So is the will that would not bend.
Even I — who was so hard, then, so like iron off the anvil — I have been softened at the mouth by this woman's words. I feel the pity of leaving her a widow and the boy an orphan among my enemies.
I am going to the washing places, to the meadows at the water's edge, so that I can clean off what is on me and get out from under the goddess's heavy anger. I will find some untrodden spot, and bury this sword of mine, the most hateful of weapons, dig it into the ground where nobody will see it. Let Night and the world below keep it down there.
From the day I took it into my hand, a present from Hector, my greatest enemy, I have had nothing good from the Greeks. The proverb men have is true: an enemy's gifts are no gifts, and no good comes of them.
So from now on I will know how to give way to the gods, and I will learn to respect the sons of Atreus. They are in command. One gives way. Of course one does. The most fearsome and unbreakable things give way to office. Winter, with its paths under snow, stands aside for summer and the fruit. Night's long circle steps back and lets day light her fire with her white horses in front. The blast of terrible winds lets the groaning sea lie down. And Sleep, who is stronger than anything, ties a man up and then unties him, and does not keep him for ever.
And are we not going to learn to keep ourselves in hand? I am. I have just found out that an enemy is to be hated only so far as suits a man who is going to be his friend later on; and that with a friend I will want to do just as much good and no more, since he is not going to stay one. Most people find the harbour of comradeship untrustworthy.
But all of that will be well enough. You, wife, go inside and pray to the gods that what my heart wants may be finished, right to the end.
(Tecmessa goes in.)
And you, my friends, honour what I have asked, exactly as she does. Tell Teucer, when he comes, to take care of us, and to be good to you at the same time. I am going where I have to go. Do as I say, and before long, perhaps — badly off as I am now — you will hear that I have found rest.
(He goes out.)
Chorus. I shudder with longing. I am up and flying with joy. Pan, Pan, Pan the sea-wanderer, come to us from the stony ridge of Cyllene where the snow is beaten flat. King, dance-maker to the gods, appear, and join us, and set us going in the Nysian steps, the Cnosian steps, the ones you taught yourself. Now I want to dance. And let Apollo come over the Icarian water, the lord of Delos, in a shape I will know, and be with me, kindly, all the way through.
Chorus. Ares has lifted the terrible ache off our eyes. Now, now, Zeus, now the white light of a good day can come near our fast ships that run on the sea, because Ajax has forgotten his pain again, and has carried out every offering the gods are owed, keeping the rule, with the greatest respect. Great time makes everything fade. And I would not call anything unsayable, now that Ajax, against all our hope, has been talked round out of his anger and out of his great quarrel with the sons of Atreus.
(A messenger comes in from the camp.)
Messenger. Friends, here is my news first. Teucer is back, just now, from the heights of Mysia. He came to the generals' quarters in the middle of the camp and the whole Greek army is shouting at him. They recognised him a long way off and closed round him, and then they pelted him with insults from every side — not one of them held off — calling him the brother of the madman, the man who plotted against the army, saying he was not going to get out of it without being torn to pieces under their stones. It went so far that swords were pulled out of scabbards and drawn. Then the quarrel, having run nearly the whole way, was stopped by the older men talking them round.
But where do I find Ajax? I have to tell him. Everything has to be reported to the man in charge.
Chorus. He is not inside. He went out a moment ago. He has yoked a new purpose to a new mood.
Messenger. No. No. Then the man who sent me on this errand sent me too late — or I came too slowly.
Chorus. What is urgent about it? What part of it has been neglected?
Messenger. Teucer said flatly that Ajax was not to be let out of the hut until he got here himself.
Chorus. Well, he is gone. I tell you again. He turned his mind to the best thing he could do: making his peace with the gods over his anger.
Messenger. Those words are full of foolishness, if there is anything in what Calchas prophesies.
Chorus. What does he prophesy? What do you know about this?
Messenger. This much. I was there and saw it. Calchas got up out of the circle of chiefs sitting in council, went off by himself away from the sons of Atreus, put his right hand into Teucer's hand in a friendly way, and told him — laid it on him — to use every method there is to keep Ajax inside his hut for the length of this one day that is shining on us now, and not to let him move, if he ever wanted to see him alive.
Because it is this day alone, he said, that the anger of the goddess Athena will drive at him. Lives that have grown outsized and stopped being any use, the prophet went on, come down under heavy trouble from the gods — especially when a man born to a man's nature stops thinking like one.
And Ajax, from the moment he first set out from home, showed himself a fool when his father was giving him good advice. Telamon said to him, "Son, want to win with the spear — but always want to win with a god beside you." And he answered, high and stupid: "Father, with the gods even a nobody could win. I mean to drag that glory in without them."
That is the size of the boast he made. Then a second time, when the goddess Athena was urging him on and telling him to turn a killing hand on the enemy, he answered her with something terrible, a thing that should not be said: "Queen, go and stand by the other Greeks. Where we are, the line will never break."
Words like that are how he earned the goddess's anger, which does not soften — because he was thinking thoughts too big for a man. But if he is still alive today, we may find some way, with a god's help, to save him. That is what the prophet said.
Teucer got up from his seat at once and sent me to you with these orders. But if we have missed our chance, the man is dead — unless Calchas knows nothing.
Chorus. Tecmessa, born to suffer — come out and hear what this man is saying. The razor is against the skin, and it will take all our happiness off.
(Tecmessa comes out, with Eurysaces.)
Tecmessa. Why do you get me up again, when I had only just found some rest from troubles that never let go?
Chorus. Listen to this man. He has come with news of Ajax that hurt me to hear.
Tecmessa. Oh — what are you saying? Are we destroyed?
Messenger. I know nothing about your position. About Ajax I know this: if he is out of doors, I have no confidence.
Tecmessa. He is out of doors. I am in agony to know what you mean.
Messenger. Teucer gives strict orders to keep him under the roof of his hut, and not to let him out alone.
Tecmessa. Where is Teucer? Why does he say this?
Messenger. He has only just come back. And he thinks this going out is going to kill Ajax.
Tecmessa. Oh, this is misery. Who did he learn it from?
Messenger. From the son of Thestor, the prophet. It is about today: today decides whether the man lives or dies.
Tecmessa. Friends — stand in front of me. This is a fate I cannot get round. Hurry. Some of you go and make Teucer come faster. Some of you take the western bays and some the eastern, and go looking for the way the man went out, which is a bad way.
I know now that my husband has deceived me and that I am thrown out of the favour I used to have with him.
Oh, child — what am I to do? I must not sit here. I will go too, as far as I have strength for it. Move. Quickly. This is no time to be sitting, if we want to save a man who is in a hurry to die.
Chorus. I am ready to go, and I will show it in more than words. Speed of foot and speed of doing will come together.
(A lonely place by the shore. Ajax is alone, with the sword fixed in the ground.)
Ajax. The killer is standing where it will cut deepest — if a man has leisure even to work that out. It is Hector's gift, and of all the guests I ever had he was the one I hated most and least wanted to look at. It is planted in enemy ground, in Troy, and freshly sharpened on the stone that eats iron. And I have set it firmly, and packed the earth round it myself, so that it will be as kind to me as it can and kill me quickly.
So we are properly equipped.
Now, Zeus, you first — as is right — do this much for me. It is not a large prize I am asking. Send somebody with the bad news to Teucer, so that he is the first to lift me when I have fallen on this sword and made it wet, and I am not spotted by one of my enemies first and thrown out for the dogs and the birds to pick at.
That is all I ask of you, Zeus. And I call on Hermes, who takes men below, to put me to sleep properly, with one quick jump and no struggling, when I have broken my side open on this blade.
And I call for help on the maidens who are always there and always watching everything that men suffer, the dread Furies with their long stride, to see how I am being destroyed, wretched, by the sons of Atreus. And let them take those bad men in the worst possible way and finish them off entirely. As they see me here, fallen and killed by my own hand, so let those two be killed by their own, at the hands of their own dearest children.
Go, Furies. You are quick and you do not forgive. Feed. Spare nobody in the whole army.
And you, Sun, driving your chariot up the steep sky — when you see the country my fathers came from, pull in the gold-backed rein and tell my ruin and the way I died to my old father, and to the unhappy woman who nursed me. When she hears it, poor woman, I think she will send up a great cry through the whole city.
But there is no use weeping about it like this. The thing has to be started, and quickly.
Death — Death, come and look at me now. Though I will speak to you again where I am going, and be with you there.
And you, light of the day that is shining now — you, and the Sun in his chariot — I say goodbye to you. This is the last time, and there will be no other. Light. Sacred ground of my own Salamis, the firm floor of my father's hearth. Famous Athens, and the people who are my own kin. Springs and rivers here — and I say goodbye to the plains of Troy as well — all of you who fed me, goodbye. This is the last word Ajax says to you. The rest I will say to the dead, down below.
(He throws himself on the sword. The Chorus comes back in two groups, from opposite sides.)
First Half-Chorus. Work brings work and work again. Where — where have I not tramped? And no place will say it knows anything. Listen. I hear something. A thud.
Second Half-Chorus. Us. Your shipmates, off the same voyage.
First Half-Chorus. Well then?
Second Half-Chorus. The whole western side of the ships has been gone over.
First Half-Chorus. And?
Second Half-Chorus. A great deal of work, and nothing more to see.
First Half-Chorus. And on the road that faces the morning sun the man has not shown himself either.
Chorus. Who can point me the way — some hard-working fisherman out at his sleepless catch, or one of the goddesses of Olympus, or of the streams that run down to the Bosporus — if anywhere she has seen the fierce-hearted man wandering, and could call out? It is cruel that I have gone so far and worked so hard and cannot come near him with a fair wind, cannot see where the failing man is.
Tecmessa. Oh. Oh no.
Chorus. Whose cry came out of the trees just there?
Tecmessa. Oh, this is misery.
Chorus. It is the poor woman his spear won, Tecmessa. I see her, and she is dissolved in it.
Tecmessa. I am gone. Destroyed. Levelled to the ground, friends.
Chorus. What is it?
Tecmessa. Ajax. Here. Newly killed, lying folded round the sword, with the sword inside him.
Chorus. Then there is no going home. My king, you have killed me, the man who sailed with you. And her. Poor broken woman.
Tecmessa. The state he is in, there is nothing to say but aiai.
Chorus. By whose hand did he do it, the unlucky man?
Tecmessa. His own. It is obvious. The sword he planted in the earth and fell on gives the evidence against him.
Chorus. What blindness in me. You bled alone, then, and none of your friends was guarding you. And I took no care of it, deaf as I was, knowing nothing. Where — where is he lying, the man who would not bend, whose name is grief?
Tecmessa. He is not to be looked at. I will cover him with this cloak, right over, wrapping him, because no one who loved him could bear to see the black blood driven up through his nostrils out of the wound he made himself. What am I to do? Which of his friends will lift him? Where is Teucer? He would come at the right moment, if he came now, to lay his brother out. Ajax, unlucky man — such as you were, and lying like this. Even your enemies owe you mourning.
Chorus. You were bound to, poor man. With that stiff heart you were bound in the end to work your way through to a hard fate, and to troubles without number. Such things you groaned out at me all night and into the daylight, savage-hearted, hating the sons of Atreus, with a deadly passion in it. That was the great beginning of these sorrows, the hour when the arms were put up as the prize for a contest in courage.
Tecmessa. Oh. Oh no.
Chorus. It goes to the liver, I know. That grief is a true one.
Tecmessa. Oh. Oh no.
Chorus. I do not wonder that you cry out twice over, lady, having just now lost a man you loved so much.
Tecmessa. You can work my troubles out. I have to feel them.
Chorus. That is true.
Tecmessa. Oh, my son — what a yoke of slavery we are walking into. What overseers are standing over us.
Chorus. The things you name, in the middle of this grief — they would be unspeakable, from those two hard men, the sons of Atreus. May a god hold them off.
Tecmessa. None of what you see would have turned out this way if the gods had not been in it.
Chorus. Yes. They have loaded on more weight than can be carried.
Tecmessa. And this is the kind of suffering the terrible goddess, Pallas, daughter of Zeus, grows for Odysseus' sake.
Chorus. No doubt the man who endures everything is exulting in his dark heart, laughing loud at these mad sorrows — shame on it — and the two royal brothers laughing with him when they hear.
Tecmessa. Then let them laugh, and enjoy this man's ruin. Perhaps, though they did not want him while he was alive, they will mourn him dead, when the fighting goes badly for them. Men with crooked judgement do not know what good thing they are holding until they have thrown it away.
His death is more bitter to me than it is sweet to them, and to himself it is a pleasure, because he got hold of everything he wanted: the death he wanted. So what have they got to exult over? He died before the gods. Not before them. No.
Let Odysseus go on being insulting to no purpose. For them Ajax is no longer there. For me he is gone, and he has left me my grief and my mourning, and gone.
Teucer. Oh. Oh no.
Chorus. Be quiet. I think I hear Teucer's voice, striking the note that fits this disaster.
(Teucer comes in.)
Teucer. Ajax, dearest of men, brother, the face I loved to look at — is it true what you have done, as the rumour says it is?
Chorus. He is dead, Teucer. Take it as a fact.
Teucer. Then my luck is too heavy to carry.
Chorus. Things being as they are —
Teucer. This is misery. Misery.
Chorus. You have cause to mourn.
Teucer. It happened so fast.
Chorus. Far too fast, Teucer.
Teucer. This is misery. And the man's child — where in all Troy am I to find him?
Chorus. Alone, by the hut.
Teucer. Then bring him here at once, before one of our enemies snatches him away the way a hunter takes a cub from a lioness and leaves her with nothing. Go. Hurry. Help me. Men everywhere like to stand over the dead and laugh at them, once they are only bodies on the ground.
Chorus. While he was still alive, Teucer, he gave you orders to look after the child, and you are doing it.
Teucer. Of everything my eyes have ever looked at, this is the most painful. And of all the roads I have gone down, this one I have just come along, tracking you, hunting out your footsteps once I heard what had happened to you, dearest Ajax — this is the one that has hurt me most.
A rumour about you went through the whole Greek army as fast as if a god had sent it: that you were dead and gone. I was still far off when I heard it, and I groaned quietly. Now I am looking at it, and it destroys me.
Uncover him. Let me see the worst of it.
(The body is uncovered.)
That face — it is hard to look at, and there is a bitter courage in it. What a crop of griefs you have sown for me by dying. Where can I go? What people will take me in, when I was no use to you in your trouble?
I suppose Telamon — your father, and mine — will greet me with a smile and a kind word when I come home without you. Naturally he will. He is a man who cannot manage a pleasant look even when things go well for him. What will he leave unsaid? What insult will he spare the bastard, got on a woman his spear won — the coward, the man too soft to be a man, who betrayed you, dear Ajax; or better still, who betrayed you on purpose, so as to have your power and your house once you were dead. That is what he will say. He is a man with a short temper and old age has made him heavy, and his anger picks quarrels out of nothing.
And in the end I shall be pushed out of the country and thrown away, called a slave instead of a free man by his own mouth.
That is what waits for me at home. Here at Troy I have many enemies and very little that helps me. All of it I have got out of your death.
What am I to do? How am I to draw you off the sharp tooth of this shining sword, the murderer you breathed your last against? Do you see how, in time, Hector was going to destroy you after all, even dead?
In the gods' name, look at the luck of these two men. Hector was lashed to the chariot rail with the very belt Ajax gave him, and shredded along the ground until his life was gone out of him. And Ajax had this present from Hector, and it is on this that he has died, in a fall that killed him.
Was it not a Fury who forged this blade? Was that belt not made by Hades, the grim workman? For my part I would say that these things, and all things ever, are contrived for men by the gods. If anyone does not care for that idea, let him keep his own, and I will keep mine.
Chorus. Do not go on at length. Think how you will bury him, and what you are going to say — and soon. I can see an enemy coming, and a man who means harm is likely to come laughing at our troubles.
Teucer. Which of the army do you see?
Chorus. Menelaus. The man this whole voyage was fitted out for.
Teucer. I see him. He is not hard to make out at this distance.
(Menelaus comes in.)
Menelaus. You there. I am telling you not to lift that body for burial. Leave it where it is.
Teucer. Why did you spend so many words on that?
Menelaus. Because it is my decision, and the decision of the man who commands the army.
Teucer. And would you tell us what reason you are putting forward?
Menelaus. This. We hoped when we brought him from home that we had an ally for the Greeks and a friend, and on closer inspection we found him worse than a Trojan. He planned the murder of the entire army and marched against us in the night to take us with the spear. And if some god had not put that attempt out, we would have drawn the lot he has drawn, and we would be lying dead by the most shameful death there is, and he would be alive. As it is, a god turned his outrage aside so that it fell on sheep and cattle.
For which reason there is no man strong enough to put his body in a tomb. He will be thrown out somewhere on the pale sand and become food for the birds along the shore.
So do not raise any terrible force of feeling about it. If we could not master him alive, at any rate we shall rule him dead, however much you object, and keep him in order with our hands. While he lived there was never a moment when he would listen to a word from me.
It is the mark of a low nature when a man in the ranks does not think it right to obey the men set over him. The laws will never run well in a city where there is nothing to be afraid of, and no camp can be governed sensibly if it has no fear and no shame in front of it as a defence. A man may grow a great body, but he should expect to fall, even from a small hurt. Where a man has fear in him and shame with it, you may be sure he has found his safety; but where there is licence to be outrageous and do as one likes, be certain that such a state will in time run before a fair wind and then go straight to the bottom.
Let there be fear, I say, standing where fear belongs. And let us not imagine we can do what we enjoy and pay nothing back in pain later. These things come round in turn. He used to be the hot one, doing the outrage; now it is my turn to think well of myself.
So I am warning you not to bury him. Bury him and you may fall into a grave yourself.
Chorus. Menelaus — do not lay down wise principles and then commit an outrage on the dead yourself.
Teucer. I shall never again be surprised, men, when somebody born a nobody does wrong, if men who are supposed to be well born make errors like that in what they argue.
Come — say it again from the beginning. Do you really claim you brought this man here as an ally, and that you recruited him? Did he not sail of his own accord, as his own master? Where are you his commander? Where do you get the right to be king over the men he brought from home? You came here as king of Sparta, not as our master. Nowhere in what you are lawfully allowed to do was it laid down that you should give him orders any more than he should give them to you.
You sailed here under other men's command, not as the supreme general with authority over Ajax at any time. Command the troops you command, and use your solemn language to discipline them. This man I will lay in the grave as justice requires, whether you forbid it or the other general does, and I am not afraid of your mouth.
He did not go on this expedition for the sake of your wife, like those worn-out drudges. He went for the sake of an oath he had sworn, and not for you at all — he never thought much of nobodies.
So come back with more heralds, and bring the commander-in-chief with you. I would not turn round for your noise as long as you are what you are.
Chorus. Again — I do not like that tone in trouble like this. Hard words sting, however right they are.
Menelaus. The archer seems to think rather well of himself.
Teucer. Yes. It is no menial skill I have.
Menelaus. How you would boast, if you had a shield.
Teucer. Even without one I would be a match for you in full armour.
Menelaus. That tongue of yours feeds a fearful temper.
Teucer. When a man has right on his side he may think in a large way.
Menelaus. Is it right that my murderer should prosper?
Teucer. Your murderer? That is a strange thing to say, if you are alive after being killed.
Menelaus. A god saved me. As far as he is concerned, I am dead.
Teucer. Then do not dishonour the gods, when it is the gods who saved you.
Menelaus. Would I find fault with the law of heaven?
Teucer. You would, if you stand here and stop the dead being buried.
Menelaus. I stop my own enemies being buried. That would not be right.
Teucer. Did Ajax ever stand out in the open and make war on you?
Menelaus. He hated me and I hated him. You knew that too.
Teucer. He hated you because you were caught rigging the votes to rob him.
Menelaus. He lost that at the hands of the judges, not mine.
Teucer. You could make a great many stealthy crimes look handsome.
Menelaus. That remark is going to bring somebody pain.
Teucer. No more, I think, than the pain we shall be giving.
Menelaus. I will tell you once. There is no burial for him.
Teucer. And you will hear the answer. He will be buried at once.
Menelaus. I saw a bold-tongued man once who urged sailors to put to sea in winter. And when the worst of the storm was on him you could not have found a voice in him at all. He got under his cloak and let the crew walk over him as they liked. So with you and that raging mouth: perhaps some great storm out of a small cloud will blow up and put your shouting out.
Teucer. And I have seen a man stuffed with foolishness who mocked at his neighbours' misfortunes. And a man rather like me, of the same temper, looked at him and said: "You. Do not do wrong to the dead. Do it and be sure you will suffer for it." That is how he warned the poor fool to his face. And I can see him now, I think, and he is nobody but you. Have I been speaking in riddles?
Menelaus. I am going. It would be a disgrace if it got out that I argue when I have the power to use force.
Teucer. Then crawl off. It is the worst disgrace to me to stand listening to an empty man talking nonsense.
(Menelaus goes.)
Chorus. There is going to be a trial of this, and a great quarrel. Teucer, be quick, as quick as you can manage, and find some hollow grave for him, where he will keep his damp tomb, and men will remember it always.
(Tecmessa comes back, with Eurysaces.)
Teucer. Here they are, and in good time — the man's son and his wife, come to arrange the burial of this poor body.
Come here, child. Stand close, and take hold of your father as a suppliant, the man who fathered you. Kneel here and beg, and hold in your hands locks of hair — mine, and hers, and yours as the third. That is all a suppliant has.
And if any soldier of the army drags you off this body by force, then for his wickedness let him be thrown out of his country wickedly and get no burial, and let his whole family be cut off at the root, just as I cut this lock.
Take it, child. Keep it safe. Let nobody move you. Kneel down and hold on to him.
And you — do not stand about beside him like women instead of men. Defend us until I get back, when I have seen to a grave for him, though the whole world forbids it.
(He goes.)
Chorus. Which will be the last year? When will the count of all these wandering years come to an end, and stop bringing on me the endless ruin of the work of the spear, over the wide fields of Troy, the sorrow and the shame of Greece?
Chorus. He should have gone up into the great sky first, or down to Hades, where everyone goes, that man who showed the Greeks how to make common war with hateful weapons. Those labours of his, the parents of all our labours. He is the man who ruined the human race.
Chorus. He gave me no share in garlands, none in the deep wine-cups, no sweet noise of the pipes, nothing, the miserable man, no lying down at night for pleasure. And from love — from love — he has shut me out entirely. Here I lie with nobody caring, and the heavy dew keeps soaking my hair, to remind me of Troy, where there is no joy.
Chorus. Before this, bold Ajax was always my defence against the terror in the night and against the flying spears. Now he has been handed over to a hateful power. What is left for me? What pleasure is there now? Let me be where the wooded headland fences off the sea, under the cliff of Sunium, so that we could speak to holy Athens as we passed.
(Teucer comes back.)
Teucer. Here I am — I hurried when I saw the commander-in-chief, Agamemnon, coming this way at speed. It is obvious he means to let that clumsy mouth of his go.
(Agamemnon comes in.)
Agamemnon. So it is you, they tell me, who dared to open your mouth wide and make these terrible threats against us — and nothing has happened to you yet. You. I mean you, the son of the captive woman. No doubt if you had been born of a well-bred mother your talk would have gone up to the sky and you would have walked about on tiptoe. As it is, you are a nobody and you have stood up for another nobody lying here, and sworn that we came out with no authority, either as admirals or as generals over the Greeks or over you: Ajax sailed as his own master, you say.
Is it not a great injury to have to hear this from the mouths of slaves? What sort of man is it you shout about so arrogantly? Where did he go, or where did he stand, that I did not? Have the Greeks no men except him?
It looks as though we did ourselves harm when we announced the contest for the arms of Achilles, if we are to be called corrupt on every side because of Teucer — if it will never be enough for you people, even beaten, to accept the verdict that satisfied most of the judges, and you will always be shooting slander at us, or knifing us behind our backs when you finish behind us in the race.
Where those habits get in, no law could ever be settled at all, if we are going to push the rightful winners aside and bring the men at the back up to the front. That has to be stopped. It is not the thick, broad-shouldered men who are the steadiest. It is the men who think well who win everywhere. A broad-backed ox is kept straight on the road by a small whip.
And I can see that medicine coming your way before long, unless you acquire some sense. The man no longer exists — he is a shadow already — and still you insult us boldly and give your tongue too much freedom.
Will you not restrain yourself? Remember your birth, and what you are. Bring somebody else here, a free man, who can plead your case in front of me instead of you. When you speak I no longer follow it. I do not know your foreign language.
Chorus. I wish you both had the sense to hold yourselves in. I have no better advice to give the two of you.
Teucer. How quickly gratitude to the dead drains out of men and is found to have gone over to the other side. This man no longer holds even the smallest word of remembrance for you, Ajax — for you, who so often worked yourself to the bone on his account and put your own life in front of the spear for him. It is all gone. Thrown away.
You there, with all those words and no sense in them: do you not remember anything of the time you were shut inside your own defences, already down to nothing, when the battle turned, and he came alone and saved you? The fire was already burning at the stern decks of the ships and Hector was leaping high over the ditch at the hulls. Who stopped that? Was it not this man — the man who, you say, never set foot anywhere you had not been first? Do you grant that he did his duty by you then?
And the other time, when he went out alone against Hector, alone against alone, by the fall of the lot, and nobody ordered him to? The lot he put in was not the kind that runs away. It was no lump of wet earth. It was the one that would come first and lightly out of the crested helmet. He is the man who did those things, and I was beside him — the slave, the son of the foreign mother.
Teucer. You poor creature. Where are you looking when you talk like that? Do you not know that your father's father, Pelops, was a foreigner, a Phrygian, long ago? That Atreus, who fathered you, set before his own brother a meal made out of his brother's children — the most unholy thing that has been done? And that you yourself were born of a Cretan mother, and her own father caught a stranger on top of her and handed her over to the voiceless fish to be destroyed?
Being what you are, do you reproach a man like me with his breeding? I am the son of Telamon, who won my mother as his bedfellow for being the bravest in the army; and she was a king's daughter by birth, the child of Laomedon, and Heracles gave her to him as the choice gift out of the spoil.
So, born the best from two of the best — could I disgrace my own blood-relation? Him, lying here under such a weight of trouble, whom you would push out unburied, and say so without any shame at all?
Understand this clearly. If you throw him out anywhere, you throw the three of us out with him, lying together. It is a fine thing for me to die in the open, working for him, rather than for your wife — or should I say your brother's? So do not think about my safety. Think about your own. If you cause me any trouble at all, you will soon wish you had been a coward with me rather than bold.
(Odysseus comes in.)
Chorus. Lord Odysseus, you have come at the right moment, if you are here to untie this and not to pull it tighter.
Odysseus. What is the trouble, friends? I heard the sons of Atreus shouting some way off, over this brave man's body.
Agamemnon. And is that not because we have just been hearing the most shameful language from this man, Lord Odysseus?
Odysseus. What language? I can forgive a man for throwing abuse back when he has had abuse thrown at him.
Agamemnon. He heard shameful things because he was doing shameful things to me.
Odysseus. What did he do to you that harmed you?
Agamemnon. He says he will not leave this body without its burial. He will bury it whether I like it or not.
Odysseus. Then may a friend tell you the truth, and go on pulling the oar with you exactly as before?
Agamemnon. Speak. I would be out of my mind otherwise. I count you my greatest friend among the Greeks.
Odysseus. Then listen. In the gods' name, do not bring yourself to throw this man out unburied so hard-heartedly. Do not let the violence in you win so completely that you trample justice underfoot.
He was once the most hostile man in the army to me, too — from the day I won the arms of Achilles against him. But hostile as he was, I would not dishonour him in return, or refuse to say that of all of us Greeks who came to Troy he was the best and bravest, except for Achilles.
So it would not be just for you to dishonour him. It is not him you would be damaging but the laws the gods laid down. There is no justice in doing harm to a good man once he is dead, not even if you hate him.
Agamemnon. You, Odysseus — you are fighting for him against me?
Odysseus. I am. I hated him when it was honourable to hate him.
Agamemnon. And should you not put your heel on him now he is dead?
Odysseus. Do not take pleasure, son of Atreus, in an advantage that does you no credit.
Agamemnon. It is not easy for a man with absolute power to be scrupulous.
Odysseus. But it is easy to allow something to friends who advise you well.
Agamemnon. A good man ought to listen to those in office.
Odysseus. Stop. You win when you give way to your friends.
Agamemnon. Remember what sort of man you are doing this favour for.
Odysseus. He was my enemy. But he was a man of quality.
Agamemnon. What are you doing? Have you so much respect for an enemy's corpse?
Odysseus. His excellence weighs far more with me than his hostility did.
Agamemnon. Men who behave like this are the unsteady kind.
Odysseus. A great many men are friendly at one time and bitter at another.
Agamemnon. And these are the friends you recommend acquiring?
Odysseus. It is not my habit to recommend a rigid spirit.
Agamemnon. You will make us look like cowards today.
Odysseus. On the contrary. We shall look like just men to every Greek.
Agamemnon. So you really are telling me to let the body be buried?
Odysseus. I am. I shall come to the same necessity myself.
Agamemnon. How true it is that every man works for himself in everything.
Odysseus. And who should I work for more than myself?
Agamemnon. Then it will be called your doing, and not mine.
Odysseus. However you do it, you will come out of it well.
Agamemnon. Then be quite certain of this: to you I would grant a larger favour than this one. But that man, here or below, will be my worst enemy just the same. You may do what you like.
(He goes.)
Chorus. Odysseus, anyone who denies you were born with a wise judgement, after this, is a fool.
Odysseus. And now I say to Teucer that from this moment I am as much his friend as I was once his enemy. I would like to join in burying your dead and share the work, and leave out no service that men should perform for the best and bravest of us.
Teucer. Odysseus, you are the best of men, and I have nothing but praise for what you have said. You have proved my fears completely wrong. Of all the Greeks you were his deadliest enemy, and you alone stood by him with your hands ready. You did not come here, alive, and outrage the dead — unlike the general who came here out of his senses, who wanted, he and his brother, to throw the man out mutilated and unburied.
So may the Father who is first on Olympus, and the Fury who forgets nothing, and Justice who completes what she begins, destroy those bad men badly, exactly as they wanted to throw this man out, insulted and undeserving.
But you, child of old Laertes — I hesitate to let you touch the body in the burial, in case I offend the dead by it. In everything else be our partner. And if you want to bring any soldier of the army with you, he is welcome. I will get everything else ready. And you should know that to us you have been a good man.
Odysseus. It was my wish to help. But if it does not please you that I should, I accept what you say, and I will go.
(He goes.)
Teucer. Enough. This has gone on a long time already. Some of you be quick, dig the hollow grave. Others set the high stand with the cauldron round with fire, ready for the washing. Let another party bring from the hut the gear he wore under his shield. Child, you too — with what strength you have, put a loving hand on your father here and help me lift him. The channels are still warm, and still driving up the dark force in him. Come on, everyone who says he is a friend. Move. Get going. Do the work for this man, who was good in every way — and no better man has ever had it done for him. I mean Ajax, when he was alive.
Chorus. There is a great deal a man can know once he has seen it. Before he sees it, nobody can prophesy what is coming, or how he will come out of it.
(Thebes, in front of the royal house. It is just before dawn. Antigone has brought Ismene out through the courtyard gates.)
Antigone. Ismene — my sister, my own blood, the same mother and the same father. Is there one evil, out of everything Oedipus left behind him, that Zeus is not going to bring down on the two of us while we are still alive? There is nothing — no pain, no ruin, no shame, no dishonour — that I have not already seen among your troubles and mine. And now this. What is this order they say the general has just given to the whole city? Do you know anything? Have you heard? Or has it slipped past you that what our enemies do to their enemies is on its way to the people we love?
Ismene. Not one word about the people we love has reached me, Antigone, good or bad, since the day we lost our two brothers — the two of them, on one day, each by the other's hand. And since the Argive army ran during the night just gone, I know nothing beyond that. I am no better off than I was, and no worse.
Antigone. I knew it. That is why I brought you out here past the courtyard gates: so that you could hear it alone.
Ismene. Hear what? Something is turning you dark. I can see it.
Antigone. Yes. Creon, and the burial of our two brothers: one he has honoured and one he has thrown away. Eteocles, they say, he has laid in the ground as justice and custom require, so that he has his honour among the dead below. But Polyneices — the body of Polyneices, who died so miserably — the word has gone out to the citizens that nobody is to cover him with a grave, or so much as cry over him. He is to be left unwept and unburied, a sweet find for the birds, who are watching him already and looking forward to their meal. That, they say, is what the good Creon has proclaimed for you and for me — yes, for me too — and he is coming here now to say it out loud to anyone who has not heard, and he does not treat it as a small matter. Whoever does any of these things is to die for it: stoned to death by the people, in the middle of the city. So that is how things stand for you. And very soon you will show what you are — whether you were born of good blood, or whether you are the bad daughter of a good line.
Ismene. Poor sister. If that is how things are, what use could I be, either way — pulling the knot tighter, or picking it loose?
Antigone. Decide whether you will share the work and the risk with me.
Ismene. What risk? What are you thinking of?
Antigone. Whether you will help these hands of mine lift his body.
Ismene. You mean to bury him? When the city has forbidden it?
Antigone. He is my brother. And yours, whether you like it or not. Nobody will ever catch me betraying him.
Ismene. You reckless thing — with Creon standing against it?
Antigone. Creon has no right to keep me from my own.
Ismene. Oh, sister. Think. Think how our father died, hated and disgraced, after he found out his own crimes for himself and struck out both his eyes with his own hand. Then his mother, who was also his wife — two names for one woman — twisted a rope and ended her life. And third, our two brothers, on a single day, killed each other, the poor fools, each with a hand raised against the other, and made one death between them. Now look at us, the two who are left, alone. Think how much worse we will die if we break the law and go against the ruler's decree and the ruler's power. We have to remember what we are. We were born women; we are not made for fighting men. And we are ruled by people stronger than we are, so we must obey in this, and in things that hurt more than this. So I will ask the dead below to forgive me, because I am forced into it, and I will obey the men in charge. To do more than you can is madness — it makes no sense at all.
Antigone. I would not ask you now. And if you changed your mind later and wanted to do it, I would not be glad to have you with me. Be whatever you have decided to be. I will bury him. If I die doing it, that is a fine way to die. I will lie beside him, his own beside her own — a criminal, and holy. There is more time that I have to please the dead than the living: I will lie there forever. But you, if that is what you choose, go on dishonouring what the gods hold in honour.
Ismene. I dishonour nothing. But to act against the whole city — I was not made for it. I cannot.
Antigone. Use that as your excuse. I am going to heap up a grave over the brother I love best.
Ismene. Oh, you poor thing. I am so afraid for you.
Antigone. Do not be afraid for me. Get your own life straight.
Ismene. Then at least tell nobody what you are doing. Keep it hidden. I will do the same.
Antigone. No — shout it. I will hate you far more if you keep quiet and do not announce it to everyone.
Ismene. You have a hot heart for cold work.
Antigone. I know I am pleasing the people I most need to please.
Ismene. If you can. But you are in love with what cannot be done.
Antigone. Then when my strength gives out, I will stop.
Ismene. You should not go hunting the impossible in the first place.
Antigone. If you go on like this you will have my hatred, and the dead man will hate you too, and he will be right to. Leave me alone — me and my bad judgment — to suffer this terrible thing. Nothing I suffer will be so terrible that it stops me dying well.
Ismene. Go, then, if you have decided. And know this: you are going out of your mind, but to the people you love, you are truly loving.
(Antigone goes out towards the plain. Ismene goes back into the house. The Chorus comes in: the old men of Thebes.)
Chorus. Ray of the sun, the finest light that ever shone on seven-gated Thebes, you appeared at last, eye of the golden day, coming up over the streams of Dirce, and the man with the white shield, who came out of Argos in full armour — you set him running, headlong, with a sharper bit in his mouth.
Chorus. He rose up against our land because of Polyneices and his quarrelsome claims, screaming shrilly, and flew over into our country like an eagle, roofed with a wing of white snow, with a mass of weapons and helmets with horsehair crests.
Chorus. He stood over our houses, his mouth gaping wide around our seven gates, with spears that wanted blood, and he went away again before his jaws could fill with our blood, before the pine-fed fire of Hephaestus took our crown of towers. That is how loud the crash of War rose about his back — too hard a hold for a man wrestling the dragon's own children.
Chorus. For Zeus hates the boasts of a big tongue above everything, and when he saw them coming in a great flood, arrogant with the clang of their gold, he threw his fire at the man on the top of our walls, at the finish line, just as he was starting to shout victory.
Chorus. He swung and fell on the hard ground, the torch still in his hand — the man who a moment ago was raging at us in a frenzy, like a drunk god, with the blasts of the most hateful winds. But it went otherwise for him, and to the others great War dealt out other things, smashing them down, the strong horse on the right of our team.
Chorus. Seven captains at seven gates, posted equal against equal, left their bronze arms behind for Zeus who turns the battle — all but the two hated ones, who, born of one father and one mother, set their two conquering spears against each other and took an equal share of one death.
Chorus. But Victory with the great name has come and smiled back at Thebes of the many chariots. So after this war let us make ourselves forget, and go to all the temples of the gods with dancing all night long, and let Bacchus, who shakes the ground of Thebes, lead the way.
Chorus. But here is the king of the country, Creon, son of Menoeceus, our new ruler by the new turn the gods have given things. What plan is he rowing towards, that he has called this special council of old men and summoned us with one proclamation for all?
(Creon comes in, with attendants.)
Creon. Men. As for the city: the gods shook it with a heavy sea, and they have set it upright again, safe. I sent messengers to bring you here, you apart from everyone else, because I know that you always respected the power of the throne of Laius; and again, when Oedipus set the city straight; and when he was destroyed, you stayed loyal in your hearts to his sons. So now that those two have died on one day by a double fate — each striking and each struck, with the pollution of a brother's blood on their own hands — I hold all the power and the throne, as the nearest kin of the dead.
Now, there is no way to know a man fully — his spirit, his thinking, his judgment — until he has shown himself in office, with the laws in his hands. For my part, a man who steers the whole city and does not hold to the best advice, but locks his tongue out of some fear — that man I think the worst of men, and I have always thought so. And a man who rates one of his own people above his own country — I count him nowhere. I myself — let Zeus, who sees everything, always, be my witness — would never keep silent if I saw ruin marching on the citizens instead of safety; and I would never make a friend of a man who was an enemy of this land. Because I know this: it is the country that keeps us safe, and only while she sails upright can we make any friends at all.
Those are the laws I use to make this city great. And in keeping with them I have now proclaimed this to the citizens, about the sons of Oedipus. Eteocles, who died fighting for this city and was the best of them all with a spear — he is to be buried, with every rite that goes down to the noblest of the dead. But his brother — Polyneices, I mean — who came back from exile wanting to burn his fathers' land and his family's gods to the ground, wanting to drink the blood of his own people and lead the rest away as slaves — the city has been told: nobody is to give him a grave, nobody is to mourn him. He is to be left unburied, his body a thing for the birds and the dogs to eat, mangled where anyone can see it. That is my thinking. Bad men will never, through me, stand ahead of the just in honour. But whoever means well by this city — I will honour him dead and alive alike.
Chorus. That is your decision, Creon, son of Menoeceus, for the man who hates this city and the man who loves it. And you have the power, we suppose, to use whatever law you like — over the dead, and over all of us who are alive.
Creon. Then see to it that you keep watch over what I have said.
Chorus. Put that on some younger man's shoulders.
Creon. That is not what I meant. There are men watching the body already.
Chorus. Then what else are you ordering us to do?
Creon. Not to take the side of anyone who disobeys.
Chorus. Nobody is fool enough to want to die.
Creon. And that is the price, exactly. But hope of profit has destroyed many men before now.
(A Guard comes in from the plain.)
Guard. My lord, I am not going to tell you that I have run here, or that I am out of breath from getting my feet up. I stopped a lot of times to think, and I turned round in the road more than once to go back. My mind kept talking to me. "You poor fool, why are you going somewhere you will be punished the moment you arrive?" And then: "You idiot, are you standing still again? If Creon hears this from somebody else, how do you think you will feel?" Turning it over like that, I got here slowly, in my own time, and that is how a short road turns into a long one. In the end, though, coming to you won. And even if what I have to say is nothing, I will say it anyway, because I have come holding onto one hope: that nothing can happen to me except what was going to happen anyway.
Creon. What is it that has you so downhearted?
Guard. I want to tell you about myself first. I did not do it, and I did not see who did it, and it would not be fair for me to come to any harm.
Creon. You aim carefully, and you fence the thing off all round you. Plainly you have some news.
Guard. Bad news makes a man hang back a long time.
Creon. Will you say it, and then get out of here?
Guard. All right, I am telling you. Somebody has just buried the body and gone. They sprinkled dry dust over the flesh and did the rites that have to be done.
Creon. What are you saying? What man dared do this?
Guard. I do not know. There was no mark of a pickaxe there, no earth thrown up by a spade. The ground was hard and dry, unbroken, no wheel-tracks across it. Whoever did the work left no sign. When the first man on the day watch showed us, everybody was amazed, and none of us liked it. The body had vanished — not buried, no, but there was a thin layer of dust over it, the way someone does it who is trying to get clear of a curse. And there was no trace of any animal, any dog, coming near it or tearing at it. Then the ugly words started flying, guard accusing guard, and it would have ended in blows, and there was nobody there to stop it. Every one of us was the man who did it, and none of us was caught doing it; everybody said he knew nothing about it. We were ready to pick up red-hot iron in our hands, to walk through fire, to swear by the gods that we had not done it and did not know who had planned it or done it. In the end, when searching got us nowhere, one man said something that made every one of us bow his head to the ground in fear, because we could not argue with him, and we could not see how it would go well for us if we did what he said. What he said was that this had to be reported to you, not hidden. That won. And the lot fell on me — lucky me — to win this prize. So here I am. I did not want to come, and you do not want me here, I know that. Nobody loves the man who brings bad news.
Chorus. My lord, something in us has been asking for a while now whether this might be the gods' doing.
Creon. Stop, before what you are saying fills me up with anger too, and you turn out to be a fool as well as an old man. What you are saying is unbearable — that the gods take thought for that corpse. What, were they burying him as a benefactor, out of the honour they hold him in? A man who came to burn their pillared temples and the offerings in them, and their land, and to scatter their laws? Or do you see the gods honouring bad men? It does not happen. No. From the beginning there have been men in this city who could hardly bear this order and were muttering against me, shaking their heads where I could not see, and would not keep their necks under the yoke properly, as they should if they were content with me. It was those men — I am certain of it — who paid somebody, and led them on, to do this.
Money. Nothing that ever grew among human beings is as evil as money. It sacks cities. It drives men out of their homes. It teaches honest minds and twists them round to stand for shameful things. It showed men how to be villains, and how to know every kind of impiety there is. But the men who did this for hire have made sure that sooner or later they pay for it. And if Zeus still has any respect from me, know this for certain, and I say it on my oath: if you do not find the very hand that did this burial and bring him before my eyes, then a plain death will not be enough for you. Not until you have been hung up alive, and shown everyone what this outrage is — so that from now on you will know where to get your profit when you go thieving, and learn that you should not love money from every source there is. You will find that dirty earnings have brought more men to ruin than to safety.
Guard. Will you let me say something? Or do I just turn round and go?
Creon. Do you not know, even now, how much your voice annoys me?
Guard. Does it bite you in the ears, or in the heart?
Creon. Why are you working out where my pain is?
Guard. The man who did it hurts your heart. I only hurt your ears.
Creon. God. What a born chatterer you are.
Guard. Maybe. But not the man who did this. Never.
Creon. Yes, and you sold your life for silver to do it.
Guard. Oh. It is a terrible thing when a judge judges, and judges wrong.
Creon. Be as clever about judging as you like. But if you do not show me the men who did this, you will find out that dirty profits bring misery.
(Creon goes into the house.)
Guard. Well, I hope he is found. That would be best. But caught or not — and luck will decide that — there is no chance that you will see me coming here again. I have got out of this alive, when I never hoped to or expected to, and I owe the gods a great deal of thanks.
(The Guard goes out.)
Chorus. There are many wonders, and none more wonderful than man. He crosses the grey sea in the winter south wind, going through under swells that roar all round him. And the oldest of the gods, Earth, who never dies and never tires, he wears away, his ploughs going round year after year, turning her over with the horse's breed.
Chorus. The light-headed tribe of birds he snares and carries off, and the nations of wild beasts, and the salt brood of the sea, in the coils of his woven nets — the man who thinks of everything. With his devices he masters the beast that lives in the open and walks the hills; he puts the yoke on the neck of the shaggy-maned horse and on the tireless mountain bull.
Chorus. Speech, and thought quick as the wind, and the temper that builds a city — he taught himself all of these, and how to escape the arrows of frost under the open sky, and the arrows of the rain. He has a way through everything. Nothing that is coming finds him without a way. From Hades alone he will get no escape, but from diseases that had no cure he has thought out ways out.
Chorus. Clever beyond all hope, this inventing skill of his, and it carries him now to evil, now to good. When he honours the laws of the land and the justice of the gods he swore to, his city stands high. But the man who lets what is not right live with him for daring's sake has no city at all. May he never share my hearth, never think my thoughts — the man who does such things.
(The Guard comes back from the plain, leading Antigone.)
Chorus. This is a sign from the gods, and I cannot make sense of it. I know her. How can I argue that this is not the girl Antigone? Unhappy child of an unhappy father, Oedipus — what is this? Surely they are not bringing you in for breaking the king's laws, caught doing something mad?
Guard. This is her. This is the one who did it. We caught her burying him. Where is Creon?
Chorus. Here he comes, back out of the house, just when he is needed.
(Creon comes out.)
Creon. What is it? What have I come out in time for?
Guard. My lord, there is nothing a man should swear he will never do. Second thoughts make a liar of the first. I could have sworn I would not be back here in a hurry, after the way your threats had me shaking. But a joy you never hoped for is bigger than any other pleasure, and so I have come, oath or no oath, bringing this girl. She was caught arranging the grave. No lots were drawn this time. This piece of luck is mine, and nobody else's. And now, my lord, take her yourself, as you see fit — question her, convict her. And I am free of it. I have a right to be, and clear of this whole trouble.
Creon. This girl you are bringing — how did you take her, and where?
Guard. She was burying the man. You know all of it now.
Creon. Do you understand what you are saying? Are you telling it straight?
Guard. I saw her burying the body you gave orders about. Is that clear and plain enough?
Creon. And how was she seen? How was she caught in the act?
Guard. It went like this. When we got back, with those terrible threats of yours hanging over us, we swept away all the dust that had been covering the body and stripped the corpse properly bare — it was going soft by then. Then we sat down on the top of the ridge, upwind, to keep the smell of him from hitting us, every man keeping his neighbour awake with a stream of abuse if he looked like slacking off. That went on until the bright disc of the sun stood in the middle of the sky and the heat was burning. Then, all at once, a whirlwind lifted a pillar of dust off the ground — a trouble that reached the sky — and filled the plain, and tore the leaves off every tree on the flat, and the whole great air was choked with it. We shut our eyes and put up with it, this sickness from the gods.
And when it had passed, a long while later, there was the girl. She was crying out, the sharp cry of a bird in bitter grief, the way a bird cries when she looks into her nest and finds it empty and the young ones gone. That is how she was when she saw the body bare: she wailed out loud, and she called down evil curses on the men who had done it. Then straight away she brought dry dust in her hands, and from a fine bronze jug held up high she crowned the dead man with a triple pouring of drink-offerings. We saw it and went for her, and closed round her at once, and she was not frightened at all. We charged her with what she had done before and what she had done just now, and she denied none of it — which was sweet to me, and painful at the same time. Getting out of trouble yourself is the sweetest thing there is. Bringing trouble on people you like is painful. But all of that counts for less with me than my own skin.
Creon. You. Yes, you, with your head bowed to the ground. Do you admit that you did this, or do you deny it?
Antigone. I did it. I say so, and I do not deny it.
Creon. You can take yourself off wherever you like. You are clear of a heavy charge.
(The guard goes out.)
Now you. Tell me — not at length, briefly — did you know that a proclamation had forbidden this?
Antigone. I knew. How could I not? It was public.
Creon. And you still dared to step over these laws?
Antigone. Yes. Because it was not Zeus who made that proclamation to me. And Justice, who lives with the gods below, laid down no such laws among human beings. I did not think your orders had so much strength in them that a man — a mortal — could outrun the unwritten and unshakable laws of the gods. Those are not laws of today or yesterday. They live for ever, and nobody knows when they first appeared. I was not going to pay the penalty for breaking them, in front of the gods, because I was afraid of what some man thinks.
I knew I was going to die — of course I knew — even if you had never proclaimed a word. And if I die before my time, I call that a gain. Anyone who lives the way I live, in the middle of so much evil — how is dying not a gain for them? So to meet this death is a pain that counts for nothing. But if I had let my own mother's son lie dead and unburied, that would have hurt. This does not hurt me. And if what I am doing looks like folly to you, then it may be a fool who is charging me with folly.
Chorus. The girl shows the raw stock she comes from — a raw father's raw daughter. She does not know how to bend to trouble.
Creon. Then let her know this: it is the stiffest spirits that fall hardest. The toughest iron, baked in the fire until it is brittle, is the iron you see snap and shatter most often. And I have seen horses with big tempers brought to order by a small bit. There is no room for big thoughts in anyone who is the slave of the people next door.
This girl already knew all about outrage when she stepped over the laws that had been laid down. And now that she has done it, here is a second outrage: to boast of it, and to laugh at having done it. Well then, I am not the man now — she is the man — if she gets this victory and pays nothing for it. No. Whether she is my sister's child, or closer to me by blood than anyone who worships Zeus at the altar of my house, she and her sister will not escape the worst of deaths. Yes, her sister too. I charge her with an equal share in planning this burial. Call her out. I saw her inside just now, raving, not in possession of her wits. The mind of people plotting something crooked in the dark usually gets caught as a thief before the act. But what I hate most is when someone is caught in a crime and then wants to make it look beautiful.
Antigone. Do you want anything more than to take me and kill me?
Creon. Nothing. With that, I have everything.
Antigone. Then what are you waiting for? Nothing you say pleases me, and I hope nothing ever will; and everything I do is just as hateful to you. Still, where could I have won a brighter glory than by putting my own brother in a grave? Every one of these men would say they approved of it — if fear had not locked their tongues. But a tyrant is lucky in a great many ways, and one of them is that he can do and say whatever he likes.
Creon. You are the only one of these Thebans who sees it that way.
Antigone. They see it too. They keep their mouths shut for you.
Creon. And you are not ashamed to think differently from them?
Antigone. There is no shame in honouring my own flesh and blood.
Creon. Was the man who died on the other side not your blood too?
Antigone. My blood. Same mother, same father.
Creon. Then why pay an honour that is an insult to him?
Antigone. The dead man will not say so.
Creon. He will, if you honour him no higher than the traitor.
Antigone. It was not a slave who died. It was his brother.
Creon. Attacking this country. The other died defending it.
Antigone. Hades wants these laws kept all the same.
Creon. But the good man does not get an equal share with the bad.
Antigone. Who knows what counts as clean down there?
Creon. An enemy is never one of your own. Not even when he is dead.
Antigone. I was not born to share in hating. I was born to share in loving.
Creon. Then go down there and love them, if you must love someone. While I am alive, no woman is going to rule.
(Ismene is brought out of the house by two attendants.)
Chorus. Look — here is Ismene at the doors, weeping a sister's tears; a cloud over her brow spoils her flushed face and wets her lovely cheek.
Creon. And you — you who slid about my house like a viper and drank my blood while I never saw it, never knew I was rearing two ruins, two risings against my throne — come, tell me. Do you say you had a share in this burial too? Or will you swear you knew nothing?
Ismene. I did it — if she agrees. I take my share of the blame, and I carry it.
Antigone. No. Justice will not let you. You did not want to, and I did not let you in.
Ismene. But with you in trouble like this, I am not ashamed to make myself your shipmate in the suffering.
Antigone. Whose deed it was, Hades and the dead below know. One of my own who loves me in words — I do not love her.
Ismene. Sister, do not shut me out of the honour — let me die with you, and make the dead man clean.
Antigone. Do not die with me. Do not claim what you never touched. It is enough that I die.
Ismene. What life is there for me, once I have lost you?
Antigone. Ask Creon. He is the one you look after.
Ismene. Why hurt me like this? It does you no good.
Antigone. If I am laughing at you, it hurts me to do it.
Ismene. Then what can I do for you, even now?
Antigone. Save yourself. I do not grudge you your escape.
Ismene. Oh, this is misery. Am I to miss your death as well?
Antigone. You chose to live. I chose to die.
Ismene. Not without my saying what I had to say.
Antigone. One side thought you were right. The other thought I was.
Ismene. And yet the fault is the same for both of us.
Antigone. Take heart. You are alive. My life died long ago, so that I could be of use to the dead.
Creon. One of these two girls, I tell you, has just now shown she is a fool. The other has been one since the day she was born.
Ismene. Whatever sense we are born with, my king, does not stay with people in trouble. It leaves them.
Creon. Yours left you, when you chose to do evil with the evil.
Ismene. What life is there for me alone, without her?
Creon. Do not say "her." She no longer exists.
Ismene. You will kill your own son's bride?
Creon. There are other fields for him to plough.
Ismene. None fitted to him the way she was.
Creon. I hate a bad wife for a son of mine.
Antigone. Haemon — dearest — how your father dishonours you.
Creon. You are wearing me out, you and your marriage.
Chorus. Will you really take her from your own son?
Creon. Hades is the one who will stop this wedding.
Chorus. Then it is settled, it seems. She dies.
Creon. Settled — for you, and by me. No more delay. Take them inside, slaves. From now on they must be women, and not left loose. Even the bold run for it when they see Hades closing in on their life.
(The attendants take Antigone and Ismene into the house. Creon stays.)
Chorus. Lucky are those whose lives have never tasted evil. For once a house is shaken by the gods no ruin is missing from it; it creeps down over the whole crowd of the family — like the swell of the sea, when Thracian gales blow hard across the dark water under the surface, and it rolls up black sand from the bottom, and the headlands that take the blows of the wind roar back with a groan.
Chorus. I see the old sorrows of the house of Labdacus falling on the sorrows of the dead. One generation does not free the next; some god drives it down, and there is no release. Just now a light had been spread over the last root in the house of Oedipus, and now the bloody dust of the gods below mows it down in its turn — that, and folly in speech, and a fury in the mind.
Chorus. Zeus, what overstepping by men could hold your power in check? Sleep, who catches everything, never takes it; the tireless months of the gods do not; ageless through time, you hold in your power the marble glitter of Olympus. For what comes next, and what is far off, and what went before, this law will hold: nothing enormous enters the life of mortals without ruin.
Chorus. Hope goes wandering wide, and to many men it is a comfort; to many it is a cheat, a trap of light-headed desires. It creeps up on a man who knows nothing until he sets his foot on hot fire. Somebody wise once made a saying famous: evil looks like good, sooner or later, to the man whose mind a god is leading towards ruin —
Chorus. and he lives only the briefest time clear of ruin.
(Haemon comes in.)
Chorus. But here is Haemon, the last born of your children. Does he come grieving for Antigone, the bride he was promised — sick at heart over the cheat of his marriage?
Creon. We shall know soon enough, better than any prophet could tell us. My son — you have heard the final vote on the girl you were going to marry. Have you come here raging at your father? Or are we still your own, whatever we do?
Haemon. Father, I am yours. You have good judgement, and you set me straight by it, and I will follow it. No marriage will count for more with me than your good guidance.
Creon. Yes, my boy. That is how to carry it in your heart: stand behind your father's judgement in everything. That is why men pray to father obedient children and keep them in their homes — so that they pay back their father's enemy with harm and honour his friend exactly as their father does. And the man who fathers useless children — what has he done, would you say, except breed trouble for himself and a great deal of laughter for his enemies?
So do not, my boy, ever throw your good sense away for pleasure, because of a woman. Know that it turns into a cold thing to hold in your arms — a bad woman sharing your bed and your house. What wound could go deeper than a false friend? No. Spit her out like an enemy, and let her go and marry somebody in Hades. I caught her — the one person in the whole city — in open disobedience, and I will not make a liar of myself in front of the city. I will kill her. Let her sing her hymns to Zeus of the blood-tie. If I rear my own family to be disorderly, the people outside the family will certainly go the same way. A man who is straight in his own household will be seen to be just in the city too. But anyone who oversteps and does violence to the laws, or thinks he can give orders to those in power, gets no praise from me. Whoever the city sets up, that man must be obeyed — in small things and in just things and in their opposites. That is the man I would trust to rule well, and to be willing to be ruled well, and to hold the post he was given in a storm of spears, a just and good man at your side in the line.
There is no worse evil than anarchy. It destroys cities; it turns houses upside down; it breaks the allied ranks and sends them running. But where men stand firm, it is obedience that saves most of their lives. So we must defend good order, and never, in any way, let ourselves be beaten by a woman. If we must fall, better to fall to a man. Then nobody could call us weaker than women.
Chorus. To us — unless age has robbed us of our wits — you seem to speak sensibly about what you are speaking of.
Haemon. Father, the gods plant reason in human beings, and of everything we own it is the highest thing. To say that you are wrong in what you have said — I could not do it, and I hope I never learn how. But another man might have something right to say too. And it is my nature to watch, on your behalf, everything people say or do or find to blame. Your eye is a frightening thing to an ordinary citizen, when it comes to words you would not enjoy hearing. But I can hear these things, in the dark: how the city is grieving for this girl — how of all women she least deserves to die so shamefully, for deeds so glorious. Her own brother had fallen in the slaughter, and she would not leave him unburied, to be destroyed by wild dogs or by some bird. Does she not deserve golden honour? That is the dark talk that goes quietly round.
For me, father, nothing I own is worth more than your doing well. What greater pride is there for children than a father's flourishing good name — or for a father than his children's? So do not carry one way of thinking in you and one only — that what you say, and nothing else, is right. A man who thinks he alone has sense, or a tongue or a soul that nobody else has — when you open men like that up, they turn out empty. Even a wise man is not shamed by learning many things, and by not pulling too tight. You see how, beside a winter torrent, the trees that yield keep their branches, and the ones that stand against it are torn out root and all. And the sailor who keeps the sheet taut and never slackens it turns his boat over, and finishes his voyage with the benches underneath him.
Give way. Let your anger shift. If I, a younger man, can contribute one judgement, it is this: by far the best thing is for a man to be born full of knowledge. But since that seldom tips the right way, it is good to learn from those who speak well.
Chorus. My king, if he says something to the point, it is right that you should learn from him — and you, Haemon, from your father. There has been good speaking on both sides.
Creon. Men of my age are to be taught sense by a man of his?
Haemon. Nothing that is not just. If I am young, look at what I do, not at my years.
Creon. Is honouring the disorderly something to do?
Haemon. I would never tell anyone to respect the bad.
Creon. And is she not sick with exactly that disease?
Haemon. The whole people of this city of Thebes say no.
Creon. Is the city going to tell me how to rule?
Haemon. Do you hear how young that sounds?
Creon. Am I to rule this land for someone other than myself?
Haemon. There is no city that belongs to one man.
Creon. Is the city not held to belong to the man in power?
Haemon. You would rule a desert beautifully. Alone.
Creon. This one, it seems, is fighting on the woman's side.
Haemon. If you are a woman. It is you I care about.
Creon. You filthy thing — taking your father to court?
Haemon. Because I see you going wrong, against justice.
Creon. I go wrong by respecting my own authority?
Haemon. You do not respect it. You are trampling the honours of the gods.
Creon. Foul character — and coming second to a woman.
Haemon. You will never catch me giving in to what is shameful.
Creon. Every word you say is for her.
Haemon. And for you, and for me, and for the gods below.
Creon. You will never marry her while she is alive.
Haemon. Then she will die, and dying she will destroy someone.
Creon. So you have got as far as threats now? That bold?
Haemon. What threat is there in speaking against empty judgements?
Creon. You will pay in tears for teaching sense, with no sense in you.
Haemon. If you were not my father, I would say you were out of your mind.
Creon. A woman's slave. Do not try to wheedle me.
Haemon. Do you want to talk, and talk, and hear nothing back?
Creon. Is that so? By this Olympus above us — you can be sure of it — you will not go on abusing me and get any joy of it. Bring out that hateful thing. She dies now, this minute, here in front of his eyes, at her bridegroom's side.
Haemon. Not at my side. Never think it. She will not die beside me, and you will never set eyes on my face again. Go mad with whichever of your friends can stand it.
(He goes.)
Chorus. The man is gone, my king, fast, in a rage. A mind that young is heavy when it is hurt.
Creon. Let him do it. Let him go and think bigger thoughts than a man should. He will not save those two girls from their death.
Chorus. Both of them? You mean to kill them both?
Creon. Not the one who did not touch it. You are right.
Chorus. And what death do you have in mind for the other?
Creon. I will take her where the path is empty of people and hide her alive in a hollow of rock, with just as much food set out as keeps off pollution, so that the whole city escapes the stain. And there she can pray to Hades — the only god she worships — and perhaps she will win herself a way out of dying. Or else she will learn, at last, that worshipping what is in Hades is wasted labour.
(He goes in.)
Chorus. Love, unbeaten in battle — Love, who falls on what men own, who keeps the night watch on a girl's soft cheek, you cross the sea, you go into the huts in the wild fields; not one of the immortals can escape you, nor any of us who live for a day. Whoever has you goes mad.
Chorus. You pull the minds of just men off the line into injustice, to their ruin; you have stirred up this quarrel too, between men of one blood. And the bright desire in the eyes of the bride made for the bed — that wins. It sits beside the great laws as a fellow ruler. The goddess Aphrodite plays with us, and there is no fighting her.
(Antigone is brought out of the house under guard.)
Chorus. And now I too am carried outside the laws as I look at this. I cannot hold back the springs of my tears any longer, when I see Antigone going to the bridal chamber where everyone sleeps.
Antigone. Look at me, citizens of my father's land, walking the last road, looking at the last light of the sun, and never again. Hades, who puts everyone to bed, is leading me alive to the shore of Acheron. No wedding song was my share; no bridal hymn was ever sung for me. I will be married to Acheron.
Chorus. But you go famous, and with praise, down into this hiding place of the dead, not struck by wasting sickness, not paid the wages of the sword. You go by your own law, alive — the only mortal who ever did — down into Hades.
Antigone. I have heard how the Phrygian stranger died the most pitiful of deaths — Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, on the peak of Sipylus, whom the rock grew over like clinging ivy, and mastered her; and the rains, so people say, never leave her as she wastes away, nor the snow; and under her weeping brows she wets the ridges of the hill. The god is putting me to sleep like her. Exactly like her.
Chorus. But she was a goddess, and born of gods, and we are mortals, born to die. Still, for a woman who is dead it is a great thing to hear that she drew the same lot as the godlike — in her life, and afterwards in her death.
Antigone. Oh — I am being laughed at. By the gods of our fathers, why not wait until I am gone to mock me, and not do it to my face? City — rich men of my city — springs of Dirce, sacred grove of Thebes and her chariots — you at least I call as witnesses how unwept by anyone I love, and by what laws, I go to the heaped rock that shuts in my strange new tomb. Oh, I am wretched. I have no home among the living and none among the dead — not with those who live, not with those who have died.
Chorus. You went to the far edge of daring and struck the high seat of Justice, child, and fell hard. You are paying off some debt of your father's.
Antigone. You have touched the thought that hurts me most: my father's grief, told three times over, and the whole doom of us, the famous house of Labdacus. Oh, the ruin of my mother's bed, my poor mother sleeping with her own son, my father — and I was born of them, wretched. To them I go, cursed, unmarried, to live with them. Brother — your marriage was doomed; you died, and dying you killed me while I still lived.
Chorus. There is a kind of reverence in showing reverence; but power, to the man whose care is power, can never be stepped over. Your own self-willed temper destroyed you.
Antigone. Unwept, unloved, no wedding song, I am led, wretched, down the road that waits. I may not look any longer, poor girl, at this holy eye of light. No tear falls for my fate. Not one of my own is grieving.
Creon. Do you not realise that nobody would ever stop singing and wailing before they died, if wailing did any good? Take her away. Now. Wall her up in the roofed tomb the way I ordered, and leave her there alone, whether she wants to die or to go on living in a house like that. Our hands are clean as far as this girl is concerned. But one way or the other, she loses her home up here.
Antigone. Tomb. Bridal room. Deep-dug house that will keep me for ever. I am on my way to my own people, and Persephone has already taken in so many of them, dead among the dead. I go down last of all, and by far the worst, before my share of life has run out. And yet I go with a strong hope in me: that I will be welcome to my father when I come, and dear to you, Mother, and dear to you, my brother. Because when each of you died it was my own hands that washed you and laid you out and poured the offerings at your graves. And now, Polyneices, this is what I get for tending your body.
And yet I was right to honour you. Anyone with sense would say so. I would never have taken this on against the will of the city for children, if I had been a mother, or for a husband, if he had lain dead and rotting. What law am I appealing to when I say that? If my husband died, I could have had another. If I lost a child, I could have had another, by another man. But with my mother and my father both hidden in Hades, no brother could ever grow for me again. That was the law I honoured you by, above all the others, and for it Creon decided that I was a criminal and had dared something terrible, my brother.
And now he has hold of me and is taking me away like this: no marriage bed, no wedding song, no share of marriage, no bringing up of children. Stripped of everyone who owes me anything, in misery, I go alive into the hollow places of the dead. What justice of the gods have I broken? Why should I look to the gods any more, wretched as I am? Who is there to call on for help? I did what was holy, and holiness has got me convicted of the opposite. Well, if this is what the gods approve of, then once I have suffered I will admit that I was at fault. But if the fault is these men's, I wish them nothing worse than what they are doing, unjustly, to me.
Chorus. The same winds still, the same gusts of the spirit, have hold of her.
Creon. Then the men taking her will have reason to cry over their slowness.
Antigone. Oh. That word has come as close to death as a word can come.
Chorus. I cannot tell you to take heart. It is going to end the way he says.
Antigone. City of my fathers, land of Thebes, and you gods who were here before us, they are taking me, and there is no more waiting. Look at me, you lords of Thebes: the last daughter left of the house of your kings. Look what I suffer, and at whose hands, for holding holy what is holy.
(Antigone is led away.)
Chorus. Danae too had to give up the light of the sky for a room with walls of bronze. Her father shut her in it, because a prophecy had said her son would kill him, and she was hidden in a bedroom that was a tomb, and put under the yoke. And yet she came of an honoured line, my child, my child, and she kept in her body the seed of Zeus, who came to her as a shower of gold. But whatever the power is that hands out our portion, it is terrible. Not wealth escapes it, not war, not a walled tower, not the black ships that beat against the sea.
Chorus. And the son of Dryas, quick to anger, king of the Edonians, was put under the yoke too, for his mocking rages: Dionysus shut him up in a prison of rock. There the terrible, flowering force of his madness drained out of him drop by drop, and he came to know the god he had struck at in his frenzy with a mocking tongue. He had tried to stop the women the god possessed, and the fire of the god's cry, and he had angered the Muses who love the flute.
Chorus. And beside the Dark Rocks, where two seas meet, are the shores of the Bosporus and Salmydessus in Thrace, that welcomes no stranger, where Ares, who lives close to that city, saw the cursed wound dealt to the two sons of Phineus by his savage second wife: darkness struck into the circles of their eyes, crying out for vengeance, eyes put out not by a blade but by bloody hands and the sharp point of a weaver's shuttle.
Chorus. They wasted away, poor boys, and wept for their miserable suffering, born of a mother whose marriage had been torn from her. And she was of the ancient blood of the Erechtheids, the kings of Athens, and in far-off caves she was reared among her father's storms: the daughter of Boreas, the North Wind, running with the horses over the steep hills, a child of gods. And yet on her too the long-lived Fates laid their hands, my child.
(Teiresias comes in, blind, led by a boy.)
Teiresias. Lords of Thebes, we have come here by one road, two people seeing with one pair of eyes. That is how the blind travel: somebody goes in front.
Creon. What is it, old Teiresias? What news?
Teiresias. I will tell you. And you, do what the prophet says.
Creon. I have never yet stood apart from your judgement.
Teiresias. That is why you have steered this city on a straight course.
Creon. I can testify to it. I have had the benefit.
Teiresias. Then understand this: you are standing on a razor's edge again.
Creon. What do you mean? Your mouth makes me shiver.
Teiresias. You will know, when you hear what my art has shown me.
I was sitting in my old place for reading the birds, where every kind of bird comes in to me as into a harbour, and I heard a sound out of them I had never heard: they were screaming in some ugly frenzy, and it had turned to gibberish. And I could tell they were tearing at each other with their claws, murderously. The beating of their wings was clear enough. I was afraid at once, and I tried the burnt offering on an altar with the fire well lit. But the god of fire would not blaze up out of the meat. Instead a wet ooze sweated out of the thigh-bones onto the embers and smoked and spat; the gall burst and scattered into the air; and the thighs lay there streaming, bare of the fat that had been wrapped round them. That is what this boy told me: the rites failing, the signs giving nothing. He is my guide, as I am the guide of others.
And the city is sick with this because of you, because of your decision. Every altar in our city, every hearth, is fouled with what the birds and the dogs have carried there off the poor fallen son of Oedipus. And so the gods will no longer take our prayers at the sacrifice, or the flame from the thigh-meat; and no bird screams out a sign we can read, because they have eaten the fat of a slaughtered man's blood.
Think about it, my son. Everybody makes mistakes. But when a man has made one, he is not stupid, and not doomed either, if he sets about mending the harm he has fallen into instead of standing there immovable. Stubbornness gets a man convicted of stupidity. Give way to the dead. Do not keep stabbing at a man who is finished. What kind of strength is it, to kill the dead a second time? I mean you well, and what I am telling you is good for you. And the sweetest thing there is, is to learn from good advice, when the advice is to your profit.
Creon. Old man, every one of you shoots at me like archers at a target, and now I am not even safe from your prophet's trade. Your tribe has been buying and selling me for years; I have been loaded and shipped like cargo. Go on, make your profit; trade in the white gold of Sardis and the gold of India, if you like. But you will not put that man in a grave. Not even if the eagles of Zeus want to snatch him up for food and carry him to the throne of Zeus himself. Not even then will I be frightened by that pollution into allowing him a burial. I know very well that no human being has the strength to pollute the gods. And even the cleverest of men, old Teiresias, take a shameful fall when they dress shameful words up handsomely for the sake of money.
Teiresias. Ah. Does any man know, does any man stop to think,
Creon. What? What is this great truth for everyone that you are announcing?
Teiresias. How much the best thing anyone can own is good judgement?
Creon. As much, I suppose, as having no sense is the worst thing.
Teiresias. And that is the sickness you are full of.
Creon. I do not want to answer a prophet with insults.
Teiresias. You are doing it, when you say my prophecies are lies.
Creon. The whole tribe of prophets loves money.
Teiresias. And the tribe of tyrants loves dirty profit.
Creon. Do you know that you are saying that about your king?
Teiresias. I know. It was through me that you saved this city.
Creon. You are a skilled prophet. You just like doing wrong.
Teiresias. You will make me say what should stay unspoken in my mind.
Creon. Say it. Only not for money.
Teiresias. Is that what you think I have been doing, where you are concerned?
Creon. Understand this: you are not going to buy and sell my judgement.
Teiresias. Then understand this, and understand it well. The sun's chariot will not run many more laps before you pay back, out of your own body, one corpse for the corpses: a dead child for the dead. Because you have taken one who belonged up here and thrown her down below; you have lodged a living soul in a tomb, with no honour. And you keep up here what belongs to the gods below: a dead body, with no share of the rites, no burial, unholy. None of that is any business of yours, or of the gods above; you are forcing it on them. And for that the destroyers who come late are lying in wait for you, the Furies of Hades and of the gods, and you will be caught in these same evils yourself.
Now look and see whether I say this because somebody has silvered my palm. Not much time will pass before this house of yours is loud with the wailing of men and of women. And every city is stirring up in hatred against you: every city whose dead have had their funeral rites performed by dogs, or wild beasts, or some bird of the air, carrying the unholy stink home to the hearths of the city.
You provoked me, so I have shot these at you like an archer, in anger, straight from the heart, and they fly true. You will not outrun their sting.
Boy, take me home. Let him spend his temper on younger men, and learn to keep a quieter tongue in his head, and a better mind than the one he is carrying now.
(Teiresias is led away.)
Chorus. The man is gone, my king, and he has left terrible prophecies behind him. And we know one thing: in all the time since this hair of ours turned from black to white, he has never once told this city a lie.
Creon. I know it myself. My mind is in confusion. To give way is terrible. To stand and resist, and have my will smashed by ruin, that is terrible too.
Chorus. You need to take good advice, son of Menoeceus.
Creon. Then what should I do? Tell me. I will do it.
Chorus. Go and let the girl out of her underground room. And build a tomb for the man who is lying there.
Creon. That is your advice? You think I should give in?
Chorus. Yes, my king, and as fast as you can. The harm the gods send has swift feet, and it cuts off men whose thinking has gone wrong.
Creon. Oh, it is hard. I am going against my heart, but I will do it. There is no use fighting necessity.
Chorus. Then go and do it yourself. Do not leave it to other people.
Creon. I will go as I am. Come, come, servants, all of you, those here and those not here. Get axes in your hands and run to that place over there, the one in view. My judgement has turned this way, and I tied her up, so I will be there to untie her myself. I am afraid, now, that the best thing is to keep the laws that have been laid down, right to the end of your life.
(Creon goes out with his men.)
Chorus. God of many names, glory of Semele, the bride of Cadmus, and child of Zeus who thunders deep, you who watch over famous Italy and rule in the folds of the valley of Eleusis, Demeter's, where everyone is welcome: Bacchus, who lives in Thebes, the mother-city of your Bacchants, beside the wet streams of the Ismenus, on the ground where the savage dragon's teeth were sown.
Chorus. You are seen through the flaring smoke of torches above the twin-peaked rock of Parnassus, where the nymphs of the Corycian cave walk in your train, and Castalia's spring sees you too. The ivy-covered slopes of the hills of Nysa and the green shore heavy with grapes send you here, while immortal voices cry your cry, to watch over the streets of Thebes.
Chorus. Thebes you honour above every city, you and your mother whom the lightning struck. And now, when the whole city and all its people are held in the grip of a violent sickness, come with cleansing feet over the slope of Parnassus, or across the groaning strait.
Chorus. You who lead the dance of the stars that breathe fire, who watch over the voices in the night, child of Zeus, show yourself, my lord, with the women who go round you, the Thyiads, who dance for you all night in their madness and call you Iacchus, the giver.
(A Messenger comes in.)
Messenger. You who live beside the house of Cadmus and Amphion: there is no human life, however it stands, that I would ever praise or blame as settled. Luck sets a man on his feet and luck knocks him down, lucky and unlucky alike, every day; and nobody can prophesy to men how things will stand. Creon was a man to envy once, in my opinion. He had saved this land of Cadmus from its enemies, taken sole and complete command of the country, and steered it straight, and he was flourishing in a noble crop of children. And now all of it is gone. When a man has thrown away what gave him pleasure, I do not count him as living. He is a breathing corpse. Pile up wealth in your house if you like; live with a king's pomp. If the joy is missing from it, I would not give the shadow of smoke for the rest, set against joy.
Chorus. What is this new weight of grief for the royal house that you have brought us?
Messenger. They are dead. And the living are to blame for their dying.
Chorus. Who killed? Who is lying dead? Tell us.
Messenger. Haemon is dead. And the hand that shed his blood was his own.
Chorus. His own? Or his father's?
Messenger. His own, in rage at his father over the killing.
Chorus. Prophet, how true your word has come.
Messenger. That is how things are. The rest is for you to decide.
Chorus. Wait. Here is Eurydice, poor woman, Creon's wife. Either she has heard about her son, or it is chance that brings her out of the house.
(Eurydice comes out.)
Eurydice. People of Thebes, all of you: I heard what you were saying as I was going out to the gate to pray to the goddess Pallas. I was just drawing back the bolts of the door to open it, when the sound of a disaster in my own house struck through my ears. I fell back terrified into my slaves' arms, and everything went dark. But tell me again, whatever the news was. Tell it again. I am no stranger to bad news. I can hear it.
Messenger. Dear lady, I was there, and I will tell you, and I will leave out not one word of the truth. Why should I soften it for you, and be shown up afterwards as a liar? The truth is always the straight road.
I went with your husband as his guide to the far edge of the plain, where the body of Polyneices was still lying, unpitied, torn by dogs. We prayed to the goddess of the crossroads and to Pluto to hold back their anger and be kind. We washed him with the holy washing, and with fresh-cut branches we burned what was left of him, and heaped up a high mound of his own earth over it. Then we turned to go into the girl's hollow bridal room of Hades, with its floor of stone.
While we were still some way off, one of the men heard the sound of loud, high wailing from the direction of that bridal room where no rites had been paid, and came and told his master Creon. As Creon crept closer the confused sounds of a wretched cry came round him, and he groaned, and let out a word of misery. "Oh. Am I a prophet? Is this the unluckiest road I have ever walked? It is my son's voice calling me. Servants, go closer, quickly. Stand by the tomb, go in through the gap where the stones have been torn out of the mound, right up to the mouth of it, and look. Is it Haemon's voice I hear, or are the gods deceiving me?"
Messenger. We looked, as our despairing master ordered. And in the furthest part of the tomb we saw her, hanging by the neck, in a noose of fine linen, and him, with his arms thrown round her waist, holding her, crying out for his bride lost to the world below, and for what his father had done, and for his wretched marriage.
When his father saw him he gave a terrible groan and went in to him and called to him, wailing: "Poor boy, what have you done? What was in your mind? What disaster has destroyed your reason? Come out, my son. I am begging you on my knees." But the boy glared at him with wild eyes, spat in his face, said nothing in reply, and drew his two-edged sword. His father ran out and he missed. Then, poor wretch, he turned his anger on himself, and just as he stood, leaned on the sword and drove it half its length into his side. Still conscious, he took the girl in the loose curve of his arm and held her, and gasping, sent a sharp jet of blood down her white cheek, drop by drop.
Dead, he lies holding the dead. He got his marriage in the end, poor boy, in the house of Hades. And he has shown the world how badly a man is served by bad judgement, the greatest evil that can lie on him.
(Eurydice goes back into the house.)
Chorus. What do you make of that? The woman has gone back in without a word, good or bad.
Messenger. It startled me too. But I live on the hope that she has heard her son's fate and does not think it proper to cry out in front of the city: that she will go inside and set her slaves to mourn the household's grief. She has too much judgement to do anything wrong.
Chorus. We do not know. To us, too much silence is as heavy a sign as a lot of useless shouting.
Messenger. Well, we will find out whether she is hiding some purpose in the dark of a heart worked up to fury. I will go into the house. You are right. Too much silence can weigh as much.
(He goes in. Creon comes in carrying the body of Haemon.)
Chorus. And here is the king himself, with a memorial in his arms that speaks for itself: if it is right to say it, the ruin of no stranger's making, but his own mistake.
Creon. Oh, the mistakes of a mind that would not think, stubborn, deadly. Look at us: the killer and the killed, one blood. Oh, the misery of my decisions. My son. So young, and dead so young, aiai, aiai, you are dead, you are gone, by my folly, not yours.
Chorus. Oh. You seem to have seen justice too late.
Creon. Oh, misery. I have learned. I am wretched, and I have learned. A god, then, it was then, with a great weight in his hand struck me on the head and shook me down wild roads, oh, and trampled my joy underfoot. Ah. Ah. The pains men take, and the pain of them.
Messenger. Master, you have your hands full, and more in store. One grief you carry in your arms; the other is in the house, and you will see it soon.
Creon. What? What can be worse, after this?
Messenger. Your wife is dead. The mother of this dead boy, all mother to him, poor woman, by wounds cut a moment ago.
Creon. Oh. Oh harbour of Hades, that no washing can clean, why are you killing me? Why? You who bring me the worst news, what is it you are saying? Aiai. You have killed a dead man over again. What are you telling me, boy? What new thing, aiai, aiai, a woman's death, slaughtered, heaped on the death that was here already?
Chorus. You can see for yourself. It is not hidden inside any more.
(The doors are opened. Eurydice's body lies inside.)
Creon. Oh, a second evil. I see it, wretched as I am. What fate is still waiting for me? What more? I have just had my son in my arms, and now, in front of me, another corpse. Ah, ah, poor mother. Ah, my son.
Messenger. She stood at the altar with a sharp-whetted sword and let the dark come down over her eyes. First she cried for the glorious death of Megareus, who died before, then for this boy, and last of all she called down evil on you, the killer of her sons.
Creon. Aiai, aiai. I am shaking with fear. Why does nobody strike me full in the chest with a two-edged sword? I am wretched, aiai, and I am drowning in wretched misery.
Messenger. Yes. She laid the blame for both deaths, this one and the other, on you, this dead woman, before she died.
Creon. And how did she die? How did the blood come?
Messenger. By her own hand. A blow under the heart, when she heard what had happened to her son, and the crying.
Creon. Oh, oh. This will never fit another man. This is mine. I did it. I killed you, I did, it was me, I say it, and it is true. Servants, take me away. Quickly. Take me out of the way. I am nothing now. I am less than nobody.
Chorus. What you ask is a gain, if there is any gain in evil. When trouble lies at your feet, the shortest way is best.
Creon. Let it come, let it come, the best death of all, the one that brings me my last day. Let it come, let it come, so that I never see another.
Chorus. That is for later. There is work here in front of us. Those things are in the hands of the ones whose business they are.
Creon. Everything I want, I put into that prayer.
Chorus. Then pray for nothing more. There is no escape for a human being from the suffering that is allotted.
Creon. Take me away, out of the way, a useless man, who killed you, my son, without meaning to, and you too, my wife. Oh, misery. There is nowhere I can look, nothing I can lean on. Everything in my hands has gone crooked, and on my head a fate has jumped that I cannot carry.
(Creon is led into the house.)
Chorus. Good sense is the first part of happiness, by a long way. And do nothing the gods would count as unholy. Great words from boasting men are paid for with great blows, and in old age they teach good sense.
(Before the palace at Thebes. People of every age sit on the altar steps holding suppliants' branches. Oedipus comes out.)
Oedipus. My children — the newest growth on old Cadmus' tree — why are you sitting here in front of me like this, crowded round the altars with your branches wound in wool? The whole city is full of incense, and full at the same time of hymns for healing and of groaning. I did not think it right, children, to hear about it from other people's messengers, so I have come myself: Oedipus, the man whose name everybody knows. Now, old man — you speak, since it is your place to speak for the rest of them. What has you sitting here? Is it something you are afraid of, or something you want? You can count on me to help in every way I can. I would be a hard man indeed if I could look at a gathering like this and feel no pity.
Priest. Oedipus, ruler of my country, you can see for yourself the ages of those of us sitting at your altars: some not yet strong enough to fly far, some heavy with years — priests, I am the priest of Zeus — and these here, picked from the young men. The rest of the people sit wreathed in the market-place, at the two temples of Pallas, and beside the ash of Ismenus, where the fire gives its answers. Because the city, as you see yourself, is pitching in a heavy sea now, and can no longer lift her head up out of the trough of the bloody swell. She is dying in the fruit-buds of her soil; dying in the herds at pasture; dying in the labour of her women, who bring nothing to birth. And on top of it all the fire-bearing god has swooped down and is driving the city before him — the plague, the most hated thing there is. By him the house of Cadmus is emptied, and black Hades grows rich in groans and weeping.
It is not that we rank you with the gods, I and these children, that we are sitting at your hearth. It is that we judge you the first of men, both in the ordinary chances of life and in dealings with the powers above. It was you who came to the city of Cadmus and freed us from the tax we were paying to the cruel singer, the Sphinx — and you did it knowing no more than the rest of us, with nobody to teach you. A god was at your side, people say, and believe it; and it was you who set our lives straight. So now, Oedipus, mightiest of all in our eyes, every one of us here is begging you: find us some defence. Whether you have heard a voice from one of the gods or know something from a man — because I notice that with men of experience, even the outcome of their plans tends to come out alive. Come, best of mortals, set the city on its feet again. Come, take care: this land calls you its saviour now, for the good will you showed us before. Do not let us remember your reign as the time we were stood up straight and then fell down. Set the city upright, and make it safe. The luck you brought us then came under a good omen; be the same man now. If you are going to rule this land, as you do now, it is better to rule it with men in it than empty. A wall is nothing, and a ship is nothing, with no men living inside them together.
Oedipus. My poor children. I know what you have come wanting; it is no mystery to me. I know very well that you are all sick — and sick as you are, there is not one of you as sick as I am. Your pain comes to each of you singly, to himself and to nobody else; but my heart groans for the city, and for myself, and for you, all at once. So you are not waking a man who was asleep. Understand that I have wept, a great deal, and have gone down many roads in the wanderings of my thought. And the one cure I could find, looking hard, I have already acted on: I sent Creon, the son of Menoeceus, my wife's brother, to Apollo's house at Pytho, to learn what I must do or say to save this city. And now that I count the days against the time, it worries me what he is doing. He has been gone longer than is reasonable — longer than the journey takes. But when he comes, I would be a poor sort of man if I did not do everything the god makes plain.
Priest. You have timed that well. These men are signalling to me that Creon is coming up now.
Oedipus. Lord Apollo — let him come with some saving luck, as bright as his face is.
Priest. To guess from the look of him, it is good news. He would not be coming with his head wreathed so thick in bay, all in berry.
Oedipus. We will know in a moment; he is close enough to hear. My lord, my kinsman, son of Menoeceus — what word from the god have you brought us?
Creon. Good. I say that even hard things, if they happen to come out straight, can all turn out well.
Oedipus. But what is the word itself? What you have said so far leaves me neither bold nor frightened.
Creon. If you want to hear it with these people standing close, I am ready to speak. Or we can go inside.
Oedipus. Speak to all of them. I carry the grief for these people more than for my own life.
Creon. Then I will tell you what I heard from the god. Lord Apollo commands us, in plain terms, to drive out a pollution of this country — one that has been nursed in this soil — and not to go on feeding it until it cannot be healed.
Oedipus. Drive it out with what kind of cleansing? What sort of trouble is this?
Creon. By banishing a man, or by paying blood back with blood. It is that blood which is storming the city.
Oedipus. And what man's fate is he pointing to?
Creon. We had a leader once in this country, my lord — Laius — before you took the steering of the city.
Oedipus. I know it, from hearing. I never saw him.
Creon. He was killed. And now the god tells us clearly to punish his killers, whoever they are, by force.
Oedipus. And where on earth are they? Where is anyone going to find the track of an old crime, so hard to read?
Creon. In this country, he said. What is looked for can be caught. What is neglected gets away.
Oedipus. Was it at home, or in the fields, or on some other soil that Laius met this death?
Creon. He left the country, he told us, to consult the oracle. And once he had set out he never came home again.
Oedipus. And no messenger, no companion on the road, saw it — nobody whose account could have been learned from and used?
Creon. They died — all but one, who ran away in terror, and of what he saw he could say for certain only one thing.
Oedipus. What thing? One thing can lead to the discovery of many, if we could get hold of even a short beginning for hope.
Creon. He said robbers fell in with them and killed him — not one man's strength, but a crowd of hands.
Oedipus. Then how would a robber have come to that pitch of daring, unless something was being arranged from here, with silver?
Creon. That was thought at the time. But with Laius dead, nobody came forward to help, in the troubles we were in.
Oedipus. What trouble stood in the way? A throne had fallen. What stopped you finding out?
Creon. The Sphinx, with her shifting riddle-song. She made us drop what was out of sight and look at what was under our feet.
Oedipus. Then I will go back to the beginning and bring it to light again myself. Apollo has done right, and you have done right, to take up this care for the dead man. So you will see me too, and justly, standing with you as an ally, taking vengeance for this country and for the god together. Not for some far-off friend's sake — for my own sake I will scatter this pollution. Whoever killed that man might well want to take the same hand to me. So in helping him I am helping myself. Now quickly, children — up from the steps, and take your suppliants' branches with you. And let somebody gather the people of Cadmus here, since I mean to do everything there is to do. With the god's help we will be shown lucky — or fallen.
Priest. Children, let us stand up. What we came here for, this man has promised us of his own accord. And may Apollo, who sent these oracles, come himself — to save us, and to stop the sickness.
(They go. The Chorus, elders of Thebes, comes in.)
Chorus. Sweet-spoken word of Zeus, what are you, that have come from Pytho, rich in gold, to shining Thebes? I am stretched on the rack; my frightened heart is shaking. Healer of Delos, to whom we cry — I stand in awe of you. What will you bring to pass for me? Something new, or a debt come round again with the turning seasons? Tell me, deathless Voice, child of golden Hope.
Chorus. First I call on you, daughter of Zeus, deathless Athena, and on your sister, who holds the land, Artemis, seated on her famous throne at the circle of the market, and on Apollo, who shoots from far away — come, you three who turn death aside, show yourselves to me. If ever before, when ruin rose up over the city, you drove the flame of the plague out of our borders, come now too.
Chorus. Oh, the pain — the sorrows I carry have no number. The whole people is sick, and thought has no spear that anyone can fight it off with. Nothing grows from the famous soil, and the women do not come up out of the screaming labour of birth. One after another you can watch them go, like a bird on strong wings, faster than fire that nobody can fight, to the shore of the god of evening.
Chorus. And of those deaths the city dies without number. Her children lie on the ground, unpitied, carrying death, with no one to weep for them; and among them wives, and grey-haired mothers with them, at the altar's edge, from here and from there, cry out begging for an end to their bitter pains. The hymn to the Healer rings out, and with it the sound of groaning. For all this, golden daughter of Zeus, send us the bright face of your help.
Chorus. And the raging god — Ares — who now with no bronze shield burns me up, coming at me with a shout — I beg him to turn his back and run out of my country with a fair wind behind him, either into the great bedchamber of Amphitrite or into the Thracian surf where there is no harbour. Because whatever the night leaves undone the day comes and finishes. Him — father Zeus, you who hold the power of the fire-bearing lightning — destroy him under your thunderbolt.
Chorus. Lycian lord, Apollo — I would have your arrows too, from the gold-twisted string of your bow, dealt out unconquerable, set to guard us, and the fire-bearing torches of Artemis with which she races over the hills of Lycia. And I call on the god with the golden headband, who carries this land's name, wine-faced Bacchus, whom the Bacchants cry to, who goes with the Maenads — come near with your blazing pine-torch against the god who has no honour among the gods.
(Oedipus comes out of the palace.)
Oedipus. You pray. And what you pray for — if you are willing to hear what I say and take it in, and do the sickness's own work against it — you may get: help, and relief from your troubles. I say this as a stranger to the story, and a stranger to the deed. I could not have tracked it far on my own, without some clue to go on. But as it is — since I was made a citizen among citizens only after the event — I proclaim this to all of you, Cadmus' people:
Whoever among you knows at whose hand Laius the son of Labdacus died, I order him to tell me everything. And if he is afraid, let him take the charge out of his own way by laying it against himself. He will suffer nothing unpleasant beyond this: he will leave the country, unharmed. If instead someone knows the killer to be another man, from another land, let him not keep silent. I will pay the reward, and my thanks will go with it.
But if you keep silent — if any man, out of fear for a friend or for himself, pushes this order of mine aside — then hear what I will do about that. I forbid anyone in this land, where I hold the power and the throne, to take that man in, whoever he is, or to speak to him, or to let him share in prayers to the gods or in sacrifices, or to give him a share of the holy water. Drive him from your houses, all of you. He is our pollution — the Pythian oracle of the god has just shown me this. That is the kind of ally I am to the god and to the dead man.
And I curse the one who did it, whether he is one man who has kept hidden or one of several: may he wear out his miserable life, badly, as the bad man he is. And I pray one thing more. If he should turn out to be a member of my own household, at my own hearth, with my knowledge — may I suffer everything I have just called down on them. All this I charge you to carry out, for my sake, and for the god's, and for this country's, wasted as it is, fruitless and godless.
Oedipus. Even if the god had not pushed this matter on us, it was not right to leave it uncleansed as you did. The best of men had died, and your king. You should have hunted it down. As it is, I hold the power that he held before me; I hold his bed, and his wife, who had borne his children; and if his hope of a family had not failed him, we would have had children in common, born of one mother. Instead, fate came down on his head. For all these reasons I will fight for him as I would for my own father, and I will go to every length to catch the man whose hand did the murder — for the son of Labdacus, of Polydorus before him, of Cadmus before him, and of Agenor of old.
And on those who do not do this, I pray the gods send them no harvest from the earth and no children from their women, but let them die of the doom that is on us now, or of one worse. As for the rest of you, Cadmus' people, who are content with this — may Justice, our ally, and all the gods be with you for ever.
Chorus. Since you have bound me under your curse, my lord, I will speak on those terms. I did not kill him, and I cannot show you the man who did. As for the search — it was for Apollo, who sent the order, to tell us who did it.
Oedipus. That is fairly said. But no man alive can force the gods to do what they do not want to.
Chorus. Then I will say what seems to me the second-best thing after that.
Oedipus. If there is a third, do not leave that out either.
Chorus. Lord Teiresias — I know he sees the same things that Lord Apollo sees. From him, my king, a man searching into this could learn about it most clearly.
Oedipus. That is not something I have let sit idle either. On Creon's advice I have sent two messengers already. And I have been wondering for a while why he is not here.
Chorus. Apart from him, the other talk is faint and old.
Oedipus. What talk? I am going into every story.
Chorus. He was said to have been killed by some travellers.
Oedipus. I heard that too. But nobody sees the one who saw it.
Chorus. Well, if he has a scrap of fear in him, he will not stand still once he hears the curses you have laid.
Oedipus. A man who was not afraid of doing it will not be afraid of a word.
Chorus. But here is the one who will convict him. They are bringing the prophet of the god at last — the only man in whom the truth is born.
(Teiresias is led in by a boy.)
Oedipus. Teiresias, you who take everything in — what can be taught and what cannot be spoken, what is in heaven and what walks on the earth — you cannot see, but you understand all the same what sickness the city lives with. And against it, lord, we find you our one protector and saviour. Apollo — in case you have not already heard it from the messengers — sent back this answer to our question: the only release from this sickness would come if we found out for certain who killed Laius, and killed them, or sent them out of the land in exile. So do not grudge us anything — a voice from the birds, or any other road of prophecy you have. Save yourself, save the city, save me, save everything the dead man's pollution has touched. We are in your hands. And there is no finer work for a man than to help others with what he has and what he can do.
Teiresias. Ah. How terrible it is to understand, when understanding does the man who has it no good. I knew that well, and I let it slip — or I would not have come here.
Oedipus. What is it? You have come in with no heart at all.
Teiresias. Let me go home. You will bear what is yours most easily, and I what is mine, if you take my advice.
Oedipus. That is no lawful thing you are saying, and no loving one, towards the city that reared you — to refuse her this answer.
Teiresias. Because I see that your words are not going where they should either. So, in case the same thing happens to me —
Oedipus. In the gods' name, if you know something, do not turn away. All of us here are bowing to you, begging.
Teiresias. Because none of you understands. I will never bring out what is mine — I will not call it yours — my troubles.
Oedipus. What are you saying? You know, and you will not tell? You mean to betray us and destroy the city?
Teiresias. I will not hurt myself, and I will not hurt you. Why cross-examine me for nothing? You will not get it from me.
Oedipus. Nothing? You worst of the worst — you would put a stone into a rage — will you never speak out? Are you going to stand there, unmoved, and never come to the end of it?
Teiresias. You find fault with my temper. You have not looked at your own, living in the same house with you. You blame me instead.
Oedipus. Who would not lose his temper, hearing words like that — the way you are treating this city, with contempt?
Teiresias. It will come of itself, whether I cover it in silence or not.
Oedipus. Then what is going to come, you must tell me.
Teiresias. I will say nothing more. Rage at that, if you like, with the wildest anger you have in you.
Oedipus. I will, and I will leave nothing out, angry as I am, of what I have understood. Know this: it looks to me as if you helped to plant this deed, and did it — everything short of killing with your own hands. If you happened to have eyes, I would say the deed was yours alone.
Teiresias. Would you. Then I tell you: stand by the proclamation you made. From this day forward do not speak to these men, or to me. You are the unholy polluter of this land.
Oedipus. You have the gall to fling that out? And where do you think you are going to get away from it?
Teiresias. I have got away already. The truth I carry is strong.
Oedipus. Taught by whom? Not by your art, at any rate.
Teiresias. By you. You pushed me into saying it, against my will.
Oedipus. Saying what? Say it again, so I can learn it better.
Teiresias. Did you not understand it the first time? Or are you testing me, making me talk?
Oedipus. Not so well that I could call it known. Say it again.
Teiresias. I say you are the murderer of the man whose murderer you are looking for.
Oedipus. You will not be glad you said that twice — that piece of misery.
Teiresias. Shall I tell you something else, then, to make you angrier?
Oedipus. As much as you want. It will be said for nothing.
Teiresias. I say you have been living, without knowing it, in the most shameful closeness with those nearest to you — and you do not see how deep in evil you stand.
Oedipus. And you think you can go on saying things like that and enjoy it?
Teiresias. Yes — if there is any strength in the truth.
Oedipus. There is. But not for you. You have none of it, because you are blind — in your ears, in your mind, in your eyes.
Teiresias. And you are a wretched man, throwing those insults — which every man here will soon be throwing at you.
Oedipus. You are fed by one long night. You could never hurt me, or any man who sees the light.
Teiresias. No. It is not your fate to fall by me. Apollo is enough for that, and it is his business to bring it about.
Oedipus. Is this Creon's invention, or yours?
Teiresias. Creon is no harm to you. You are your own harm.
Oedipus. Wealth, and kingship, and the skill that outdoes every other skill in this life that everybody envies — how much jealousy you keep stored up against yourselves, if for the sake of this power, which the city put into my hands as a gift — I never asked for it — Creon the faithful, Creon my friend from the beginning, has crept up on me in secret and wants to throw me out, and has put up this scheming wizard, this tricky beggar-priest, who has sharp eyes for profit only and was born blind in his art.
Come, tell me: where have you ever shown yourself a true prophet? When the singing bitch was here, why did you say nothing to set these citizens free? And that was a riddle not for the first man who came along to read; it needed prophecy. And you were shown to have none — nothing from the birds, nothing learned from any god. I came along instead, Oedipus who knew nothing, and I stopped her. I hit the answer by my own wits, with nothing learned from birds. And this is the man you are trying to throw out, hoping to stand close beside Creon's throne. I think you will be sorry, you and the man who put this together, that you tried to purge the land. If you did not look like an old man, you would have learned by suffering what your ideas were worth.
Chorus. To our way of judging, Oedipus, his words were spoken in anger, and so were yours. And we do not need that. What we need is to think how best we can carry out the god's oracles.
Teiresias. You may be king. But the right to answer, at least, has to be held equal, word for word — I am master of that much. I do not live as your slave. I live as Apollo's. So I will not be put on the roll as Creon's client. And since you have thrown my blindness in my face, I tell you this: you have your eyes and you do not see the evil you stand in — not where you live, not whom you live with. Do you know where you come from? You have been, without knowing it, the enemy of your own people, under the earth and on it. And the curse of your mother and your father — a double lash, a terrible-footed thing — will one day drive you out of this land, seeing straight now, and after that seeing darkness. Where will there be a harbour for your cries? What corner of Cithaeron will not echo them, soon, when you understand the marriage you sailed into in that house — no harbour there — after such a fair voyage? And there is a crowd of other evils you have no sense of, that will bring you level with what you really are, and level with your own children. Now — spit on Creon, and on this mouth of mine. There is no mortal alive who will be ground down more miserably than you.
Oedipus. Am I to stand here and listen to that from him? Damn you — out, and quickly. Turn round and get away from this house, back where you came from.
Teiresias. I would not have come if you had not called me.
Oedipus. I did not know you would talk like a fool. Otherwise I would have taken my time about summoning you to my house.
Teiresias. That is what I am — a fool, as you think. But to the parents who bred you, I had sense.
Oedipus. What parents? Wait. Who among mortals bred me?
Teiresias. This day will breed you, and destroy you.
Oedipus. Everything you say is riddles and darkness.
Teiresias. And are you not the best man born at solving them?
Oedipus. Go on, throw that at me. It is where you will find I am great.
Teiresias. And yet that is the luck that has destroyed you.
Oedipus. If I saved this city, I do not care.
Teiresias. Then I am going. Boy — take me away.
Oedipus. Yes, let him take you. Standing here you are in the way; you are a nuisance. Once you are gone you cannot hurt me any more.
Teiresias. I am going — after I have said what I came to say. I am not afraid of your face. There is no way you can destroy me. I tell you this: the man you have been looking for all this time, with your threats and your proclamations about the murder of Laius — that man is here. A stranger, supposedly, living among us; but he will be found a Theban, born here, and he will take no joy in the discovery. Blind, who now sees; a beggar, who now is rich; he will go into a foreign land feeling the ground in front of him with a stick. And he will be found to be, to his own children, both brother and father; to the woman he came from, both son and husband; and to his father, the sharer of one wife, and the killer. Go inside and work that out. And if you catch me out in a lie, then say I know nothing about prophecy.
(The boy leads him away. Oedipus goes into the palace.)
Chorus. Who is he? The god-speaking rock of Delphi has spoken of a man who has done, with bloody hands, unspeakable things past all speaking. Time for him to run — to set his feet moving faster than storm-horses. Because the son of Zeus is leaping on him, armed with fire and lightning, and behind him come the terrible ones, the death-spirits that never miss.
Chorus. It has flashed out, just now, from snowy Parnassus: the voice that says track down the unknown man, everyone. He is wandering under the wild wood, through the caves and over the rocks, like a bull, wretched, on wretched feet, alone, trying to get clear of the oracles from the navel of the earth. And they are alive for ever, and they fly round him.
Chorus. Terrible — the clever reader of birds has stirred up terrible things in me, and I can neither believe him nor deny him. I do not know what to say. I hover on hopes, and see nothing clearly, here or behind me. What quarrel there was between the house of Labdacus and the son of Polybus, I never learned, then or now — nothing I could use as a test to go against the public name of Oedipus and take the side of Labdacus' house in unsolved deaths.
Chorus. Zeus and Apollo understand; they know what men do. But that a human prophet sees more than I do — there is no true way to judge that. One man may pass another in skill. But never — not until I saw the words come true — would I side with the men who blame him. Because the winged girl came at him once, in plain sight, and he was seen to be wise, and passed the test, and the city loved him. So in my heart he will never be found guilty of evil.
(Creon comes in.)
Creon. Men of this city — I have heard that Oedipus the king is making terrible charges against me, and I am here because I will not put up with it. If, in the trouble we are in now, he thinks he has suffered anything at my hands, in word or in action, that was meant to harm him, then I have no wish for a long life, carrying a name like that. The damage this story does me is not a small thing. It is the biggest there is — if I am to be called a bad man in the city, and a bad man by you and by my friends.
Chorus. But that reproach may well have been forced out of him by anger, not by any judgement of his mind.
Creon. And was it said out loud — that the prophet was put up to his lies by me, on my advice?
Chorus. That was said. What he meant by it, I do not know.
Creon. And when he laid this charge against me — were his eyes steady? Was his mind?
Chorus. I do not know. What the men in power do, I do not see. But here he comes now, out of the house himself.
(Oedipus comes out of the palace.)
Oedipus. You. How did you get here? Have you really got the face for it — the nerve to come to my house, when you are plainly the murderer of the man who owns it, and the barefaced thief of my throne? Come on, tell me, in the gods' name: was it cowardice you saw in me, or stupidity, that made you plan this? Did you think I would not notice this work of yours creeping up on me in the dark, or that once I had seen it I would not fight it off? Is the attempt itself not stupid — to go hunting a throne without a following and without friends, when a throne is a thing you take with a following and with money?
Creon. Do you know what you should do? Hear as much back as you have said, and then judge for yourself, once you know.
Oedipus. You are a clever talker, and I am a poor learner from you. I have found you my enemy, and a heavy weight on me.
Creon. On that very point, hear first how I will put it.
Oedipus. On that very point, do not tell me that you are not a bad man.
Creon. If you think stubbornness with no sense in it is something worth having, you are not thinking straight.
Oedipus. If you think you can do a kinsman wrong and not answer for it in justice, you are not thinking well.
Creon. I agree — that is justly said. Now teach me what this injury is that you say you have suffered from me.
Oedipus. Did you or did you not persuade me that I ought to send someone for that holy prophet?
Creon. I did. And I am still of the same mind.
Oedipus. How long ago is it now, then, that Laius —
Creon. Did what? I do not follow you.
Oedipus. — vanished from sight, by a deadly stroke?
Creon. You would be measuring long years, and old ones.
Oedipus. And was this prophet in his trade back then?
Creon. As skilled as he is now, and honoured just the same.
Oedipus. Did he say anything about me, at that time?
Creon. Never — not while I was standing anywhere near.
Oedipus. But did you not hold an inquiry into the killer?
Creon. We did, of course we did. And we heard nothing.
Oedipus. Then how is it this clever man did not say all this then?
Creon. I do not know. Where I do not understand, I like to keep my mouth shut.
Oedipus. This much you do know, and could say — if you were in your right mind.
Creon. What? If I know it, I will not deny it.
Oedipus. That if he had not put his head together with yours, he would never have said this killing of Laius was mine.
Creon. If that is what he says, you know best. But I think it only fair that I learn from you what you have just learned from me.
Oedipus. Learn all you like. I will not be caught as a murderer.
Creon. Well then. You are married to my sister?
Oedipus. There is no denying what you ask.
Creon. And you rule this land as she does, sharing it equally?
Oedipus. Whatever she wants, she gets from me.
Creon. And am I not the third of you, equal to the two of you?
Oedipus. That is exactly where you show yourself a false friend.
Creon. Not if you reasoned with yourself the way I do. Consider this first: do you think anyone would choose to rule with fear at his back, rather than sleep untroubled — if he was going to have the same power either way? I was never born wanting to be king, rather than to do what a king does; nor was any other man who knows how to keep himself in hand. As it is, I have everything from you and nothing to fear. If I ruled myself, there would be a great deal I had to do against my will. So how could a throne be sweeter to me than power without pain, and influence? I am not yet so far deceived that I want anything beyond what is good and profitable too. As it is, everyone greets me; everyone welcomes me; everyone who wants something from you calls me out to talk, because their whole chance of getting it lies with me. How would I give up all this and take the other? A mind that thinks well would not turn bad. No — I am no lover of that idea, and I could never bear to act with anyone else who was.
And here is your proof. First, go to Delphi and ask whether I reported the oracle to you accurately. Then, if you catch me having plotted anything at all with the seer, take me and kill me — not by one vote but by two, yours and my own. But do not accuse me on your own, on a suspicion you cannot prove. It is not just to think bad men good at random, or good men bad. To throw away a good friend, I tell you, is the same as throwing away the life in your own body, the thing you love most. In time you will know all this for certain. Time alone shows a man to be just. A bad one you can know in a single day.
Chorus. He has spoken well, my lord, for a man who is careful not to fall. Those who are quick to judge are not safe.
Oedipus. When a man plotting in secret moves fast, I have to be fast in planning against him. If I sit quiet and wait, his business will be done and mine will have failed.
Creon. What do you want, then? To throw me out of the country?
Oedipus. Far from it. I want you dead, not exiled — so that you can show the world what envy comes to.
Creon. So you will not give way, and you will not believe me?
Creon. Because I can see you are not in your right mind.
Oedipus. In my own interest, I am.
Creon. You should be in mine just as much.
Oedipus. But you were born bad.
Creon. And if you understand nothing?
Oedipus. I must rule all the same.
Creon. Not if you rule badly.
Oedipus. City! Oh, my city!
Creon. I have a share in the city too. It is not yours alone.
Chorus. Stop, my lords. I see Jocasta coming out of the house, and in good time. With her help you must settle this quarrel that stands between you.
(Jocasta comes out.)
Jocasta. You poor fools, why have you started up this senseless brawl of tongues? Are you not ashamed — with the land as sick as this — to be stirring up troubles of your own? Go into the house, you; and you, Creon, go to yours. And stop making so much of a grief that is nothing.
Creon. Sister, your husband Oedipus thinks it right to do a terrible thing to me. He has picked one of two evils: either to drive me from my fathers' land, or to take me and kill me.
Oedipus. I do. I have caught him, wife, working evil against my person with an evil craft.
Creon. May I get no good of my life — may I die under a curse — if I have done any of the things you charge me with.
Jocasta. In the gods' name, Oedipus, believe him. Believe this oath before the gods most of all, and then believe me, and these men standing here before you.
Chorus. Give way. Be willing. Think, my lord. I beg you.
Oedipus. What is it you want me to give you?
Chorus. Respect a man who was never a fool before, and who now is bound by a great oath.
Oedipus. Do you know what you are asking?
Chorus. I know.
Oedipus. Then say what you mean.
Chorus. A friend who has put himself under a curse — never cast him out in dishonour on a charge from a story nobody can prove.
Oedipus. Then understand this. When you ask that, you are asking for my death, or my exile from this land.
Chorus. No — by the Sun, the first of all the gods. Godless, friendless, by the worst death there is, let me die, if that thought is in me. But the land is dying, and it wears my heart out, unlucky as I am — if now, on the old troubles, new troubles are to be piled from the two of you.
Oedipus. Then let him go. Even if it means I must die, or be driven out of this land by force, dishonoured. It is your mouth I pity, not his — your pleading. Him, wherever he goes, I will hate.
Creon. You are sullen in giving way, that much is plain, as you are heavy when your anger runs past the mark. Natures like that are hardest, and rightly, on themselves.
Oedipus. Will you not leave me alone and get out?
Creon. I am going. You have not known me. To these men I am what I was.
(Creon goes.)
Chorus. Lady, why do you wait to take this man inside?
Jocasta. When I have learned what happened.
Chorus. Blind suspicion came, out of talk. And even an unjust word bites.
Jocasta. From both of them?
Chorus. Yes.
Jocasta. And what was the story?
Chorus. Enough, for me — enough, with the land already in pain. Let it stay where it stopped.
Oedipus. Do you see where you have got to, good judge that you are, letting my cause go slack and blunting my heart?
Chorus. My lord, I have said it more than once. Know this: I would be shown a madman, lost to all sense, if I turned away from you — you who set my beloved country on a straight course when it was wandering in trouble, and who now, if you can, will be its good pilot again.
Jocasta. In the gods' name, my lord, tell me too: what is this thing that has set such anger in you?
Oedipus. I will, wife, for I honour you above these men. It is Creon, and the plot he has laid against me.
Jocasta. Tell me, then — if you can say clearly what the quarrel is that you charge him with.
Oedipus. He says I am the murderer of Laius.
Jocasta. On his own knowledge, or on hearsay from somebody else?
Oedipus. Oh, he sent in a villain of a prophet to say it for him. As for his own mouth, he keeps that entirely clean.
Jocasta. Then let go of the things you are talking about. Listen to me, and take this to heart: no human being has any share in the prophet's art. I will show you the proof, and briefly.
An oracle came to Laius once — I will not say from Apollo himself, but from his servants — that his fate would be to die at the hands of a child born to him and to me. And Laius, so the story goes, was killed one day by foreign robbers, at a place where three roads meet. As for the child, three days had not passed since its birth when Laius pinned its ankles together and had it thrown away, by other hands, on a mountain where no one goes.
So there Apollo did not bring it about that the child became his father's killer, or that Laius suffered the terrible thing he was afraid of and died at his child's hands. That is how the voices of prophecy had marked out the future. Pay them no attention. Whatever the god needs, he will easily bring to light himself.
Oedipus. What a wandering of the soul, wife, what an upheaval of the mind has taken hold of me, just now, hearing you.
Jocasta. What worry has turned you round, that you say this?
Oedipus. I thought I heard you say that Laius was cut down at a place where three roads meet.
Jocasta. That was what was said, and the story has never stopped.
Oedipus. And where is this place, where the thing happened?
Jocasta. The country is called Phocis. The road forks there, and one branch comes to that spot from Delphi and the other from Daulia.
Oedipus. And how much time has gone by since this happened?
Jocasta. It was announced to the city a little before you appeared and took power over this land.
Oedipus. Zeus. What have you decided to do with me?
Jocasta. What is it, Oedipus? Why does this weigh on your mind?
Oedipus. Do not ask me yet. Laius — tell me what he looked like, what build he had, and how far on he was in life.
Jocasta. He was tall. His hair was just beginning to go white. And in shape he was not so very unlike you.
Oedipus. Oh, this is wretched. I think I have just laid myself under terrible curses, without knowing it.
Jocasta. What do you mean? I am frightened to look at you, my lord.
Oedipus. I am terribly afraid the prophet can see. But you will show me better, if you tell me one thing more.
Jocasta. I am frightened too. But ask, and what I know I will tell you.
Oedipus. Was he travelling with a small party, or with a lot of armed men around him, the way a ruler does?
Jocasta. There were five of them in all, and one of them was a herald. And one carriage, carrying Laius.
Oedipus. Oh — now it is all coming clear. Who was it that told you this story, wife?
Jocasta. A servant of the house, the only one who came back alive.
Oedipus. And does he happen to be in the house now?
Jocasta. No. When he got back from there and saw you holding the power and Laius dead, he took my hand and begged me to send him out to the fields, to the pastures with the flocks, so that he could be as far out of sight of this city as possible. And I sent him. For a slave, he deserved that favour and a bigger one.
Oedipus. Can he be brought back to us quickly?
Jocasta. He can. But why do you want that?
Oedipus. I am afraid for myself, wife — afraid I have said far too much. That is why I want to see him.
Jocasta. Well, he will come. But I think I have a right, too, to learn what weighs so heavily on you, my lord.
Oedipus. You will not be kept from it, now that my fears have come this far. Who has a better claim than you to hear it, when I am walking through luck like this?
My father was Polybus of Corinth; my mother was Merope, a Dorian. I was counted the greatest man in that city until a thing happened to me — a thing worth wondering at, though not worth the weight I gave it. At a dinner a man who had drunk too much, in his cups, threw it at me that I was not my father's true son but a changeling. That day I held myself in, though it was hard. The next day I went to my mother and father and questioned them, and they were furious at the man who had let the insult fly. So on their side I was comforted; and still the thing kept scratching at me, because it had spread a long way.
So without telling my mother or my father I went to Delphi. And Apollo sent me away without an answer to what I had come for, but he said other things, and showed me miseries and terrors and griefs: that I was to sleep with my mother, and show the world a breed of children that men could not bear to look at, and be the killer of the father who made me. When I heard that, I fled the land of Corinth, and from then on I measured my distance from it by the stars, running for some place where I would never see the shame of those evil oracles come true. And on my way I came to this very country, where you say this king of yours was killed.
Oedipus. And I will tell you the truth, wife. When I was on the road and close to this place where the three ways meet, there a herald came towards me, and a man riding in a carriage drawn by young horses, just as you describe. And the man in front, and the old man himself, tried to force me off the road. I was angry, and I struck the one who was shoving me aside, the driver. And when the old man saw that, he watched for the moment I was passing the carriage, and brought his double goad down on the middle of my head.
He did not pay an equal price. He paid more. In one stroke from the staff in this hand he went over backwards and rolled straight out of the middle of the carriage. And I killed them. Every one of them.
But if this stranger had any tie of blood with Laius, then who is more wretched than the man in front of you? What man could the gods hate more? No stranger and no citizen may take him into their house; no one may speak to him; everyone must drive him from their doors. And it was nobody else who laid these curses on me — I did it, myself. And I defile the dead man's bed with the very hands that killed him. Was I born bad? Am I not wholly unclean? — if I must go into exile, and in exile never see my own people or set foot in my own country, or else be yoked in marriage to my mother and kill my father Polybus, who fathered me and brought me up. If a man judged that all this came from some savage power, would he not be right about Oedipus?
No. No — by the holy majesty of the gods, let me never see that day. Let me go out of the sight of men, vanished, before I see a stain like that come down on me.
Chorus. To us, my lord, this is frightening. But until you have learned it all from the man who was there, keep hoping.
Oedipus. That is exactly how much hope I have left: to wait for the man, the herdsman, and nothing else.
Jocasta. And when he has appeared, what is it you want from him?
Oedipus. I will tell you. If he is found to say the same as you, then I have escaped this disaster.
Jocasta. And what did you hear from me that matters so much?
Oedipus. You said he told of robbers — that it was men, plural, who killed him. If he still says the same number, then I did not kill him: one man cannot be the same as many. But if he speaks of one man travelling alone, then the deed is plain, and it tips onto me.
Jocasta. Well, be sure that is how the story came out, and he cannot take it back again. The city heard it, not I alone. And even if he does turn aside from what he said before, he can never, my lord, show that the killing of Laius squares with the prophecy — for Apollo said outright that he was to die at the hand of a child of mine. And that poor creature never killed him; it died first itself. So as far as prophecy goes, from now on I would not look this way for it or that.
Oedipus. You are right. But all the same, send somebody to fetch the farm hand. Do not let it drop.
Jocasta. I will send at once. But let us go into the house. I will do nothing that is not what you want.
(Oedipus and Jocasta go inside.)
Chorus. May it be my portion to carry a holy purity in every word and act, under the laws that are set on high, walking the heights, born through the bright air of heaven, whose only father is Olympus. No mortal nature of men gave them birth, and forgetting will never lay them asleep. A great god is in them, and he does not grow old.
Chorus. Outrage breeds the tyrant. Outrage, once it has gorged itself for nothing on all that is out of season and does no good, climbs to the topmost crag and plunges down a sheer drop into necessity, where no foot can be of any use. But the wrestling that is good for the city — I pray the god never to end it. The god is my protector, and I will not let him go.
Chorus. If a man walks in arrogance, in what he does or says, with no fear of Justice, no reverence for the seats of the gods, let an evil portion take him for his ill-starred pride of living — if he will not win his gain justly and keep his hands from what is unholy, but reaches out, in his folly, for what must not be touched. If that goes on, what man will ever again pray to keep the gods' arrows off his soul? If deeds like these are honoured, what is my dancing for?
Chorus. I will go no more in reverence to the untouched navel of the earth, nor to the temple at Abae, nor to Olympia, unless these things are made to fit together so that every mortal can point to them. But you who rule — if it is right to call you that — Zeus, lord of all: let this not slip past you, or past your deathless, everlasting power. The old prophecies about Laius are fading; already men are setting them aside, and nowhere is Apollo plain in his honours. The things of the gods are going.
(Jocasta comes out, carrying a wreathed branch and incense.)
Jocasta. Lords of this land, it has come into my mind to visit the temples of the gods, with these garlands in my hands and this incense. Oedipus is letting his spirit run too high, on every kind of grief. He does not judge the new by the old, the way a man in his senses would; he belongs to whoever is talking, if the talk is of terrors. So, since I do no good by advising him, I have come to you, Apollo — Lycean Apollo, whose altar is nearest — as a suppliant with these offerings of prayer, that you may find us some clean way out of this. For now we are all afraid, seeing him struck out of his wits, as if he were the helmsman of our ship.
(A Messenger enters, an old man.)
Messenger. Could you tell me, strangers, where the house of King Oedipus is? Or better still, tell me where he is himself, if you know.
Chorus. This is the house, stranger, and he is inside. And this lady is his wife, the mother of his children.
Messenger. Then may she be blessed, and always among the blessed, since she is his wife in every sense.
Jocasta. And the same to you, stranger. You deserve it, for your kind words. But tell me what you have come wanting, and what you wish to say.
Messenger. Good news, lady, for your house and for your husband.
Jocasta. What good news? And who has sent you?
Messenger. I come from Corinth. And the word I am about to say — you will be glad of it, how could you not be? — but perhaps you will grieve too.
Jocasta. What is it? What is this double power it has?
Messenger. The people of the Isthmus are going to set him up as their king. That is what was being said there.
Jocasta. What? Is old Polybus no longer in power?
Messenger. No. Death holds him in his tomb.
Jocasta. What did you say? Polybus is dead, old man?
Messenger. If I am not telling the truth, I deserve to die.
Jocasta. You, girl — go in and tell your master this, quickly.
(A servant goes in.)
Oracles of the gods, where are you now? This is the man Oedipus was afraid of all these years; this is the man he fled, so as not to kill him. And now he is dead — by chance, and not by Oedipus.
(Oedipus comes out.)
Oedipus. Jocasta, dearest wife, why have you sent for me out here from the house?
Jocasta. Listen to this man. And as you listen, think where the god's solemn oracles have got to.
Oedipus. Who is he, and what has he got to tell me?
Jocasta. He is from Corinth, with news of your father Polybus: that he is no more. He is dead.
Oedipus. What are you saying, stranger? Tell it to me yourself.
Messenger. If that is what I must make plain first — then know it for certain: he has gone down to his death.
Oedipus. By treachery, or by a visit of sickness?
Messenger. A small tilt of the scale puts an old body to sleep.
Oedipus. Sickness, then. Poor man — that is what finished him, it seems.
Messenger. That, and the long years he had lived, measured out in full.
Oedipus. Ah. Ah, wife — why would anyone look to the prophet's hearth at Delphi now, or to the birds screaming over our heads, who guided me to this: that I was going to kill my father? He is dead. He is hidden under the earth, and here I am, and I never laid a hand on a spear — unless he died of longing for me. That way, yes, he would have died because of me. But as it stands, Polybus has gathered up the oracles we had and taken them with him, and lies in Hades. They are worth nothing.
Jocasta. Did I not tell you this long ago?
Oedipus. You did. But I was led astray by my fear.
Jocasta. Then from now on, do not take any of it to heart.
Oedipus. And how am I not to fear my mother's bed?
Jocasta. What should a man be afraid of, when chance rules his life and there is no clear foresight of anything? Best to live at random, however you can. And as for marrying your mother — do not be afraid of that. Many men before now have slept with their mothers, in their dreams. The man who counts such things as nothing carries his life most easily.
Oedipus. All that would be well said, if the woman who bore me were not alive. As it is, since she is alive, I have to be afraid, however well you argue.
Jocasta. And yet your father's grave is a great light to see by.
Oedipus. Great — I know it. But the fear is of the woman who is living.
Messenger. And who is this woman you are so afraid about?
Oedipus. Merope, old man. The woman Polybus lived with.
Messenger. And what is there about her that frightens you?
Oedipus. A terrible oracle, stranger, sent by the gods.
Messenger. Can it be spoken? Or is it not lawful for another man to know?
Oedipus. It can. Apollo said once that I must sleep with my own mother, and take my father's blood with my own hands. That is why I have kept Corinth far away from me all these years. Happily enough — and yet there is nothing sweeter than to look into the eyes of your parents.
Messenger. And was it really for fear of this that you kept away from the city?
Oedipus. And because I did not want to be my father's killer, old man.
Messenger. Then why, my lord, since I came here meaning well, have I not set you free of this fear?
Oedipus. Do that, and you would have a reward from me worth having.
Messenger. And that is mainly why I came — so that when you came home, I would do well out of it.
Oedipus. But I will never go where my parents are.
Messenger. My boy, it is plain as day you do not know what you are doing.
Oedipus. How, old man? In the gods' name, teach me.
Messenger. If it is because of all this that you will not go home.
Oedipus. I am afraid that Apollo will come out true for me.
Messenger. Afraid of taking some pollution from your parents?
Oedipus. That very thing, old man. That is what frightens me, always.
Messenger. Then do you know that you are trembling at nothing, and rightly nothing?
Oedipus. How can it be nothing, if I was born the child of those two?
Messenger. Because Polybus was nothing to you by blood.
Oedipus. What did you say? Polybus did not father me?
Messenger. No more than the man talking to you now. Exactly as much.
Oedipus. And how can the man who fathered me count for nothing?
Messenger. Because he did not father you. No more than I did.
Oedipus. Then why did he call me his son?
Messenger. You should know this: he had you as a gift. Out of my hands.
Oedipus. And he loved me that much — a child from another man's hands?
Messenger. He had no children before. That is what won him over.
Oedipus. And you — had you bought me, or found me, when you gave me to him?
Messenger. Found you. In the wooded folds of Cithaeron.
Oedipus. What were you doing, travelling in that country?
Messenger. I was in charge of the mountain flocks there.
Oedipus. A shepherd. A hired hand, wandering about for wages?
Messenger. And the man who saved your life, child, at the time.
Oedipus. Saved me from what? What was wrong with me when you took me in your arms?
Messenger. The joints of your ankles could tell you that.
Oedipus. Oh — why do you bring that up? That old injury?
Messenger. I set you free. Your feet had been pinned through at the ankles.
Oedipus. A terrible mark of shame to carry out of the cradle.
Messenger. So terrible that it gave you your name — Oedipus, the swollen foot. That piece of luck is what you are called after.
Oedipus. In the gods' name — who did it? My mother or my father? Tell me.
Messenger. I do not know. The man who gave you to me knows more about that than I do.
Oedipus. You got me from somebody else? You did not find me yourself?
Messenger. No. Another shepherd handed you over to me.
Oedipus. Who? Can you say who he was?
Messenger. He was called one of Laius's men, I think.
Oedipus. Laius — the king who ruled this country, years ago?
Messenger. That is the one. The man was a herdsman of his.
Oedipus. Is he still alive? Could I see him?
Messenger. You people who live here would know that best.
Oedipus. Is there anyone here — any of you standing near me — who knows the herdsman he is talking about? Who has seen him, out in the fields or here in the town? Speak up. The moment has come for this to be found out.
Chorus. I think it is nobody but the man from the fields, the one you were already asking to see. But Jocasta here could tell you that as well as anyone.
Oedipus. Wife — you know the man we sent for just now? Is that who he means?
Jocasta. What does it matter who he means? Pay no attention. What has been said — do not waste a thought on it. It is nothing.
Oedipus. Impossible. I have clues like these in my hands, and I am not going to bring my birth into the open?
Jocasta. In the gods' name, if you care at all for your own life, stop looking. I am sick enough already.
Oedipus. Take heart. Even if I turn out to be a slave, born of a slave, and her mother a slave before her — three generations of it — you are not shown to be low-born.
Jocasta. Even so, listen to me. I am begging you. Do not do this.
Oedipus. I will not listen. Not until I know the whole thing for certain.
Jocasta. I know what I am saying. I am telling you what is best for you.
Oedipus. Then this "best" of yours has been torturing me for a long time.
Jocasta. Oh, you unlucky man. I hope you never find out who you are.
Oedipus. Somebody go and bring the herdsman here to me. And let her go on enjoying her rich family.
Jocasta. Oh — oh, you poor wretched man. That is all I can call you. That, and nothing else, ever again.
(She goes into the palace.)
Chorus. Why has your wife gone, Oedipus, rushing off like that, in that wild grief? I am afraid something terrible is going to break out of that silence.
Oedipus. Let it break out. Whatever it likes. My own seed — I want to see what it is, however small it turns out to be. She, perhaps — she has a woman's big pride — is ashamed of my low birth. But I count myself the child of Fortune, the Fortune who gives good things, and I will not be dishonoured. She is the mother I was born from. And the months, my brothers, have marked me out small and then great. That is what I am, and I could never come out of it a different man. So I will find out where I come from.
Chorus. If I am any prophet, if I know anything at all, then, Cithaeron — by Olympus — you will not get through tomorrow's full moon without our praising you as Oedipus's countryman, his nurse and his mother, and dancing for you, because you did our king a kindness. Apollo, god we cry to — let this please you.
Chorus. Who was it, child, who was it bore you? One of the long-lived nymphs, lying with Pan, the mountain-walker, your father? Or some bride of Apollo? — every upland pasture is dear to him. Or was it the lord of Cyllene, Hermes, or the god of the Bacchants who lives on the high peaks, who took you as a gift, a find, from one of the nymphs of Helicon he plays with most?
Oedipus. Elders — if I may make a guess about a man I have never dealt with, I think I see the herdsman we have been looking for all this time. His long old age is a match for this stranger's years; and besides, I recognise the men bringing him as servants of my own. But you are probably ahead of me in knowledge, if you have seen the herdsman before.
Chorus. I know him, be sure of it. He was Laius's man — as trusty a shepherd as any.
(The old herdsman is brought in.)
Oedipus. I ask you first, Corinthian stranger — is this the man you mean?
Messenger. That is him. The one you are looking at.
Oedipus. You. Old man. Look at me and answer what I ask you. Were you Laius's man, once?
Servant. I was. A slave — not bought, brought up in the house.
Oedipus. Doing what work? What kind of life?
Servant. Most of my life I went with the flocks.
Oedipus. Where, mostly? What country did you keep them in?
Servant. Cithaeron, some of the time. And the ground next to it.
Oedipus. This man — do you know him? Did you ever meet him up there?
Servant. Doing what? Which man do you mean?
Oedipus. This one, here. Have you ever had anything to do with him?
Servant. Not that I could say straight off, from memory.
Messenger. No wonder, master. But I will remind him clearly of what he has forgotten. I know very well he remembers when we were up in the Cithaeron country, he with two flocks and I with one, and I was alongside this man three whole seasons, six months each, from spring until Arcturus rose. Then, for the winter, I used to drive mine down to my own folds, and he took his to Laius's pens. Is any of this true, or is it not? Did it happen as I say?
Servant. It is true. Though it was a long time ago.
Messenger. Come on, then. Tell me. Do you remember giving me a child, back then, to bring up as my own?
Servant. What is this? Why are you asking that?
Messenger. This is him, my friend. The one who was a baby then.
Servant. Damn you. Will you shut your mouth?
Oedipus. Do not scold him, old man. Your words need a scolding a great deal more than his.
Servant. And how have I done wrong, best of masters?
Oedipus. By not telling about the child he is asking after.
Servant. He is talking without knowing anything. He is wasting his effort.
Oedipus. You will not talk to oblige me. You will talk in pain.
Servant. No — in the gods' name, do not hurt an old man.
Oedipus. Somebody twist his arms behind him. Quickly.
Servant. Why? What have I done? What do you want to know?
Oedipus. The child he is asking about. Did you give it to him?
Servant. I did. I wish I had died that day.
Oedipus. You will come to that, if you do not tell me the truth.
Servant. If I tell it, I am destroyed far worse.
Oedipus. This man, it seems, is going to play for time.
Servant. No, I am not. I said just now that I gave it to him.
Oedipus. Where did you get it? Your own house, or somebody else's?
Servant. Not mine. I took it from somebody.
Oedipus. Which of these citizens? From what house?
Servant. In the gods' name, master, no — do not ask any more.
Oedipus. You are dead if I have to ask you again.
Servant. Well then. It was one of the children of Laius's house.
Oedipus. A slave's? Or one of his own blood?
Servant. Oh — I am right at the terrible thing now. The saying of it.
Oedipus. And I at the hearing of it. But it has to be heard.
Servant. It was called his own child. But your wife inside could tell you best how it stands.
Oedipus. She gave it to you?
Servant. Yes, my king.
Oedipus. For what?
Servant. So that I would get rid of it.
Oedipus. Her own child? The wretched woman.
Servant. She was afraid of the prophecies. Bad ones.
Oedipus. What prophecies?
Servant. That it would kill its parents. That was the story.
Oedipus. Then why did you let it go to this old man?
Servant. Out of pity, master. I thought he would carry it away to another country, the one he came from. And he saved it — for the worst of all. Because if you are the man he says you are, know that you were born to a terrible fate.
Oedipus. Oh. Oh. It has all come out. All of it, clear. Light — let this be the last time I look at you. I have been shown for what I am: born from those I should never have been born from, living with those I should never have lived with, and the killer of those I should never have killed.
(He goes into the palace.)
Chorus. Oh, generations of men, I count your lives as equal to nothing. Where is the man, where, who carries off more of happiness than just enough to seem to have it, and having seemed, to fall away? With your example before me, your fate, yours — Oedipus, you poor wretch — I call no mortal blessed.
Chorus. He drew his bow past everyone and won a fortune blessed in every way — O Zeus — he brought down the girl with the crooked claws, the singer of riddles, and rose up for my country as a tower against death. From that day you were called my king, and honoured above all men, ruling in great Thebes.
Chorus. And now — who is more wretched to hear of? Who lives closer to savage ruin, to pain, in the turning-over of a life? Oh, famous Oedipus, one harbour was enough — the same harbour, for you to put in at as son and as husband. How, how could the furrows your father ploughed bear you in silence, poor man, for so long?
Chorus. Time, who sees everything, has found you out against your will. He passes sentence on the marriage that was no marriage, where the one who begot was the one begotten. Oh, son of Laius, I wish, I wish I had never seen you. I mourn like a man pouring out a funeral song from his lips. To tell the plain truth: you gave me breath again, and you have closed my eyes in the dark.
(A second messenger comes out of the palace.)
Messenger. You who have always been the most honoured men in this land — what things you are going to hear, what things you will see, what grief you will carry, if you still care, as kin should, for the house of Labdacus. I do not think the Ister or the Phasis, the great rivers, could wash this house clean, so much is hidden in it — and more is about to come into the light, evils done on purpose, not by accident. And of all hurts, the ones that hurt most are the ones we are shown to have chosen ourselves.
Chorus. What we knew before was already more than heavy enough to groan under. What do you have to add to it?
Messenger. The quickest thing to say, and to take in: Jocasta is dead. Our queen.
Chorus. Poor, poor woman. What caused it?
Messenger. Her own hand. The worst of what happened you are spared, because you did not see it. Still, as far as my memory holds it, you will hear what that wretched woman suffered.
She came in through the porch in a frenzy and went straight for her marriage bed, tearing at her hair with the fingers of both hands. Once inside, she slammed the doors shut behind her and called on Laius, dead so long ago — remembering the child got years back, by whose hand he died himself, leaving the mother to breed with his own son a cursed brood. And she wept over the bed where, twice wretched, she had borne a husband from a husband and children from her child.
How she died after that I do not know. Oedipus burst in, shouting, and because of him we could not watch her misery through to the end. Our eyes were on him as he ran round the room. He went from one of us to the next demanding a sword, and asking where he could find the wife who was no wife — the mother's field, sown twice over, where he and his children had both been planted. And as he raved, some god pointed the way for him. It was none of us men who were standing near. With a terrible cry, as though somebody were leading him, he threw himself at the double doors, bent the bolts out of their sockets, and fell into the room.
And there we saw the woman hanging, her neck in a twisted noose of swinging cords. When he saw her he gave a terrible deep roar, poor man, and loosed the rope she hung from. And when she was lying on the ground, poor wretch, what came next was terrible to see. He tore the golden brooches from her dress — the pins she had fastened her clothes with — lifted them, and struck them into his own eyes, into the sockets, saying something like this: that they would not see him any more, not what he was suffering and not what he was doing; that from now on, in the dark, they would look at the people they should never have seen, and fail to know the people he had wanted to know.
Chanting that, over and over, not once, he raised his hand and struck his eyes again and again. And with every blow the bleeding eyeballs wet his beard — not oozing slow drops of gore, but all at once a black rain of blood, with hail in it, came pouring down.
This has broken out from two people, not one: evils mingled together for husband and wife. Their old happiness, before, was a happiness they had a right to. Now, on this one day: groaning, ruin, death, shame — every name there is for evil, and not one of them missing.
Chorus. And now? Is there any rest from the pain for the wretched man?
Messenger. He is shouting for someone to open the doors and show all Thebes the father-killer, the mother's — I cannot say the word; it is unholy — so that he can throw himself out of the land and not stay in the house under the curse he called down himself. But he needs strength, and someone to guide him. The sickness is more than a man can carry. He will show you himself. Look — the bolts of the doors are being drawn. You are about to see a sight that even a man who hated him would pity.
(Oedipus comes out, blind. The blood is still on his face.)
Chorus. Oh, terrible thing for people to see, most terrible of everything I have ever come upon. Poor man, what madness came over you? What god took a leap longer than the longest and landed on your unlucky life? Oh, oh, you wretched man — I cannot even look at you. There is so much I want to ask, so much to learn, so much to look at, and you make me shudder so.
Oedipus. Aiai, aiai, I am wretched. Where am I being carried, poor man? Where is my voice flying off to, on the wind? Oh, my fate — how far you leapt.
Chorus. Into something terrible. Not to be heard. Not to be looked at.
Oedipus. Oh, cloud of darkness, my own, come over me, unspeakable, driven on by a wind that cannot be turned aside — oh, no — oh, no, again — how they go into me together, the stab of these pins and the memory of what I did.
Chorus. No wonder. In pain like this you mourn twice and carry the evil twice.
Oedipus. Oh, my friend — you are still here, still my attendant, still standing by, still putting up with the blind man, and caring for him. Oh, oh. You cannot hide from me. I know you plainly, dark as I am — I know your voice.
Chorus. You have done a terrible thing. How could you bear to put out your own eyes? Which of the gods drove you?
Oedipus. It was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought it to pass, this evil, evil suffering of mine. But no hand struck them except my own — mine, wretched as I am. Why should I have eyes, when there was nothing sweet left for them to see?
Chorus. It was just as you say.
Oedipus. Then what is there for me to see, or to love, or what greeting could still touch my ear with any pleasure, friends? Take me away, out of this country, as fast as you can, take me away, friends — the great destruction, the man most cursed, and more than that the man the gods hate most.
Chorus. Wretched in your mind and in your fortune, both alike — I wish I had never known you.
Oedipus. Death to him, whoever he was, who took the cruel pin out of my feet on the mountain and rescued me from death and saved me. He did me no kindness. If I had died then I would not be this grief to those who love me, or to myself.
Chorus. I would have wanted that too.
Oedipus. I would not have come here my father's killer, or been called by men the bridegroom of the woman I was born from. Now I am godless, the child of unholy parents, sharing the bed of the man who begot me, poor wretch. If there is an evil older than evil, Oedipus has drawn it.
Chorus. I cannot say you planned this well. You would have been better off dead than alive and blind.
Oedipus. Do not lecture me that this was not the best way to do it. Do not give me any more advice. If I had eyes, I do not know how I could have looked at my father with them when I went down to Hades, or at my poor mother — I have done things to those two that no hanging could pay for. Or the sight of my children — was that something I would have wanted to look at, born the way they were born? Never. Not with these eyes. Nor the city, nor its walls, nor the holy statues of the gods — all of which I, the most wretched of men, I who was brought up in Thebes the finest man in it, took from myself when I gave the order that everyone must drive out the impious man, the one the gods have shown to be unclean, and of the family of Laius. Having exposed a stain like that on myself, was I to look at these people with steady eyes? No. And if there were any way to dam up the spring of hearing through my ears, I would not have held back from shutting this wretched body up altogether, so that it was blind and heard nothing. It is sweet for the mind to live outside its troubles.
Cithaeron, why did you take me in? Why did you not kill me the moment you had me, so that I would never have shown men where I came from? Polybus, Corinth, and the old house I called my father's — what a beautiful thing you brought up in me, with evil festering under the skin. Now I am found evil, and born of evil. You three roads, and the hidden glen, the oak wood and the narrow place where the three ways met, that drank my father's blood from my own hands — do you still remember me? What I did in front of you, and what I went on to do after, when I came here? Marriage — marriage, you gave me life, and having given it you sent the same seed up again, and showed the world fathers, brothers, sons, one blood; brides, wives, mothers; every foulest thing that is done among human beings. But it is not right to speak of what it was not right to do. Quickly, in the gods' name, hide me somewhere outside the land, or kill me, or throw me into the sea, where you will never have to look at me again. Come — do not think it beneath you to touch a wretched man. Do as I ask, do not be afraid. No man can carry my evils except me.
Chorus. Here is Creon, at the right moment for what you ask — to act, and to decide. He is left the only guardian of the country in your place.
Oedipus. Oh — what am I going to say to him? What claim have I on his trust that would be just? Everything I did to him before has been shown to be wrong.
(Creon comes in.)
Creon. I have not come to laugh at you, Oedipus, or to throw any of the old wrongs in your face. But you men — if you have no shame left before the children of men, at least respect the flame of the lord Sun, who feeds everything, and do not show this pollution uncovered like this, a thing that neither the earth nor the holy rain nor the light will accept. Take him into the house as fast as you can. It is right that only family should see and hear a family's troubles.
Oedipus. In the gods' name — since you have torn away what I expected, and come, the best of men, to me, the worst — do one thing for me. I say it for your sake, not mine.
Creon. What is it you want from me so badly?
Oedipus. Throw me out of this land, as fast as you can, to a place where no human being will ever speak to me.
Creon. I would have done it, be sure of that, if I had not wanted first of all to learn from the god what should be done.
Oedipus. But his word came out in full: destroy the father-killer, the unholy one — me.
Creon. That is what was said. All the same, where we now stand, it is better to find out clearly what to do.
Oedipus. You will ask the god? For a wretch like me?
Creon. Yes. Even you will put your trust in the god now.
Oedipus. Yes. And I lay this charge on you. I beg it of you. The woman inside — bury her as you think right. You will do it properly; she is your own. But me — never let this city, my father's, be condemned to have me living in it. Let me live in the mountains, on the Cithaeron that is called mine, that my mother and father while they lived set aside as my proper tomb, so that I die by the will of the two who tried to kill me. And yet I know this much: no sickness will destroy me, and nothing else will either. I would never have been saved from dying, except for some terrible evil. Well, let my fate go where it will.
My children, Creon. Do not trouble yourself over the boys. They are men; wherever they are, they will never lack a living. But my two girls, poor pitiable things — my table was never set apart from them, never without me; whatever I touched, they always had a share in it — take care of those two for me. And above all let me touch them with my hands and weep over what has happened. Do it, my lord. Do it, you noble-born man. If I touched them with my hands I would think I had them, as I did when I could see.
What is this? In the gods' name — is that not my two dear ones I hear, crying? Has Creon pitied me and sent my children, the dearest of all my children? Am I right?
Creon. You are. I arranged it. I knew the joy you had in them — the joy you have had all along.
Oedipus. Then may good fortune come to you, and for this road may some god guard you better than he guarded me. Children, where are you? Come here. Come to these hands, your brother's hands — hands that did this to the eyes of the father who begot you, eyes that were bright once. He saw nothing, girls, and knew nothing, and became your father in the woman he was sown in himself. I weep for you both as well — I have no strength to look at you — when I think of the rest of the bitter life you will have to live among men. What gatherings of the citizens will you go to, what festivals, that you will not come home from in tears, instead of having watched the show? And when you reach the age for marriage — who will he be, girls, who will take the risk, taking on the disgrace that will wound my children and yours alike? What evil is missing? Your father killed his father. He ploughed the mother he was sown in, and got you from the same place he was born from. That is what they will throw at you. And then who will marry you? Nobody. There is nobody, children. You are going to wither, barren and unmarried. That is plain.
Son of Menoeceus — you are the only father left to them; the two of us who made them are gone, both of us. Do not look on while they go wandering, beggars, unmarried, without a home — they are your own blood — and do not put them on a level with my evils. Pity them. Look at them, so young, stripped of everything except what you can give. Nod to me, noble man. Give me your hand on it.
And you, children — if you were old enough to understand, I would have a great deal to tell you. As it is, pray this for me: to live wherever the moment allows, and to have a better life than the father who begot you.
Creon. Enough. You have wept enough. Go inside the house.
Oedipus. I must obey. Though nothing about it is sweet.
Creon. Everything is good in its season.
Oedipus. Do you know on what terms I go?
Creon. You will tell me, and then I will know.
Oedipus. That you send me out of this land, to live away from it.
Creon. What you ask is the god's to give.
Oedipus. But I have become the thing the gods hate most.
Creon. Then you will get it soon enough.
Oedipus. You agree?
Creon. I do not like to say things I do not mean. It is empty talk.
Oedipus. Then take me away from here. Now.
Creon. Come on, then. Let go of the children.
Oedipus. No — do not take these from me.
Creon. Do not try to be master of everything. What you did master has not stayed with you through your life.
(Oedipus is led inside.)
Chorus. People of Thebes, our own country, look: this is Oedipus, who knew the famous riddle and was the most powerful of men. Which citizen did not look at his fortune with envy? See what a sea of terrible trouble he has come into. So, while a mortal is still waiting to see that final day, count no one happy until he has crossed the boundary of his life without suffering pain.
(Trachis, in front of the house where Deianeira and her children live as guests. Deianeira comes out alone.)
Deianeira. There is an old saying among people: you cannot know whether a person's life has been good or bad until they are dead. But I know mine, before I ever go down to Hades. It is unlucky, and it is heavy.
I was still living in my father Oeneus's house at Pleuron when I came to dread marriage worse than any girl in Aetolia. Because my suitor was a river — Achelous, I mean — and he kept coming to my father to ask for me in three shapes. Sometimes he came as a bull, plain to see; sometimes as a snake, glittering and coiled; sometimes with the body of a man and the face of an ox, with springs of fresh water spraying out of his thick, shadowy beard. With a suitor like that waiting for me, I was wretched, and I prayed all the time to die before I ever came near that bed.
Then, late, but to my joy, the famous son of Zeus and Alcmena came, and went into a fight with him for me, and set me free. How the fight went I could not tell you. I do not know. Anyone who sat and watched it without shaking could describe it; I sat there stunned with fear that my beauty was going to find me pain in the end. But Zeus, who presides over contests, made it come out well — if it was well. Because since I was joined to Heracles as his chosen bride, I have been feeding one fear after another, always worrying over him. One night brings a trouble in, and the next night takes it away and hands on a new one.
We had children, and he saw them the way a farmer sees a field he has taken on somewhere far off: once at sowing, and once at harvest. That was the kind of life that kept sending the man out of the house and back to it, in service to one master or another.
And now, when he has come through those labours, now is when I am most afraid. Ever since he killed the strong man Iphitus, we have been living here in Trachis, uprooted, in the house of a foreign host; and where he has gone, nobody knows. All I know is that he went away and left me a sharp pain on his account. I am nearly certain some harm has come to him. It is not a short time — it is ten months now, and five more on top of that, and no word. And there is some terrible trouble in it: he left me a tablet when he went, and I keep praying to the gods that I did not take it to my sorrow.
(An old woman, a slave of the house, has come out and heard her.)
Servant. Deianeira, my mistress, I have watched you many times already, crying your eyes out and mourning Heracles going away. But now — if it is right for a slave's judgement to put a free woman straight, then I have to say what is best for you. How is it that you have so many sons, and you do not send one of them to look for your husband? Hyllus above all: he is the obvious one, if he cares at all whether his father is thought to be doing well. And here he is, coming up to the house at a run, on his own two feet. So if you think what I say is timely, you have the man and my advice both, ready to use.
(Hyllus arrives.)
Deianeira. My child, my son — so good words can fall from people with no birth to speak of. This woman is a slave, but what she has just said is a free woman's speech.
Hyllus. What did she say? Tell me, mother, if it is something I can be told.
Deianeira. That it is a disgrace to you: your father gone so long, out of the country, and you have not tried to find out where he is.
Hyllus. But I know where he is, if you can trust what people say.
Deianeira. And where in the world, my child, do they say he has settled?
Hyllus. All last year, they say, through the whole length of it, he was working as a slave for a Lydian woman.
Deianeira. If he put up with that, then you could believe anything.
Hyllus. But he is free of that now, from what I hear.
Deianeira. Then where do they report him now? Alive, or dead?
Hyllus. They say he is making war on Euboea, on the city of Eurytus — or is about to.
Deianeira. Do you know, my son, that he left me oracles I can trust about that very country?
Hyllus. What oracles, mother? I do not know what you mean.
Deianeira. That either he will meet the end of his life there, or, if he takes on that contest and comes through it, he will live happily for all the rest of his days. So when he stands on the edge like that, my child, will you not go and help him? Because either we are saved, if he saves his life, or we fall with your father when he is destroyed, and are lost together.
Hyllus. I will go, mother. If I had known what these prophecies said, I would have been at his side long ago. As it was, my father's usual luck did not let me be frightened for him ahead of time, or worry too much. Now that I understand, I will do everything, and leave nothing out, to learn the whole truth about this.
Deianeira. Then go, my son. Good news is worth having even for someone who hears it late, once he has heard it.
(Hyllus goes. The Servant goes back into the house. The Chorus comes in: young women of Trachis.)
Chorus. You whom the shimmering Night brings to birth as she is stripped and put to death, and lays to sleep again when you are all on fire — Sun, Sun, I ask you: tell me this. Where is Alcmena's son, where, where is he living now, you who blaze with the bright lightning? Is he down some channel of the sea, or leaning on one of the two continents? Tell me, you whose eye is stronger than any.
Chorus. Because I hear that Deianeira, the bride two suitors fought over, is always longing in her heart like some poor bird, and never puts the ache in her eyes to sleep long enough for them to be dry. She feeds a fear that will not let her forget her husband's road, and wears herself out on a bed that has a wife in it and no man, expecting, in her misery, a bad end.
Chorus. You could watch the waves go by on the wide sea, wave after wave, coming on and passing under the south wind that never tires, or the north; and that is how the trouble of his life, heavy as the Cretan sea, turns the Theban-born man over and lifts him up again. But some god keeps him always from going wrong, and away from the house of Hades.
Chorus. I blame you for this, with respect, but I will say the other side. I say you must not wear away the good hope in you. The king who accomplishes everything, the son of Cronus, has not laid on mortals a life without pain. Sorrow and joy come round to everyone, like the wheeling paths of the Bear.
Chorus. Nothing stays. Not the shimmering night for mortals, not the powers of death, not wealth. In a moment it is gone, and it comes to the next one in turn to be glad, and then to lose. So I tell you, our queen, to hold on to this in your hopes, always. Because who has ever seen Zeus so careless of his children?
Deianeira. You have heard about my trouble, I suppose, and that is why you are here. But how I am eating my heart out — may you never learn that by suffering it. You know nothing of it now. A young thing grows in its own sheltered places, and the god's heat does not shake it, nor rain, nor any wind; it lifts its life up in pleasure, with no labour, until the day a girl is called a wife instead of a girl, and takes on her share of thinking in the night, afraid for a husband or for children. Then, looking at her own situation, a woman might see the troubles that weigh me down.
I have wept over a great many things. But there is one like nothing before it, and I will tell you now. When my lord Heracles set out from home on this last journey of his, he left an old tablet in the house, with signs written on it that he had never before brought himself to explain to me, though he had gone out to many contests. He always went as a man going to do something, not a man going to die. This time, as if he were already no longer alive, he told me what I was to take as my widow's portion, and what share of their father's land he wanted divided among the children. And he fixed a time for it: when he had been out of the country a year and three months, then either he would have to die in that time, or he would get past the end of it and live the rest of his life untroubled. That, he said, was what the gods had settled as the end of the labours of Heracles — the old oak at Dodona had said so once, through the two doves who speak for it. And the truth of it is falling due now, at this present time, just as it has to be fulfilled. So I leap up out of sweet sleep in terror, my friends, afraid that I will be left behind, widowed of the best man of all.
Chorus. No more of that now. Keep quiet — I see a man coming, with a garland on his head as though he had good news.
(A man of Trachis arrives, garlanded.)
Messenger. Deianeira, my mistress, I will be the first messenger to set you free of your fear. Know this: Alcmena's son is alive, and he has won, and he is bringing the first-fruits of the battle to the gods of this country.
Deianeira. What is this you are telling me, old man?
Messenger. That soon your much-envied husband will come to your house, showing himself in the strength of his victory.
Deianeira. And who did you learn this from — a townsman, or a stranger?
Messenger. Out in the meadow where the oxen graze in summer, Lichas the herald is telling it to a crowd. I heard him and I ran off, so that I might be the first to bring it to you, and get something out of it from you, and win your thanks.
Deianeira. And why is he not here himself, if he has done so well?
Messenger. He is not finding it easy to move, lady. The whole people of Malis are standing round him in a ring asking questions, and he cannot get a step further. Every one of them wants to learn what he is longing to hear, and will not let the man go until he has heard it to his satisfaction. So there he is, not by his choice but by theirs. But you will see him yourself, any moment.
Deianeira. Zeus, who holds the meadow on Oeta where no scythe is allowed — you have given us joy at last, late as it is. Raise your voices, women, those of you inside the house and those outside the gate. This message has risen on me like a light I never hoped to see, and we are gathering the fruit of it now.
Chorus. Let the house give the cry, the girl who is soon to be a bride, with shouts of triumph at the hearth. And with her let the men's voice go up together, a shout for Apollo of the fine quiver, our protector. And at the same time, girls, raise the paean, the paean — cry out to his sister, Artemis of Ortygia, the shooter of deer, with a torch in each hand, and to the Nymphs, her neighbours. I am lifted up. I will not push away the flute — you master of my mind. Look, the ivy is whirling me, euoi! — turning me round now in the race of Bacchus. Oh, oh, Paean! Look, dear lady: this is coming straight at you, and you can see it, plain.
Deianeira. I see it, my friends. My eyes were keeping watch and they have not missed this procession. Welcome to the herald, I say, appearing after so long — if what you bring is anything to be glad of.
(Lichas the herald comes in with a group of captive women. One of them is young, and says nothing.)
Lichas. We are glad to be back, and glad of your greeting, lady, and it matches what we have done. When a man has done well he is bound to earn good words.
Deianeira. Dearest of men, first tell me the first thing I want: will I have Heracles back alive?
Lichas. I left him alive and strong, in full health, and no sickness on him.
Deianeira. Where? On his own soil, or in a foreign country? Tell me.
Lichas. There is a headland on Euboea, where he is marking out altars and the fruits of the ground for Zeus of Cenaeum.
Deianeira. To pay a vow, or because some oracle told him to?
Lichas. For a vow, made when he was taking by the spear the country of these women you see in front of you.
Deianeira. And these — in the gods' name, whose are they, and who are they? They are to be pitied, unless their trouble deceives me.
Lichas. When he sacked the city of Eurytus, he picked these out as a prize, for himself and for the gods.
Deianeira. And was it that city that kept him away all that time beyond reckoning, more days than I can count?
Lichas. No. Most of that time he was held in Lydia — not a free man, as he says himself, but sold. And there should be no resentment at the story, lady, when it turns out that Zeus was behind it. He was sold to Omphale, the foreign woman, and served out a full year, as he tells it himself. And he was so stung by the disgrace of it that he swore an oath, and bound himself with it, that one day he would make a slave of the man who had brought that suffering on him — the man, his wife and his child. He did not say it for nothing. Once he had been purified, he raised an army of hired men and went against the city of Eurytus. That man alone among mortals, he said, was to blame for what he had suffered. Heracles had come to his house and his hearth as a guest of long standing, and Eurytus shouted at him again and again, with a mind bent on ruin, saying that he had arrows in his hands that never miss, and still fell short of Eurytus's own sons in a contest of the bow; and that he was a slave, and a free man's slave, and broken; and at dinner, when his guest was full of wine, he threw him out of the house. Heracles was angry at that,
Lichas. and when Iphitus came afterwards to the hill of Tiryns, tracking horses that had strayed, he caught him with his eyes on one thing and his mind on another and hurled him from the top of the tower-high rock. For that deed the king, Olympian Zeus, father of all, was furious, and sent him away to be sold. He would not stand for it, because this once, and only this once, Heracles had killed a man by treachery. If he had taken his revenge in the open, Zeus would have forgiven him, since he would have won it with justice. The gods have no love for outrage either. So those men, who ran wild with their bad tongues, are all of them living in Hades now, and their city is a slave. And these women you are looking at, who have found a life nobody envies after a happy one, are coming to you. That was your husband's order, and I am his faithful man, and I carry it out. As for Heracles himself: once he has made clean sacrifice to Zeus of his fathers for taking the city, expect him to come. Of all this good news, well told and at length, that is the sweetest thing to hear.
Chorus. Queen, now your joy is plain to see — part of it in front of you, the rest in what you have heard.
Deianeira. How could I not be glad, with all my heart, hearing that my husband has done so well? My joy has to run alongside his success. And yet a person who looks carefully can feel fear for the one who is doing well, in case he stumbles. Because a terrible pity came over me, my friends, looking at these unlucky women, wandering in a strange country, with no home and no father. They were the daughters of free men, perhaps, before; now they live the life of slaves. Zeus, who turns the tide of battle, may I never see you come against my children like this — or if you are going to, not while I am still alive. That is how afraid I am, looking at them. You poor girl. Which of these young women are you? Are you unmarried, or a mother? By the look of you you know nothing of all that yet, but you are somebody well born. Lichas, whose is she, this stranger? Who is her mother? Who is the father who begot her? Tell me. She is the one I pitied most of all when I looked at them, because she is the only one who knows how to carry herself.
Lichas. How would I know? Why ask me? Maybe she is a child of one of the better families out there.
Deianeira. Not of the ruling house? Was she some child of Eurytus?
Lichas. I do not know. I did not ask many questions.
Deianeira. You did not even get her name from one of the others she travelled with?
Lichas. No. I did my job in silence.
Deianeira. Then tell us yourself, poor girl, out of your own mouth. It is a misfortune too, not to know who you are.
Lichas. If she opens her lips now it will be nothing like the time before. She has not brought out a word, big or small. She has been in labour with the weight of her misfortune the whole time, weeping, poor thing, since she left her windy country. Her luck is bad — for her — but it earns her some understanding.
Deianeira. Then let her be, and let her go in under the roof in whatever way is easiest for her. Let her not take another grief from me on top of the ones she has; what she has is enough. Now let us all go in, so you can hurry off wherever you want to go, and I can set the house in order.
(Lichas goes into the house with the captives. The Messenger stops Deianeira before she can follow.)
Messenger. Wait here first, a little, so that you can learn, with those people out of the way, who it is you are taking indoors, and find out what you need to know and have not heard a word of. I know the whole of it.
Deianeira. What is it? Why are you stopping me on my way?
Messenger. Stand there and listen. The last thing you heard from me was not a waste of your time, and I do not think this will be.
Deianeira. Should we call them back out here, then, or do you want to speak to me and these women?
Messenger. To you and these women there is nothing to stop me. Leave the others.
Deianeira. Well, they are gone. Let your story say what it means.
Messenger. Nothing this man told you just now was spoken straight by the rule of justice. Either he is a liar now, or he was no honest messenger before.
Deianeira. What are you saying? Tell me clearly everything you mean. What you have said so far I do not understand.
Messenger. I heard this man say, with many witnesses standing by, that it was for this girl's sake that Heracles brought down Eurytus and Oechalia with its high towers, and that Eros, the god of desire, and no other god, bewitched him into that fighting — not the labours in Lydia, not slaving under Omphale, not Iphitus hurled to his death. Now he has shoved Eros aside and tells the opposite story. When he could not persuade her father to give him the girl to keep in his bed in secret, he got up some small complaint as a pretext and marched on her country — the country where, as this man said, Eurytus held the throne — and killed her father the king, and sacked her city. And now, as you see, he has come home, and sends her to this house not carelessly, lady, and not to be a slave. Do not expect that. It is not likely, if he is burning with desire. So I decided to tell you the whole of what I happened to learn from this man, my mistress. And many people in the middle of the Trachinian market heard it exactly as I did, so they can prove him wrong. If what I say is not welcome, I am sorry. But it is the truth, and I have told it.
Deianeira. Oh no. Oh, I am wretched. Where do I stand now? What trouble have I taken in under my roof without knowing it? Oh, the misery of it. So she has no name — as the man who brought her swore?
Messenger. She is very bright, in her name and in her blood. She is the daughter of Eurytus by birth, and she was called Iole once. And he could tell you nothing of where she came from — because, of course, he never asked.
Chorus. Damnation — not on all bad men, but on the one who practises hidden wrongs that do not become him.
Deianeira. What am I to do, women? What I have just heard has knocked me stupid.
Chorus. Go and question the man. He might say something clear, if you were willing to press him hard and force it out of him.
Deianeira. I will go. What you say is not without sense.
Messenger. And we — should we wait here? Or what do you want done?
Deianeira. Stay. Here is the man coming out of the house — no messenger of mine fetched him; he comes of his own accord.
(Lichas comes out.)
Lichas. Lady, what am I to say to Heracles when I get there? Tell me. As you see, I am on my way.
Deianeira. You took your time coming, and how you rush off now — before we have even taken up the conversation again.
Lichas. Well, if there is anything you want to ask, I am here.
Deianeira. And will you give me the truth, and honestly?
Lichas. Great Zeus be my witness — in anything I know.
Deianeira. Then who is the woman you came here bringing?
Lichas. She is from Euboea. Who her parents are I cannot say.
Messenger. You there. Look at me. Who do you think you are talking to?
Lichas. And you — what are you asking me that for?
Messenger. Have the nerve to answer what I ask you, if you have any sense.
Lichas. To the lady in charge here, Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus, wife of Heracles, and — unless my eyes are playing tricks on me — my mistress.
Messenger. That is exactly what I wanted, exactly what I wanted to hear from you. You say this woman is your mistress?
Lichas. It is only right.
Messenger. Then what? What punishment do you think you deserve if you are found to have done her wrong?
Lichas. Wrong? What is this you have been weaving?
Messenger. Nothing. Though you are doing a great deal of it yourself.
Lichas. I am going. I was a fool to stand here listening to you this long.
Messenger. Not until you have answered one short question.
Lichas. Ask, if you want something. You are not the silent kind.
Messenger. The prisoner you sent into the house. You know the one I mean?
Lichas. I do. Why do you ask?
Messenger. This girl, then, whom you look at as if you had never seen her — did you not say she was Iole, Eurytus's daughter, and that you were bringing her here?
Lichas. Said it in front of whom? Who is going to come forward, and from where, to swear he heard that from me?
Messenger. Plenty of the townspeople. In the middle of the market square of Trachis a whole crowd heard exactly that from you.
Lichas. I said that was what I had heard. Repeating what people guess is not the same thing as giving an exact account.
Messenger. Guess? Did you not say, and swear to it, that the girl you were bringing was to be Heracles' wife?
Lichas. I said wife? For the gods' sake, dear mistress, tell me — who is this stranger?
Messenger. A man who stood there and heard you say that a whole city was brought down out of desire for this girl, that it was not the Lydian woman who destroyed it but the love for her that came into the open.
Lichas. Lady, send this person away. Trading nonsense with a sick man is not what a man in his right mind does.
Deianeira. No. By Zeus, whose lightning strikes down the high glens of Oeta, do not cheat me of the truth. You will not be telling it to a bad woman, or to one who does not know how people are: that what we take pleasure in does not stay the same for ever. Anyone who squares up to Love like a boxer, fists raised, has lost his senses. Love rules the gods themselves however he likes, and he rules me. So why not another woman, made as I am? If I blamed my husband for catching this sickness I would be out of my mind — or blamed this girl, who shares with him in a thing that is no disgrace to her and no harm to me. No. But if it was from him that you learned to lie, you have learned a lesson that does you no credit; and if you are teaching yourself, then when you set out to be kind you will turn out to be cruel. Tell me the whole truth. For a free man to be called a liar is an ugly mark to carry. And you will not get away with it, either: you told too many people, and they will tell me. If you are afraid, you are afraid of the wrong thing. Not being told: that is what would hurt me. What is so terrible about knowing? Has Heracles, one man, not been with more women than anyone could count? And not one of them ever had a hard word or a reproach from me. Nor will this girl, even if she is melting with love for him — because when I looked at her I pitied her more than any of them. Her beauty has destroyed her life, and, poor thing, without meaning to, she has wrecked her own country and made it a slave. Well, let all that run with the wind. But I am telling you: cheat other people if you like. With me, always tell the truth.
Chorus. Do what she says. It is good advice. You will not regret it with this lady later, and you will have my thanks as well.
Lichas. Dear mistress — now that I see you are a mortal who thinks as a mortal should, and not unreasonable, I will tell you the whole truth and hide nothing. It is as this man says. A terrible longing for this girl went through Heracles once; and it was for her sake that Oechalia, her father's city, was ruined, brought down by his spear. And — I must say what is on his side too — he never told me to hide it, and never denied it. It was I, lady, afraid of hurting you with news like this, who went wrong — if you count it as going wrong at all. But now you know the whole story: for his sake and for yours alike, put up with the woman, and let the words you spoke about her just now stand for good. Because he, who wins every other fight with his hands, has been beaten by his love for this girl, completely.
Deianeira. That is how I think too, and that is what I will do. I will not take on a second sickness of my own by fighting the gods, which nobody wins. Let us go inside, so that you can carry my messages, and the gifts that have to go back in return for gifts — take those with you too. It would not be right for you to go back empty-handed, after arriving with such a train behind you.
(They go into the house.)
Chorus. Great is the strength Aphrodite carries off in victory, always. What she did to the gods I pass over — how she fooled the son of Cronus, Zeus himself, I will not say, nor Hades of the dark, nor Poseidon who shakes the earth. But for this bride — who were the two great rivals who came down for her before the wedding? Who went out to the contest of blows and dust?
Chorus. One was the strength of a river, the shape of a bull, high-horned, four-legged: Achelous, from Oeniadae. The other came from Thebes, the city of Bacchus, shaking his springing bow, his spears, and his club — the son of Zeus. The two of them came together then into the middle, hungry for her bed; and Aphrodite alone, who makes the marriage, sat between them with the umpire's rod.
Chorus. Then there was the thud of fists and the twang of the bow and the bull's horns all mixed in together; there were legs locked and twisted, there were deadly blows from the foreheads, and groaning from both. And the girl, soft, lovely-eyed, sat on a hillside that could be seen far off, waiting for whichever would be her husband. The fight rages on, as I tell it; but the bride's face, the prize they fought for, waits, pitiable, for the end. And suddenly she has gone from her mother, like a calf left on its own.
(Deianeira comes out of the house alone.)
Deianeira. Friends — while our guest is inside saying goodbye to the captive girls, on the point of leaving, I have slipped out of the house to you without his knowing. Partly to tell you what my hands have been contriving. Partly to have you grieve with me over what I am going through.
I have taken in a girl — no, I think, not a girl any longer, but a woman who has been yoked to a man — the way a sailor takes on cargo: a piece of merchandise that will wreck my peace of mind. And now we are two women waiting under one blanket for one man's embrace. That is what Heracles, the man I called faithful and good, has sent home to me as payment for keeping his house all this long time.
I do not know how to be angry with him. He has caught this sickness badly, and it has happened many times. But to live in the same house with her, sharing the same marriage — what woman could do it? I can see her youth coming into flower while mine is fading; and a man's eye loves to snatch the flower, and turns its step away from what is faded. So I am afraid of this: that Heracles will be called my husband and be the younger woman's man.
But as I said, for a woman with any sense, anger is not becoming. So I will tell you, friends, the way I have found of getting release and relief.
I had an old gift, from a monster of the old days, hidden in a bronze jar. I was still a girl when I took it from the shaggy-chested centaur Nessus, as he lay dying, out of his own wound. He was the one who used to carry people in his arms, for a fee, across the deep-running river Evenus — no oars to row them over, no ship's sail. He carried me too, on his shoulders, the first time I went with Heracles as his wife, when my father sent me on my way; and when I was in midstream he put his hands on me where he had no business. I screamed, and Zeus's son turned round at once and let fly a feathered arrow from his hands. It went whistling through his chest into the lungs. And as he died, the monster said this much to me:
"Child of old Oeneus, you shall get this much good out of my ferrying, if you do what I say, since you are the last passenger I ever carried. Take the blood clotted round my wound in your hands, at the place where the arrow was dipped in the black gall of the Hydra, the creature of Lerna, and you will have a charm for Heracles' heart, so that he will never look at any woman and love her more than you."
I thought of this, friends — since his death it had been kept locked away safely in the house — and I dipped this robe in it, doing everything he told me while he was alive. And it is done. I hope I never know anything of wicked daring, never learn it; I hate the women who go in for it. But if there is any way I can get the better of this girl, with love-charms and spells laid on Heracles — that is the plan, and it is ready. Unless you think I am doing something foolish. If so, I will stop at once.
Chorus. If there is anything to trust in what has been done, we think you have not planned badly.
Deianeira. The trust goes this far: it looks as though it will work. But I have never put it to the test.
Chorus. You will have to act to find out. However sure you feel, you cannot know a thing until you have tried it.
Deianeira. Well, we shall know soon. There he is, already at the door; he will be gone in a moment. Only — keep this well covered for me. Do a shameful thing in the dark, and you will never fall into shame.
(Lichas comes out.)
Lichas. What are your orders? Tell me, daughter of Oeneus. I have stayed so long that I am late already.
Deianeira. That is exactly what I have been seeing to for you, Lichas, while you were talking to the foreign women inside: that you should carry this for me. A long-woven robe, a gift to my husband from my own hands. When you give it to him, tell him this. No one is to put it on his body before he does. It is not to be seen by the light of the sun, or inside a holy enclosure, or by the fire on a hearth, until he stands out in the open, in full view, and shows it to the gods on the day the bulls are sacrificed. That was my vow: if I ever saw him come home safe, or heard for certain that he had, I would dress him in this robe and show him to the gods as a new sacrificer in a new garment. And you will carry a token of it, which he will easily recognise: the mark inside this seal. Now go. And first, keep to the rule that a messenger does not take it upon himself to do more than he was sent to do; and second, see to it that his thanks and mine come together, so that you earn double instead of single.
Lichas. If I practise Hermes' craft of carrying messages at all soundly, I will never once slip in your service. I will carry this box and show it exactly as it is, and add the assurance of the words you have told me to go with it.
Deianeira. You can go now. You know very well how things stand here in the house.
Lichas. I know, and I will tell him that all is well.
Deianeira. And you know, from your own eyes, how I received the foreign girl — how warmly I welcomed her.
Lichas. So warmly it struck my heart with pleasure.
Deianeira. Then what else is there for you to tell him? I am afraid it would be too early to speak of my longing for him, before I know whether I am longed for over there.
(Lichas goes out along the road. Deianeira goes into the house.)
Chorus. You who live beside the harbour and the rocks and the hot springs, and the crags of Oeta; you who live along the inner shore of the Malian gulf and the beach of the girl with the golden shuttle, Artemis, where the Greeks hold their famous assemblies at the Gates, at Thermopylae:
Chorus. soon the flute with its lovely voice will rise up for you again, not with a harsh and grating clang, but with music like the lyre, fit for the gods. Because the son that Alcmena bore to Zeus is hurrying home, carrying the spoils of all his excellence.
Chorus. We had him out of the city altogether, somewhere, while we waited twelve months, out on the sea, knowing nothing. And his loving wife, poor woman, wretched, with a wretched heart, was wasting away, always in tears. But now Ares, stung to fury, has set her free from the days of toil.
Chorus. Let him come, let him come. Let the many-oared ship that carries him not stop before he reaches this town, leaving the island altar where they say he is sacrificing. Let him come from there all desire, steeped through with the charm of Persuasion, with the robe for its excuse.
(Deianeira comes out of the house.)
Deianeira. Women, I am afraid I may have gone too far in everything I was doing just now.
Chorus. What is it, Deianeira, daughter of Oeneus?
Deianeira. I do not know. But I am losing heart. I think I will soon turn out to have done a great wrong, out of a good hope.
Chorus. Surely not something to do with your gift to Heracles?
Deianeira. Exactly that. So much so that I would never advise anyone to be eager to act when they cannot see what the act will do.
Chorus. Tell us, if it can be told, what you are afraid of.
Deianeira. Something has happened, women, that if I tell it, you will hear as a wonder nobody could have expected. The thing I was using just now to anoint the festal robe — a white tuft of wool from a fleecy sheep — has vanished. Nothing in the house ate it. It ate itself, wasted away on its own, and crumbled to nothing on the top of a stone slab. So that you can know the whole of it, how this came about, I will tell it at more length.
Of the instructions the centaur gave me, the monster, while he was in agony from the bitter arrowhead in his side, I left out nothing. I kept them as if they were writing cut in a bronze tablet that no hand could wash away. This was what he told me, and this is what I did: keep this drug in the innermost part of the house, away from fire and never touched by a warm ray of sun, until I should spread it fresh on something and put it to use. And so I had done. And just now, when the time came to act, I anointed the robe secretly, indoors, with a tuft of wool pulled from one of our own sheep; then I folded my gift up and laid it, out of the sunlight, in its hollow chest, as you saw.
But as I am going back inside, I see a thing there are no words for, that no human mind could work out. Somehow I had happened to throw the tuft of wool I was anointing with into the full blaze of the sun's rays. As it warmed, it ran all together into nothing and crumbled away on the ground, looking most of all like the crumbs you would see left where a saw has cut through wood. That is how it lies where it fell. And out of the earth where it lay, clotted foam is seething up, like the thick juice of the blue fruit from Bacchus's vine when it is poured on the ground.
Deianeira. So I do not know, in my misery, which way to turn my mind. I only see that I have done a terrible thing. Why, in return for what, would the monster have wished me well as he died, when I was the reason he was dying? It is impossible. No — he wanted to destroy the man who shot him, and he was casting his spell on me to do it. And I am learning that now, too late, when it is no use any more. If my judgement is not wrong, I alone, wretched as I am, am going to destroy him. Because I know that the arrow that struck the centaur hurt even a god, Cheiron, and that it kills every kind of animal it touches. And this black poison of the blood, which came out through Nessus's wound from that same arrow — how can it fail to kill Heracles too? In my judgement, at least, it cannot. And yet I have decided: if he is to fall, I will die with him in the same fall, at the same moment. No woman who cares more than anything about not being evil by nature could bear to live and be called evil.
Chorus. When terrible things are done, fear is unavoidable. But you should not judge your hope before the outcome.
Deianeira. Where the plan is bad there is no hope — not the kind of hope that gives you any confidence.
Chorus. But with people whose mistake was not of their own choosing, anger softens. That is what should happen with you.
Deianeira. That is what someone would say who had no share in the harm — not someone with trouble of her own at home.
Chorus. It would be best to say nothing more, unless you mean to say it to your own son. He is here — the one who went off before to look for his father.
(Hyllus comes in.)
Hyllus. Mother. I wish I could pick one of three things for you: that you were no longer alive; or that if you were spared, you were somebody else's mother; or that from somewhere you could exchange the heart you have for a better one.
Deianeira. What is it, my son? What have I done that you hate?
Hyllus. Your husband — I mean my father — know that you have killed him. Today.
Deianeira. Oh. What is this you have brought out, child?
Hyllus. Something that cannot fail to be fulfilled. What has come into the light — who could make it not have happened?
Deianeira. What are you saying, my son? From whom did you learn that I have done a thing so far from anyone's envy, that you charge me with it?
Hyllus. From nobody. I saw my father's crushing misfortune with my own eyes. I did not hear it from anyone's tongue.
Deianeira. Where did you find him? Where were you at his side?
Hyllus. If you have to know, then I must tell all of it.
After he had sacked the famous city of Eurytus and was on his way with the trophies of victory and the first pick of the spoils — there is a headland of Euboea washed by the sea on both sides, Cape Cenaeum, where he was marking out altars and a leafy sacred precinct for Zeus, his father's god. That is where I first saw him, and I was glad; I had been longing for it. He was about to make a great sacrifice, with many victims, when his own herald, Lichas, arrived from home carrying your gift — the deadly robe. He put it on, exactly as you had instructed, and began by killing twelve bulls without a blemish, the first fruits of the plunder; but altogether he brought a hundred beasts of every kind to the altar.
And at first, poor wretch, he prayed with a calm mind, glad of the finery and the dress. But when the bloody flame began to blaze up from the solemn offerings and the resinous pine, sweat came up on his skin, and the robe clung to his sides at every joint, close-glued, as if a craftsman had fitted it. Then a biting pain came into his bones, and wrenched him; and then the poison began to eat him, like the venom of some deadly, hateful viper.
At that he shouted for Lichas, poor devil, who had no part in your crime, and demanded to know by what trick he had brought this robe. And Lichas, knowing nothing, poor wretch, said it was your gift and yours alone, exactly as it had been sent. When my father heard that, and a spasm of agony took hold of his lungs, he grabbed him by the foot, where the ankle turns in its socket, and hurled him at a rock washed by the sea. The white brain came spurting out through his hair, with the middle of his skull smashed open and the blood along with it.
Hyllus. And all the people cried out and wailed at the sight of them — the one in his sickness, the other destroyed — and nobody dared to go near the man. He was dragged to the ground and hauled into the air, shouting, screaming; and the rocks all round rang with it, the mountain headlands of Locris and the capes of Euboea.
When he had worn himself out with throwing himself on the ground, over and over, and howling, over and over, cursing the bed he had made with you, wretched woman, and the marriage into the house of Oeneus, which he said he had got himself as the ruin of his life — then, out of the smoke that hung round the altar, he lifted his rolling eyes and saw me, weeping, in the middle of the great crowd of soldiers. He looked straight at me and called me.
"My son, come here. Do not run away from my suffering, not even if you have to die with me as I die. Lift me and carry me out of here; best of all, put me somewhere no human being will see me. But if you have any pity, at least ferry me out of this country as fast as you can. Do not let me die here."
That was his order, and we laid him in the middle of a boat and brought him to this shore, only just, bellowing in his convulsions. And you will see him soon, either alive or just dead.
That, Mother, is what you have been caught planning against my father, and doing. May Justice that punishes, and the Fury, pay you back for it. If it is lawful to pray so, I pray it. And it is lawful, because you threw the law away first, when you killed the best man of all the men on earth. You will never look at his like again.
(Deianeira turns and goes towards the house without a word.)
Chorus. Why are you going off in silence? Do you not know that by saying nothing you are speaking on the side of the man who accuses you?
Hyllus. Let her go. Let a fair wind carry her far out of my sight. Why should she keep up the dignity of the name "mother" for nothing, when nothing she does is what a mother does? Let her go, and much good may it do her. And the pleasure she is giving my father — may she get the same herself.
(Deianeira goes into the house. Hyllus follows.)
Chorus. Look, girls, how suddenly it has come upon us, the god's word spoken long ago, the old prophecy which foresaw it all: that when the twelfth year of ploughing had run its full count of months, it would bring the end of the labours for Zeus's own son. And this is coming true, on a steady wind, exactly. For how could a man who no longer sees the light ever again have any painful labour to serve, once he is dead?
Chorus. If the deadly cloud of the centaur is smeared on his sides by a trap that had to close, with the poison melted into him that Death gave birth to and the glittering snake fed — how can he see any other sun than this one, fused to the Hydra's shape, the most terrible of all? And along with that, the murderous goads of black-haired Nessus, set on him by treacherous words, boil in him and torture him.
Chorus. And this poor woman, seeing the great harm rushing at her house from the new marriage, did not hold back: part of it she brought on herself, and part came from a stranger's mind, in a fatal exchange. Surely she groans in ruin now; surely she wets a pale dew of thick tears. And the fate that is coming shows ahead of it a treacherous, enormous ruin.
Chorus. The spring of tears has burst. The sickness has poured out — oh, such suffering as no enemy ever brought on glorious Heracles, to be pitied. Oh, dark point of the spear that led the fight, which brought that bride so swiftly then down from the heights of Oechalia at the spear's edge — and Aphrodite, silent, in attendance, stands revealed as the one who did all this.
(A cry from inside the house.)
First Half-Chorus. Am I imagining it, or did I just hear a cry of grief start up somewhere inside the house? What was that?
Second Half-Chorus. That is no vague sound. It is a wail, and it is a wail of disaster, from indoors. Something new has happened in that house.
Half-Chorus. And look. The old woman is coming out to us with her head down and her brows drawn together. She has something to tell.
(The Nurse comes out.)
Nurse. Children — so this is what it came to. The present she sent off to Heracles has started no small run of evils for us.
Chorus. What has happened, old woman? What is new?
Nurse. Deianeira has gone on the last journey of all her journeys, and never moved a foot.
Chorus. You cannot mean she is dead?
Nurse. You have heard it all.
Chorus. She is dead? The poor woman?
Nurse. That is the second time you have heard it.
Chorus. Poor lost woman. How did she die? Tell us how.
Nurse. In the cruellest way anyone could do it.
Chorus. Tell us, woman, what death she ran to meet.
Nurse. She destroyed herself.
Chorus. What passion, what sickness of the mind brought her down on the point of that evil weapon? How did she plan it, alone — death on top of death, and carried it through by herself?
Nurse. With the cut of the iron that makes people groan.
Chorus. You saw it, you poor helpless thing — this outrage?
Nurse. I saw it. I was standing right beside her.
Chorus. Who did it? How? Come, tell us.
Nurse. Herself. With her own hand. She made it happen.
Chorus. What are you saying?
Nurse. The plain truth.
Chorus. She has borne, she has borne a great Fury for this house — the new bride, the girl who only just arrived.
Nurse. Too great a one. And if you had been there beside her and seen what she did, you would have pitied her far more.
Chorus. And a woman's hand brought itself to do that?
Nurse. Yes, and terribly. You will hear it, and then you can bear me out.
When she came into the house alone and saw her son out in the courtyard spreading a hollow litter, to go back and meet his father with it, she hid herself where nobody could see her. She threw herself down at the altars and cried aloud that they were going to be left empty. She wept over every household thing she touched — the things she used to use, poor woman, in the old days. She went from one room to another, and if she caught sight of any of the servants she was fond of, she wept at the sight of them, the unhappy woman, calling out on her own fate and on a life that would have no children in it from now on.
When she had done with that, all at once I saw her rush into Heracles' bedroom. I kept my eye on her in secret, from the shadows, watching. And I saw the woman throwing coverings onto Heracles' bed and spreading them out. When she had finished that she jumped up onto it and sat down in the middle of the bed, and hot streams of tears broke out of her, and she said: "My bed, and my bridal room — goodbye now, for good. You will never take me in to lie in these sheets again."
She said that much and no more. Then with a hard, quick hand she undid her dress where the brooch of beaten gold sat over her breasts, and bared her whole left side and her arm. I ran, as fast as I had the strength to, and told her son what she was contriving. And in the time it took to go there and come back, we found her with a two-edged sword driven into her side, under the liver, into the heart.
The boy saw it and cried out. Because he understood, poor boy, that his anger had driven her to it. He had learned too late, from the people in the house, that she had done it without knowing what she did, because of the beast — the Centaur. And then there was no lament the poor boy left unmade, groaning over her, falling on her to kiss her mouth; he lay down side by side with her and groaned and groaned that he had thrown a false charge at her, and wept that now he was orphaned of both of them at once, his father and her.
So that is how things stand in there. And anyone who counts on two days, or on more than that, is a fool. There is no tomorrow until you have got safely through today.
(She goes back inside.)
Chorus. Which do I groan for first? Which sorrow is the heavier? I am wretched, and I cannot judge.
Chorus. One of them we can see, here in the house. The other we wait for, and dread. To have it and to wait for it come to the same.
Chorus. If only some wind would rise and blow fair, away from this hearth, and carry me off out of this place, so that I need not die of terror at one sight of the strong son of Zeus. They say he is coming to the house in pains that nothing will loosen, a horror past all telling.
Chorus. And he was near, not far — the thing I cried out for beforehand, like the shrill nightingale. Here is a procession of strangers. And how are they carrying him? Like someone they love and are caring for — a heavy, soundless step. Aiai. He is carried in, and makes no sound. Am I to think him dead, or only sleeping?
(An Old Man comes in with attendants, carrying Heracles on a litter. Hyllus comes out of the house.)
Hyllus. Oh, father — oh, this is misery, father, this is misery for me. What is to become of me? What am I to do? Oh.
Old Man. Quiet, child. Do not wake your father's savage pain. He is at the edge of it — alive, and barely. Bite your lip and hold it.
Hyllus. What are you saying, old man? He is alive?
Old Man. You must not wake him. Sleep has hold of him. You must not stir it, must not bring it back — the sickness that comes and goes, that terrible thing, child.
Hyllus. But the weight on me is more than I can carry. My mind is out of my hands.
Heracles. Zeus — what country have I come to? Who are these people I lie among, worn down by pains that never stop? Oh, I am wretched. It is biting again, the filthy thing. Ah.
Old Man. Did I not know how much we gained by keeping quiet, by not scattering the sleep off his head and off his eyes?
Hyllus. I cannot. I do not know how to look at this and bear it.
Heracles. Cenaeum, foundation of my altars, what thanks you have got me for my offerings there — Zeus. What ruin you have made of me. What ruin. I wish these eyes had never seen it, never looked on this flower of madness that nothing can charm away. What singer, what healer's hand will charm this ruin quiet, except Zeus? Show me one. I would be amazed to see him, even far off.
Heracles. Ah — let me be, let me be, I am done for, let me sleep my last sleep.
Heracles. Where — where are you touching me? Where are you laying me down? You are killing me. You are killing me. You have woken whatever had gone quiet. It has me — oh — here it comes again, crawling. Where are you from, you men, the most unjust in all Greece? I wore myself out clearing your seas and every forest of their monsters, I was destroyed doing it — and now, when I am sick, will not one of you bring fire, or a sword, and do me that kindness?
Heracles. Ah — will nobody come and hack the head off this hateful body? Ah. Ah.
Old Man. Son of this man, the work has grown beyond my strength. You take him. You have more in your hands to save him than I have.
Hyllus. I have hold of him. But I have nothing, in myself or from outside, that will make his life forget its pain. That is what Zeus deals out.
Heracles. Son, where are you? Here — take me here, lift me, take the weight. Ah. Oh, what has come to me.
Heracles. It leaps again, it leaps, the wretched thing, it is finishing me, the wild sickness nobody can go near. Pallas, Pallas — it is torturing me again. Son — pity your father. Draw the sword — nobody will blame you — and strike here, under my collarbone. Cure the pain your godless mother filled me with. Let me see her fall like this, exactly like this, the way she has destroyed me. Sweet Hades —
Heracles. brother of Zeus — put me to sleep, to sleep, finish me with a fast death. I am wretched.
Chorus. I shudder to hear it, friends — what our king suffers. A man like that, driven by pains like these.
Heracles. Oh — many a hot, hard thing, and not just in the telling, these hands have laboured through, and this back. But nothing like this was ever set me, not by Zeus's wife, not by hateful Eurystheus — nothing like what the daughter of Oeneus, with her lying face, has fastened on my shoulders: this woven net of the Furies I am dying in. It has glued itself to my sides and eaten the flesh right through to the bone; it lives inside me and sucks at the passages of my lungs; it has already drunk my fresh blood, and my whole body is destroyed, mastered by this chain that no one can describe.
No spear on a battlefield ever did this to me. Nor the earth-born army of the Giants, nor any wild beast's strength, nor Greece, nor any land with no Greek in it, nor any country I came to and cleared of its monsters. A woman did it. A female, born with nothing of a man's nature in her — she, alone, has brought me down without a sword.
Son — be my true son now, born of me, and do not set your mother's name above mine. Go into the house yourself and bring her out with your own two hands, and put the woman who bore you into my hand, so that I can know for certain which sight hurts you more: mine, or hers, when her body has been mutilated as justice demands.
Go, child. Have the stomach for it. And pity me, whom so many would pity — bellowing and crying like a girl. Nobody could say he had ever seen this man do that before. I followed my troubles without a groan, always. And now, from that, I have been found out a woman. I am wretched.
Heracles. Now come here and stand beside your father, and see what kind of misfortune has done this to me. I will show it to you. I will take off the coverings. Look — all of you, look at this miserable body. Look at the wretch I am. Look at the pitiful state I am in.
Aiai — oh, I am wretched. It has flared up again, just now, this spasm of ruin; it has shot through my sides. It will not leave me alone, it seems, this wretched, devouring sickness.
Lord Hades, take me. Fire of Zeus, strike. Hurl it, lord — send the bolt of your thunder down on me, father. It is feeding again; it has burst into flower; it has broken out.
Hands — my hands, my back, my chest, my own dear arms. Are you the same ones that once broke by force the thing that lived in Nemea, the herdsmen's curse, the lion, a creature nobody could approach or speak to? And the Hydra of Lerna; and that double-natured army of beasts that would mix with no one, that went on horses' legs — the Centaurs, violent, lawless, overbearing in their strength; and the boar of Erymanthus; and, under the earth, the three-headed dog of Hades, a monster nothing could fight, the whelp of the terrible Echidna; and the snake that guarded the golden apples at the ends of the earth. I tasted ten thousand other labours, and no man ever set up a trophy over these hands.
And now look at me — my joints unstrung, torn to rags, sacked and ruined by a ruin I could not see coming. I, who am called the son of the noblest of mothers. I, who am named the child of Zeus among the stars.
But know this one thing for certain: even if I am nothing, even if I cannot crawl a step, the woman who did this I will get into my hands, even from here. Only let her come near me, so that she can learn to tell the whole world that living or dead I punished the bad.
Chorus. Poor Greece — what mourning I see coming for her, if she loses this man.
Hyllus. Father, since you have paused and given me a chance to answer, be quiet a while and listen to me, sick as you are. I am going to ask you for what I have a right to. Give yourself to me — not as you are now, savage with the pain that is biting you. Otherwise you cannot know where you are wrong to want to take pleasure, and where you are wrong to hurt.
Heracles. Say what you want, and then stop. I am sick; I cannot follow any of these riddles you have been spinning.
Hyllus. I have come to tell you about my mother — the state she is in now, and how she went wrong without meaning to.
Heracles. You vile — you name her again, in my hearing? Your mother, who killed your father?
Hyllus. Things are such that silence would not be right.
Heracles. Not right — after what she did before?
Hyllus. You will not say so. Not after what she has done today.
Heracles. Speak. But take care you do not turn out a bad son.
Hyllus. I will speak. She is dead, just now, newly killed.
Heracles. By whose hand? That is a monstrous thing to prophesy, out of all this evil.
Hyllus. Her own. No one else's — no outsider's.
Heracles. Oh — before she could die as she should have, by my hand?
Hyllus. Even your anger would turn, if you knew the whole of it.
Heracles. That is a strange way to begin. Tell me what you mean.
Hyllus. The whole thing is this: she went wrong, meaning to do good.
Heracles. Good, you vile creature? She kills your father, and that is good?
Hyllus. She thought she was putting a love-charm on you, when she saw the marriage inside the house. She missed.
Heracles. And which of the Trachinians is that great a poisoner?
Hyllus. Nessus the Centaur. Long ago he persuaded her to madden your desire with a love-charm like that.
Heracles. Oh — oh, I am wretched. I am gone. Finished, finished — there is no light left for me. Oh. Now I understand where we stand.
Go, child. You have no father any more. Call all your brothers, the whole seed of my blood, and call poor Alcmena, Zeus's wife for nothing, so that you can hear my last word on the oracles — everything I know.
Hyllus. But your mother is not here. It happens that she has settled at Tiryns on the coast. Some of your children she has taken and is raising herself; others, you should know, are living in the city of Thebes. Those of us who are here, father — if anything needs doing, tell us, and we will do it.
Heracles. Then listen. Here is the work. You have come to where you will show what kind of man you are, who are called my son.
It was foretold me by my father long ago that I would die by nothing that draws breath, but by someone already dead, a dweller in Hades. So this beast, the Centaur, exactly as the god foretold it, has killed me alive, being dead.
And I will show you fresh oracles that match those, and agree with the old ones. I went into the grove of the Selli, the men who live on the mountain and sleep on the ground, and wrote them down from my father's oak, the oak that speaks with many tongues. It told me that at the time which is alive and here now, my release from the labours laid on me would be completed. And I thought that meant I would do well. It meant nothing but this: that I would die. The dead have no more labours.
So since all this is coming out clearly, child, you must be this man's ally again, and not wait until my tongue gets sharp; give way of your own accord and work with me. Find the finest law there is: obey your father.
Hyllus. Father — I am frightened to have come to this point in what we are saying. But I will do what you decide.
Heracles. First of all, put your right hand in mine.
Hyllus. Why do you press this pledge on me so hard?
Heracles. Give it. Now. Do not distrust me.
Hyllus. There. I hold it out. I will not refuse you anything.
Heracles. Now swear, by the head of Zeus who fathered me —
Hyllus. Swear to do what? Will you tell me that too?
Heracles. — to carry out for me the task I name.
Hyllus. I swear it. Zeus is my witness.
Heracles. And pray that if you break it, you suffer for it.
Hyllus. I will not suffer for it, because I will do it. But I pray it all the same.
Heracles. Do you know the peak of Oeta, the mountain of Zeus?
Hyllus. I know it. I have stood up there many times to sacrifice.
Heracles. Then you must lift my body and carry it there — with your own hands, and with whatever friends you want. Cut a great pile of wood from the deep-rooted oak, and cut down a great deal of the male wild olive with it, and lay my body on top, and take a flaming pine torch and set it alight. And let no tear of mourning come into it. Do it without a groan and without a tear, if you are this man's son. If you do not, I will be waiting for you, even from under the earth — a curse on you for ever, and a heavy one.
Hyllus. Oh, father — what have you said? What have you done to me?
Heracles. What has to be done. Otherwise, get yourself some other father, and never be called my son again.
Hyllus. Oh — again, oh. What are you calling on me to be, father? Your murderer, with your blood on my hands?
Heracles. Not that. The healer of what I have — the one doctor for my pain.
Hyllus. And how do I heal your body by setting fire to it?
Heracles. If you are afraid of that part, do the rest.
Hyllus. You will not be refused the carrying, at any rate.
Heracles. And building the pyre I have described?
Hyllus. So long as I do not touch it with my own hands. The rest I will do; my part will not fall short.
Heracles. That will be enough. Then add one small favour to the large ones.
Hyllus. Even if it is very large, it will be done.
Heracles. You know the girl, Eurytus's daughter?
Hyllus. You mean Iole, I would guess.
Heracles. You know her. This is what I lay on you, child. When I am dead — if you want to do what is right by the gods, remembering the oath you swore your father — take her as your wife. Do not refuse your father. Let no other man ever have her, who has lain at my side — no one but you. Make that marriage yours, my son. Do as I say. You have trusted me in great things; to distrust me in small ones wipes out the thanks you earned before.
Hyllus. Oh. It is wrong to be angry with a sick man. But who could bear to see him think like this?
Heracles. You talk as if you meant to do nothing I say.
Hyllus. Who would? She is the one to blame — the one cause of my mother's death, and of your being as you are. Who would choose that, unless he was sick with avenging spirits? Better that I die too, father, than live in the same house with the people I hate most.
Heracles. This man, it seems, will not give me what is due to a dying man. Well — the curse of the gods will wait for you, if you disobey what I say.
Hyllus. Oh — you will soon show how sick you are, it seems.
Heracles. Yes, because you are stirring up the evil that had gone to sleep.
Hyllus. I am wretched. There is no way out, anywhere I turn.
Heracles. Because you do not think it right to listen to the man who fathered you.
Hyllus. Then am I to be taught to offend the gods, father?
Heracles. It does not offend the gods, if it gladdens my heart.
Hyllus. So you order me to do this, as wholly just?
Heracles. I do. I call the gods to witness it.
Hyllus. Then I will do it. I will not refuse — and I show the gods that the deed is yours. I could never turn out bad by trusting you, father.
Heracles. You finish well. And add the favour quickly, my son: put me on the pyre before some spasm or sting comes over me again. Come — hurry — lift me. This is the rest from evils. This is the last end of this man.
Hyllus. Nothing stops it being done for you, since you command it and force it on me, father.
Heracles. Come, then — before you wake this sickness again, my hard soul, set a bit of steel in my mouth, stone fitted to stone, and stop my crying. You are finishing a task you did not want, and it is a joy.
Hyllus. Lift him, men. Grant me great forgiveness for this, and know the great unfeelingness of the gods in what is being done — they who beget children and are called fathers, and look on at suffering like this. Nobody sees what is to come. What is here now is pitiful for us, and shameful for them, and hardest of all men for the one who is bearing this ruin.
And you, girl — do not stay behind at the house either. You have seen great deaths, fresh ones, and many sufferings never suffered before, and there is nothing in any of it that is not Zeus.
(Mycenae. Before the palace of the house of Pelops, at first light. The Tutor, an old man, comes in with Orestes and Pylades.)
Tutor. Son of Agamemnon, who once commanded the army at Troy — now you can look with your own eyes at what you have always longed for. This is the ancient Argos you were homesick for, the sacred ground of Io, Inachus' daughter, whom the gadfly stung and drove across the world. And this, Orestes, is the Lycean marketplace, named for Apollo the wolf-killer. There on the left is Hera's famous temple. And the place we have come to — call it Mycenae, rich in gold, that you are looking at, and this the house of Pelops' line, where so many have been killed. It was from here, when your father was murdered, that I took you from your sister, your own blood, and carried you off and saved you and raised you to the age you are now, to avenge your father's murder.
So now, Orestes — and you, Pylades, dearest of friends from abroad — we have to decide quickly what to do. Already the sun's bright light is stirring the birds into their clear morning songs, and the black night of stars is gone. Before any man comes out of that house, put your heads together. We are at the point where there is no more time for hesitating. It is the moment to act.
Orestes. Dearest of all the men who serve me — how clearly you show what a loyal man you are to our house. A thoroughbred horse, even when he is old, does not lose heart in danger; he pricks up his ears. That is you. You drive us on, and you follow in the front rank yourself. So I will tell you what I have decided. Listen sharply, and if I miss the mark anywhere, put me right.
When I went to Apollo's oracle at Delphi to learn how I should take justice for my father from the men who killed him, Apollo gave me this answer — you will hear it now: that I myself, with no armour and no army, should use cunning to steal the just killing that my hand owes. So, since that is the oracle we heard — you go into that house, when the moment lets you in, and find out everything that is going on in there, so that you can come back and tell us for certain. They will never know you, after so many years and at your age; nobody will suspect a man with hair as white as yours. Your story is this: you are a stranger from Phocis, sent by Phanoteus — he is the greatest ally they have. Tell them, and swear to it, that Orestes is dead — an accident he could not escape, thrown from a racing chariot at the Pythian games. Let that be the story, and let it stand.
Orestes. Meanwhile the two of us will go first to my father's tomb, as the god ordered, and crown it with poured wine and a cut lock of hair. Then we will come back here, carrying in our hands the bronze urn — you know the one; it is hidden in the bushes — so that we can bring them, by a lie, the sweet news that this body of mine is gone, burned already and turned to ash. What does it cost me? Dead in words, and in fact alive, and carrying off the glory. I think no word is a bad omen if it brings gain. I have seen it often enough: clever men who died in rumour, and then came home, and were honoured more than before. So I am confident that this report will see me alive as well, and blazing down on my enemies like a star.
Land of my fathers, and gods of this country: receive me, and let this journey go well. And you, house of my fathers — I come to cleanse you, in justice, sent on my way by the gods. Do not send me out of this land stripped of honour. Let me hold the wealth that was mine and set my house in order.
That is all I have to say. Old man, go now, and see to the task you have been given. The two of us will be off. It is the moment — and the moment is the greatest master of any work that men undertake.
(From inside the house, a cry.)
Electra. Oh — oh, misery.
Tutor. Listen, my boy. I think I heard one of the servant women moaning inside, behind the doors.
Orestes. Could it be Electra? Poor Electra. Do you want us to stay here and listen to her crying?
Tutor. No. Nothing before Apollo's orders. Let us set out to do those and make our beginning from them — pouring the offerings at your father's grave. That is what brings victory into our hands, and mastery over everything we do.
(The three go out, the Tutor one way and Orestes and Pylades the other. Electra comes out of the house.)
Electra. Pure light, and air, that shares the earth with the light — how many songs of grief you have heard from me, how many blows struck full on this breast until it bled, whenever the dark night lets go. And my hateful bed in that house of suffering knows my night-long vigils by now: how much I mourn my wretched father. In a foreign land the bloody god of war did not take him in as a guest. No — my mother, and the man who shares her bed, Aegisthus, split his head with a murdering axe, the way woodcutters split an oak. And for that no one grieves but me. No cry of pity from any lips but mine, for you, father, dead so shamefully, so pitifully.
Electra. But I will not stop — not the grieving, not the bitter crying — as long as I see the stars flash, as long as I see this daylight. Like the nightingale, who killed her own child, I will cry out in front of my father's doors so that everyone hears. House of Hades and Persephone, Hermes of the underworld, and lady Curse, and you dread Furies, daughters of the gods, who see the people unjustly killed, who see the marriage-beds stolen in secret — come. Help me. Take vengeance for my father's murder, and send me my brother. Alone I have no strength left to carry the weight of grief that drags me down.
(The Chorus comes in: women of Mycenae.)
Chorus. Electra — child of the most wretched of mothers — why are you always wasting away like this in a mourning that never has enough, for Agamemnon, caught long ago, godlessly, in your treacherous mother's snare, and betrayed to a wicked hand? May whoever did it die — if I may say such a thing without offending the gods.
Electra. Daughters of noble houses, you have come to comfort me in my trouble. I know it. I understand it. None of it escapes me. But I will not give this up. I will not stop mourning my poor father. You who return my love with every kind of love — let me go on raving like this. Aiai. I beg you.
Chorus. But you will never raise your father out of the lake of Hades, where everyone goes, not by crying and not by prayers. You go past what can be borne into a grief that has no cure, and you groan yourself to death, and in all of it there is no release from evil. Why do you reach for what cannot be carried?
Electra. Only a fool forgets a parent who died pitifully. No — my heart is set on the bird of grief, who cries Itys, always Itys, frantic with mourning, Zeus's messenger. And you, Niobe, who suffered everything, I count you a god, weeping for ever in your tomb of rock.
Chorus. Not to you alone, child, of all people has grief come, yet you take it harder than the others in the house, your own family, born of the same blood. Chrysothemis lives, and Iphianassa, and he lives too, hidden away from grief in his youth, a fortunate boy, whom the famous land of Mycenae will one day welcome home as a nobleman's son, when Zeus guides his step back to this land — Orestes.
Electra. Yes, and I wait for him without tiring — childless, wretched, unmarried, always walking my road soaked in tears, carrying a fate of evils that never ends. And he forgets what he suffered and what he learned. What message comes to me that does not turn out a lie? He is always longing to come, and for all his longing he never thinks it worth appearing.
Chorus. Courage, child. Take courage. Zeus is still great in the sky; he watches everything and rules it. Hand your too-painful anger over to him. Do not hate the people you hate too much, and do not forget them either. Time is a god who makes things easy. Agamemnon's son, on the cattle-grazed shore at Crisa, has not turned his back on you, and neither has the god who rules beside Acheron.
Electra. But most of my life has gone already without hope, and I have no strength left. I am wasting away without children. No man who loves me stands up for me. Like some worthless foreigner in the house I keep my father's rooms, dressed like this, in rags, standing at tables with nothing on them.
Chorus. Pitiful was the cry at his homecoming, pitiful the cry in your father's banquet hall when the blow of the all-bronze axe swung straight at him. Cunning planned it. Lust did the killing. Between them they bred a terrible shape, terribly — whether it was a god or a mortal who did the thing.
Electra. That day — of all days the one I hate most. That night, the horror of it, the feast no one can speak of, where my father saw shameful death come from two hands — the hands that took my life and betrayed it, the hands that destroyed me. May the great god of Olympus give them suffering to pay for it, and may they never enjoy their splendour, the pair who did such things.
Chorus. Take care. Say no more. Do you not understand how you are falling, so shamefully, from where you stand into ruin of your own making? You have earned yourself far more trouble than you needed, breeding wars, always, in your sullen soul. And you cannot fight the powerful and expect to win.
Electra. I was forced to it by terrible things — terrible things. I know. My anger does not escape me. But in the middle of terrors I will not hold back this ruin, as long as life is in me. Who, dear women, who could ever say a fitting word to me — who, with any sense of what is right? Let me be. Let me be, you comforters. This will be called a thing without a cure, and I will never rest from my labours, my cries beyond counting.
Chorus. I say it out of goodwill, the way a mother you could trust would say it: do not breed ruin on ruin.
Electra. And what is the measure of evil? Tell me — how can it be right to forget the dead? Where in the human race did that grow? May I never be honoured by such people, and if I ever live with anything good may I not live at ease, holding back the wings of my shrill grief and cheating my father of his honours. Because if the dead man lies there, poor wretch, dust and nothing, and they do not pay back in return blood for blood, in justice, then shame is gone, and reverence for the gods is gone, from the whole human race.
Chorus. Child, I came here as much for your sake as for my own. But if what I say is wrong, you win. We will follow you.
Electra. I am ashamed, women, if you think I go too far with all this grieving. But it is force that makes me do it — forgive me. How could any woman of good birth not do it, seeing what has happened to her father, when I see it night and day, and not fading but growing?
First, my own mother, who gave birth to me, has become my worst enemy. Then, in my own house, I live with my father's murderers. They rule me. It is from them that I get what I get, and it is from them that I go without.
And then what kind of days do you think I have — when I see Aegisthus sitting on my father's throne, when I see him wearing the same clothes my father wore, pouring wine at the hearth where he killed him; and when I see the crowning outrage of it all, the murderer in my father's bed beside my wretched mother — if I must call her mother, when she sleeps with that man. She is so shameless that she lives with the man who stained her, with no fear of any Fury. No — as if she were laughing at what she did, she found the day on which she killed my father by treachery, and on that day she sets up dances, and every month she slaughters sheep to the gods who saved her.
Electra. And I watch it — I, the ill-fated one — and I weep in the house, and waste away, and wail over the accursed feast that is named after my father, alone with myself. I cannot even cry as much as my heart would like. Because this lady — so noble, in words — shouts abuse at me like this: "You godless, hateful thing. Is your father the only one who ever died? Is no one else in the world in mourning? Damn you — and may the gods below never release you from your crying." That is her outrage. Except when she hears from someone that Orestes is coming. Then she goes wild, and stands over me and screams: "Is this not your doing? Is this not your work — you who stole Orestes out of my hands and smuggled him away? You will pay for it, and you will pay in full." She barks like that, and right beside her, egging her on, is her glorious bridegroom, the same words in his mouth — that complete coward, that walking disaster, the man who fights his battles with women at his side.
And I wait, always, for Orestes to come and put an end to it, and I am dying while I wait. He is always about to do something, and it has destroyed every hope I have, the ones I had and the ones I might have had. In a life like this, friends, there is no room for self-control or for reverence. In evil times there is a great need to do evil too.
Chorus. Tell us — is Aegisthus near, while you say this to us, or has he left the house?
Electra. He is gone. Do not imagine I would be out of doors if he were near. He is in the country now.
Chorus. Then I could speak to you more boldly, if that is how things stand?
Electra. He is not here. Ask what you like.
Chorus. Then I ask you: what of your brother? Is he coming, or is he putting it off? I want to know.
Electra. He says he is coming. He says it, and does none of what he says.
Chorus. A man will hesitate, when the thing he is doing is a great one.
Electra. I did not hesitate when I saved him.
Chorus. Take heart. He is of good blood. He will stand by his own.
Electra. I believe it. Otherwise I would not have lived this long.
Chorus. Say no more now. I see your sister coming out of the house — Chrysothemis, your father's daughter and your mother's — with offerings for the grave in her hands, the kind that custom sends down to the dead.
(Chrysothemis comes out of the house.)
Chrysothemis. What is it this time, sister? What speech have you come out to the doors to make in public? Will you never learn, in all this time, to stop feeding a useless temper with empty words? I know this much about myself: I hate what is happening. If I had the strength, I would show them what I think of them. But as things are, in bad times, I think it best to sail with the sail lowered, and not to look as if I am doing something when I cannot hurt them. I wish you would do the same. And yet — the right is on your side, not on mine. But if I am to live as a free woman, then the people in power have to be obeyed in everything.
Electra. It is a terrible thing that you, the daughter of the father you were born to, can forget him and care about your mother. Every lecture you give me was taught to you by her. Not a word of it is your own. Then choose one or the other: be a fool, or be sensible and forget the people you owe. You said just now that if you had the strength you would show your hatred of them — and when I do everything I can to avenge our father, you do not help me. You try to turn me aside from doing it. Is that not cowardice on top of everything else?
Explain to me — or learn it from me — what I would gain by stopping this grieving. Am I not alive? Badly, I know, but well enough for me. And I hurt them, and that is an honour paid to the dead man, if there is any pleasure where he is. But you, who hate them — you hate in words, while in fact you live with our father's murderers. I would never give in to them, not if someone were to bring me the gifts you preen yourself on now. Keep your rich table and your overflowing life. My food is this: not to hurt myself. I have no wish for the honour you have — and neither would you, if you had any self-respect. As it is, when you could be called the daughter of the best father there ever was, be called your mother's. That way most people will see you for what you are — a traitor to your dead father and your own people.
Chorus. Nothing in anger, for the gods' sake. There is gain for both of you in what has been said, if you would learn to use her words, and she yours.
Chrysothemis. Women, I am used to what she says, more or less. I would never have mentioned this at all if I had not heard that the greatest evil of all is coming for her — the thing that will put an end to her long grieving.
Electra. Then say it — this terror. If you can tell me anything worse than what I have now, I will not argue with you any more.
Chrysothemis. I will tell you everything I know. If you do not stop this grieving, they mean to send you where you will never see the light of the sun again — alive, in a covered cell, outside this country, singing your own miseries. Think about that, and do not blame me afterwards when it happens to you. Now is the time to be sensible.
Electra. They have really decided to do that to me?
Chrysothemis. They have. As soon as Aegisthus comes home.
Electra. Then let him come quickly, if that is what he is bringing.
Chrysothemis. Poor girl. What curse are you calling down on yourself?
Electra. That he should come — if he means to do any of that.
Chrysothemis. So that what will happen to you? Where are your wits?
Electra. So that I can get as far away from all of you as I can.
Chrysothemis. Do you give no thought to the life you have?
Electra. My life is a beautiful thing. A wonder to look at.
Chrysothemis. It would be, if you knew how to be sensible.
Electra. Do not teach me to betray my own people.
Chrysothemis. I am not. I am teaching you to give way to the people in power.
Electra. You do the flattering. That is not my way.
Chrysothemis. It is a fine thing, all the same, not to fall through stupidity.
Electra. We will fall, if we must, avenging our father.
Chrysothemis. Our father forgives me for this. I know he does.
Electra. Those are words only cowards would praise.
Chrysothemis. So you will not be persuaded? You will not agree with me?
Electra. No. I hope I am never that empty of sense.
Chrysothemis. Then I will go where I was sent.
Electra. Where are you going? Who are these offerings for?
Chrysothemis. Mother is sending me to pour them on our father's grave.
Electra. What did you say? For the man she hated most in the world?
Chrysothemis. The man she killed herself. That is what you want to say.
Electra. Which of her friends talked her into it? Whose idea was it?
Chrysothemis. Something frightened her in the night, I think.
Electra. Gods of my father — stand with me now, at last.
Chrysothemis. Do you find something to hope for in her fright?
Electra. Tell me the dream, and then I can answer you.
Chrysothemis. I only know a little of it.
Electra. Then tell me that. A few words have often brought people down before now, and set them on their feet.
Chrysothemis. The story is that she saw your father and mine come back to the light, and stand beside her a second time. Then he took the sceptre he used to carry himself — the one Aegisthus carries now — and planted it at the hearth; and from it a branch grew up, thick with leaves, and its shade covered the whole land of Mycenae. That is what I heard from someone who was there when she told her dream to the Sun. More than that I do not know — only that she is sending me because of this fear of hers. So I beg you, by the gods of our family, listen to me, and do not fall through stupidity. If you push me away now, you will come looking for me later, in trouble.
Electra. Dear sister — do not let one thing you are holding touch that tomb. It is not lawful, it is not holy, for you to set grave-gifts or pour offerings to our father from the woman who hated him. Throw them to the winds, or dig a deep hole and bury them in the dust, where none of it can ever come near our father's resting place. Let it be kept as treasure for her underground, when she dies.
If she were not the most shameless woman ever born, she would never have thought of pouring these hateful offerings to the man she killed. Ask yourself whether the dead man in his grave is likely to receive her gifts with any love — she, by whose hand he died dishonoured, hacked about like an enemy, his hands and feet cut off and strung under his armpits, and who wiped the bloodstains off on his head, to wash herself clean. Do you really think what you are carrying will absolve her of the murder? It cannot.
No. Put those things away. Cut a lock from the ends of your hair, and one from mine — I am wretched, and this is little, but it is what I have — and give him this hair, which has no oil on it, and this belt of mine, with no ornament on it. Then kneel and pray that he himself will come up from the ground, kind to us, to help us against our enemies; and that his son Orestes lives, and will set his foot on our enemies with the upper hand, so that from now on we can crown his tomb with richer hands than we bring him now. I think — yes, I think he too had some part in sending her these dreams she did not want to see. Still, sister, do this. Help yourself, and help me, and help the man we love most of all, who lies in Hades — the father we share.
Chorus. The girl speaks with reverence. And you, dear friend, will do as she says, if you have any sense.
Chrysothemis. I will do it. When a thing is right there is no reason for two people to argue about it; the only sense is to hurry and do it. But while I am trying to do this, friends — by the gods, keep silent about it. If my mother hears of it, I think I will pay a bitter price for daring this.
(She goes out towards the tomb.)
Chorus. If I am not a prophet gone wrong, if my judgement has not lost its wisdom, then Justice is coming, who sent this sign ahead of her, carrying just victory in her hands. She will come after them, child, and not long from now. There is courage in me since I heard, just now, of that dream, and the sweet breath of it. Your father never forgets, the lord of the Greeks; and the old axe never forgets, bronze-struck, two-edged, that cut him down in the most shameful outrage.
Chorus. She is coming — many feet, many hands, hidden in terrible ambush, the Fury with feet of bronze. Because they went at it, that pair, a marriage that was no marriage, no wedding, a contest of lust polluted with murder, which the gods' law forbade them. And so I am sure that never, never will this portent come near the doers and their helpers without blame. For there is no prophecy for mortals in terrible dreams or in oracles if this vision of the night does not come safely to shore.
Chorus. Pelops, that chariot-race of yours long ago, so full of pain — how it has come down, unending, on this land. Ever since Myrtilus, the charioteer who let you win, was put to sleep in the sea, thrown out root and branch from the golden chariot, a wretched outrage — never once since then has outrage, full of pain, left this house.
(Clytemnestra comes out of the house, with servants.)
Clytemnestra. Loose again, it seems, and roaming about — because Aegisthus is not here, and he at least always kept you from going out of doors and shaming your family. But now that he is away, you take no notice of me. And yet you have told a great many people, often, that I am reckless and rule beyond what justice allows, and that I outrage you and everything that is yours. I do no outrage. I speak ill of you because I hear ill from you, constantly.
Your father — that and nothing else is your excuse, always — died at my hands. At my hands. I know it perfectly well. I do not deny it. Because it was Justice that took him, not I alone — and you should have been on Justice's side, if you had any sense. This father of yours, whom you never stop mourning, was the one man of all the Greeks who could bring himself to sacrifice your sister, your own blood, to the gods — he who had none of the pain in sowing her that I had in giving birth.
Well then. Tell me: for whose sake did he sacrifice her? For the Argives, you will say? They had no right to kill a daughter of mine. Or was it for his brother Menelaus that he killed my child — and was he not going to pay me for that? Did Menelaus not have two children of his own, who ought to have died before mine, seeing that their father and mother were the reason for that voyage in the first place? Did Hades have some special appetite to feast on my children rather than hers? Or had that accursed father lost all love for the children I bore him, and kept it for the children of Menelaus? Is that not the mark of a thoughtless father, and a bad one? I think so, even if you judge it differently. And the dead girl would say so too, if she could find a voice.
So I feel no regret over what was done. And if you think I am wrong, get a just judgement of your own before you blame the people around you.
Electra. You will not say, this time at least, that I started it — that I said something to hurt you first and then got this from you in return. But if you will let me, I would like to say what is right on behalf of the dead man, and of my sister with him.
Clytemnestra. I will let you. And if you always opened with me in that tone, you would not be so painful to listen to.
Electra. Then here it is. You say you killed my father. Is there any admission more shameful than that, whether you were right to do it or not? But I will show you that you had no right. It was persuasion that dragged you into it — the persuasion of a bad man, the one you live with now.
Ask Artemis the huntress what she was punishing when she held all those winds at Aulis. Or I will tell you, since we are not allowed to learn it from her. My father once, as I hear it, was out hunting in the goddess's grove, and his footfall startled a dappled stag with antlers, and he killed it, and over the kill he let some boast fall. Leto's daughter was angry at that, and she held the Greeks there until my father should sacrifice his own daughter to balance the beast. That is how she came to be sacrificed. There was no other release for the army, not homeward and not to Troy. So he was forced to it, and fought against it, and at last, barely, he killed her — and not for the sake of Menelaus.
But suppose — I will make your case for you — suppose he did it because he wanted to help his brother. Did he have to die for that, at your hands? Under what law? Be careful. If you lay that law down for people, you may be laying down pain and regret for yourself. Because if we are going to kill one person for another, you would be the first to die, if you got justice.
So look at whether this excuse of yours is any excuse at all. Tell me, if you will, what you are paying back now by doing the most shameful things of all: sleeping with the man whose hands are bloody, the man you first destroyed my father with, and having children by him — while the children you had before, born in decency from a decent marriage, you have thrown out. How am I supposed to approve of that? Or will you say this too is payment for your daughter? A shameful thing to say, if you do say it. There is nothing fine about marrying an enemy for a daughter's sake.
But there is no arguing with you. You let your whole tongue loose about how I abuse my mother. And I count you less a mother than a master over me, given the miserable life I lead, always in the troubles that come from you and from the man you keep. And the other one, out there, who barely escaped your hand — poor Orestes — grinds out an unhappy life. You have accused me many times of raising him as the avenger against you. And I would have, believe me, if I had had the strength. So on that account, proclaim me to everyone, if you like: bad, loud-mouthed, full of shamelessness. If I was born with a talent for that kind of thing, then I am not far from doing credit to your nature.
Chorus. I see her breathing rage. But whether she has justice on her side — I no longer see her caring about that.
Clytemnestra. And what kind of care do I owe to her, when she has done such outrage to the mother who bore her — and at her age? Do you not think she would go to any length, with no shame at all?
Electra. Understand this: I am ashamed of it, whatever you think. I know that what I do is unfit for my age and unlike me. But your hatred and your actions force me to it, against my will. Shameful behaviour is taught by shameful behaviour.
Clytemnestra. You shameless creature. I and my words and my actions give you far too much to say.
Electra. It is you who say it, not me. You do the deed, and the deeds find their own words.
Clytemnestra. Well, by our lady Artemis, you will not get away with this boldness once Aegisthus comes home.
Electra. You see? You are carried off into a rage. You let me say what I liked, and you have no idea how to listen.
Clytemnestra. Will you not even let me make my sacrifice without your ill-omened shouting, now that I have let you say everything?
Electra. I let you. I urge you. Sacrifice. And do not blame my mouth, because I will not say another word.
Clytemnestra. (to the attendant) You there — lift up the offerings, the fruits of every kind, so that I can raise my prayers to this lord whose statue stands at the door, prayers to be released from the fears I have now.
Apollo, guardian of this house, hear me now, though my words are hidden. I am not among friends when I speak, and it is not fitting to unfold all of it to the light with her standing at my elbow, or she will take her spite and her chattering tongue and sow an idle story through the whole city. So hear me like this. This is how I will say it.
The visions I saw last night, in dreams that could be read two ways — if they came to me for good, Lord Apollo, grant that they are fulfilled; if for harm, throw them back on the people who wish me harm. And if anyone is scheming to throw me out, by trickery, of the wealth I have now, do not allow it. Let me go on living as I do, unharmed, holding the house of the sons of Atreus and this sceptre; living with the people I live with now, in good days, and with those of my children who bear me no ill will and no bitter grudge. Lord Apollo, hear this kindly and give it to us all, just as we ask. And everything else, though I say nothing of it — you are a god, and I take it you know. The children of Zeus, I suppose, see everything.
(The Tutor comes in, as a traveller from Phocis.)
Tutor. Ladies — I am a stranger here — how can I be sure that this is the house of the king, Aegisthus?
Chorus. This is it, stranger. You have guessed right.
Tutor. And am I right again in guessing that this lady is his wife? She has the look of a queen.
Chorus. Right in every way. That is she, in front of you.
Tutor. Greetings, my queen. I come bringing you sweet news, and Aegisthus too, from a friend.
Clytemnestra. I accept the greeting. But first I want to know from you who it was who sent you.
Tutor. Phanoteus of Phocis, on a matter of weight.
Clytemnestra. What matter, stranger? Tell me. You come from a friend, so I know the news you bring will be friendly.
Tutor. Orestes is dead. That is the short of it.
Electra. Oh — no. I am finished. This is the day.
Clytemnestra. What did you say? What did you say, stranger? Do not listen to her.
Tutor. I said it and I say it again. Orestes is dead.
Electra. I am destroyed. I am nothing any more.
Clytemnestra. You — mind your own business. You, stranger, tell me the truth. How did he die?
Tutor. That is what I was sent for, and I will tell you all of it.
He went to the great showplace of Greece, to compete for the prizes at Delphi. When he heard the herald call out in his high voice for the foot race, which is the first event to be judged, he came in shining, and every man there was in awe of him. He ran the course from the start to the finish and came out with the prize of victory, and all the honour that goes with it. To tell you a little where there is a great deal to tell — I never knew a man to do what that man did, or win as he won. But know this one thing: in every contest the judges announced, the sprints, the double course, the pentathlon with its five events, he carried off all the victories and was called a happy man, proclaimed each time as an Argive, Orestes by name, son of Agamemnon, who once gathered the famous army of Greece.
So far, so good. But when a god does harm, not even a strong man can escape it. Another day, at sunrise, came the fast race of the horses, and he entered it with many charioteers. One was an Achaean; one was from Sparta; two were Libyans, masters of yoked cars; and he among them, driving Thessalian mares, was the fifth. The sixth was from Aetolia, with chestnut colts; the seventh was a man from Magnesia; the eighth, with white horses, was of the Aenian people; the ninth was from Athens, the city the gods built; and a Boeotian was another, filling the tenth chariot.
They took their places where the appointed judges had set them by lot and ranged the cars, and at the bronze trumpet they were off. All of them shouted at their horses together and shook the reins in their hands; the whole course filled with the crash of rattling chariots; the dust went up. They were all packed together, none of them sparing the goad, each trying to get past the others' wheel-hubs and their snorting horses; for the breath of the horses was foaming all round their backs and round the rolling wheels, and breaking over them.
Orestes, keeping right under the pillar at the end, was grazing it with his wheel-hub every time, giving rein to the trace-horse on the right and holding in the one on the inside. And up to then every chariot was still upright. But then the Aenian's hard-mouthed colts got away with him by force, and coming out of the turn, finishing the sixth lap and beginning the seventh, they dashed their foreheads against the chariot from Barca. And from there, out of that one accident, one car smashed into another and went over, and the whole plain of Crisa filled up with the wreckage of chariots.
Tutor. The clever driver from Athens saw it and pulled his horses out wide and held back, letting the wave of horses go by that was churning in the middle. Orestes was driving last, holding his colts back, trusting the finish. But when he sees that only one man is left in against him, he sends a sharp cry through the ears of his fast colts and goes after him. They brought their yokes level and drove, first one man, then the other, showing his head in front of the other's car.
And all the other laps the poor man got through safely, upright in an upright chariot. Then, letting out the left rein while the horse was turning, he struck the edge of the pillar without knowing it. He broke the axle-box in the middle and slid over the rail and was tangled in the cut reins; and as he fell to the ground his colts scattered into the middle of the course.
When the crowd saw him thrown from his chariot, they cried out for the young man — what deeds he had done, and what he had drawn instead — dragged along the ground, now with his legs showing against the sky, until the charioteers, with difficulty, got the running horses under control and cut him loose, so bloody that not one of his friends, seeing him, would have known the pitiful body. They burned him on a pyre at once, and chosen men of Phocis are bringing that mighty frame, now a wretched handful of ash, in a small bronze urn, so that he can have his share of a tomb in his father's country.
That is my story. It is painful even as a story; to those who saw it, as we saw it, it was the worst thing my eyes have ever looked on.
Chorus. Oh, oh. So the whole line of our old masters is destroyed, it seems, root and all.
Clytemnestra. Zeus, what is this? Do I call it good luck? Or terrible, but a gain? It is a painful thing, when I save my own life by my own losses.
Tutor. Why so downcast, lady, at what I have told you?
Clytemnestra. There is a terrible power in giving birth. Even when they treat you badly, you cannot hate the ones you bore.
Tutor. Then it seems we came for nothing.
Clytemnestra. Not for nothing. How can you say for nothing, when you came bringing me sure proof of his death? He came out of my own life, and left my breast and my care, and made himself a stranger, an exile. Once he left this country he never saw me again; he charged me with his father's murder and swore he would do terrible things to me. So that neither by night nor by day would sweet sleep cover me; every hour standing over me led me on as a woman about to die. But now — because today I am free of the fear of him, and of her; she was the greater harm, living in my house, drinking my life's blood undiluted, always — now, I think, for all her threats, I will pass my days in peace.
Electra. Oh, no. Now, Orestes, I can cry for what has happened to you, when this is what you have come to and your mother, this woman, outrages you for it. Is it not fine?
Clytemnestra. Not for you. He is fine, as he is.
Electra. Hear her, Nemesis of the newly dead.
Clytemnestra. She heard whom she should, and settled it well.
Electra. Outrage us. Today is your lucky day.
Clytemnestra. Then you and Orestes will not be putting a stop to it.
Electra. We are the ones stopped. We will not be stopping you.
Clytemnestra. Stranger, you would deserve a great reward for your coming, if you have stopped that chattering tongue.
Tutor. Then I will take my leave, if all is well.
Clytemnestra. Certainly not. That would be no welcome worthy of me, or of the friend who sent you. Come inside. Leave her out here to howl her own troubles and the troubles of her friends.
(Clytemnestra and the Tutor go into the house.)
Electra. Did she look to you like a woman in pain and grief, weeping terribly and crying out over her son, poor woman, dead like that? She left laughing. Oh, I am wretched. Orestes, my dearest, your death has destroyed me. You have gone, and torn out of my heart the only hopes I had left — that you would come back one day alive, to avenge our father, and me in my misery. Now where am I to turn? I am alone. Robbed of you, and of my father. Now I must be a slave again among the people I hate most in the world, my father's murderers. Is it not fine for me?
But no. Not for what time is left me. I will not go inside and live under one roof with them. I will lie down here at this gate, with no friend, and let my life wither. And if that weighs on anyone in that house, let them come out and kill me. Killing me is a kindness; living is the pain. I have no wish for life.
Chorus. Where are the thunderbolts of Zeus, where is the blazing Sun, if they look down on this and calmly cover it over?
Electra. Ah. Aiai.
Chorus. Child, why do you weep?
Electra. Oh.
Chorus. No loud cry. It is ill-omened.
Electra. You will kill me.
Chorus. How?
Electra. If you hold out hope for the ones who have plainly gone down to Hades, you tread the harder on me as I waste away.
Chorus. I know of a king, Amphiaraus, whom a woman's chain of gold, a bribe, trapped and hid underground. And now, under the earth —
Electra. Ah. Oh.
Chorus. he rules, with all his wits alive.
Electra. Oh.
Chorus. Oh, yes. Because the woman who destroyed him —
Electra. was cut down.
Chorus. Yes.
Electra. I know it, I know it. Someone rose to care for the man in his grief. For me there is no one now. The one who was left has been snatched away and gone.
Chorus. Wretched, and a wretched lot.
Electra. And I know it, too well, in a life swept along month after month by a flood of terrible and hateful things.
Chorus. We have seen what you cry for.
Electra. Then do not turn me aside any longer, since no —
Chorus. What do you mean?
Electra. — no help is left me from the brother I hoped in, born of the same noble father.
Chorus. Death was born for everyone.
Electra. Death like that? Among racing hooves, the way that poor man met it, tangled in the cutting reins?
Chorus. The mangling is past imagining.
Electra. How could it not be? In a strange land, without my hands to tend him —
Chorus. Oh, no.
Electra. — he lies buried, given no tomb by me and no lament from us.
(Chrysothemis comes in, hurrying.)
Chrysothemis. Dearest sister, joy is driving me. I have dropped all decorum to come at a run. I bring you delight — and rest from the troubles you had before, and groaned under.
Electra. And where would you find help for my sufferings? There is no cure for them anywhere in sight.
Chrysothemis. Orestes is here with us. Know it from my mouth: as plainly as you see me now.
Electra. Have you gone mad, poor girl? Are you laughing at your own troubles and mine?
Chrysothemis. By our father's hearth, I am not saying it to mock you. I am saying he is here, with us two.
Electra. Oh, poor girl. Whose story is this that you have heard and believe so far?
Chrysothemis. Nobody's. I believe it from myself and no one else. I saw the clear signs.
Electra. What proof, poor girl? What did you look at, that warms you with this fever there is no curing?
Chrysothemis. In the gods' name, listen, and then, when you have heard the rest from me, call me sane or a fool.
Electra. Go on, then, if talking gives you pleasure.
Chrysothemis. I will tell you everything I saw. When I came to our father's old tomb, I saw fresh streams of milk running from the top of the mound, and the grave wreathed all round with every flower there is. I was amazed at the sight, and I looked about in case anyone was coming near me. But when I saw that the whole place was quiet, I crept closer to the tomb, and at the edge of the pyre I saw a lock of hair, newly cut.
The moment I saw it — oh, I am wretched — a familiar image struck into my heart, and I felt I was looking at a token of Orestes, of everyone alive the one I love best. I took it up in my hands, and I said nothing ill-omened, but my eyes filled with tears of joy at once. And now, as much as then, I know for certain that this bright gift came from no one but him. Who else has any business there but you and me? I did not do it, that I know. Nor did you — how could you? You cannot even leave this house to worship the gods without paying for it in tears. And our mother's mind does not run to doing such things, and she could not have done them without our knowing. No. These offerings at the tomb are from Orestes.
Take heart, my dear. The same god does not stand by the same people for ever. Ours was hateful to us before; but this day, perhaps, will set the seal on many good things.
Electra. Oh, the folly. How I have been pitying you.
Chrysothemis. What is it? Is what I say not welcome?
Electra. You do not know where on earth you are, or where your mind is wandering.
Chrysothemis. How can I not know what I saw with my own eyes?
Electra. He is dead, poor girl. Your rescue by him is gone. Do not look to him for anything.
Chrysothemis. Oh, no. Who told you that?
Electra. The man who was there beside him when he died.
Chrysothemis. And where is he? I am beginning to feel very strange.
Electra. In the house — a welcome guest, and not at all unpleasant to our mother.
Chrysothemis. Oh, no. Then whose were all those offerings at our father's tomb?
Electra. Most likely, I think, someone left them there as a memorial to the dead Orestes.
Chrysothemis. Oh, this is wretched. And I came hurrying here with news like that, with joy in it, not knowing after all where our ruin stood. And now that I have come, I find the old troubles, and new ones on top of them.
Electra. That is how it stands with you. But if you will listen to me, you will lift the weight of the trouble we have now.
Chrysothemis. Am I going to raise the dead to life some day?
Electra. That is not what I said. I was not born that much of a fool.
Chrysothemis. Then what are you telling me to do, that I am able to do?
Electra. To have the courage to do what I advise.
Chrysothemis. If there is any good in it, I will not refuse.
Electra. Look — nothing succeeds without hard work.
Chrysothemis. I know. I will carry my share of it, as far as I have strength.
Electra. Then hear how I have decided to act. You know as well as I do that we have no friends standing by us: Hades has taken them and robbed us, and we two are left alone. As long as I heard that my brother was alive and thriving, I had hopes that he would come one day to exact payment for our father's murder. But now that he is gone, I look to you. Do not flinch from helping me, your sister, to kill the man who did the murder with his own hand — Aegisthus. I have no need to hide anything from you any more.
Because what are you waiting for, doing nothing? What hope is there still standing that you can look to? You have reason to groan that you have been robbed of your father's wealth; you have reason to grieve that you have come this far in years unmarried, without a bridal song. And do not go on hoping you will ever get those things. Aegisthus is not such a fool as to let a child of yours, or of mine, ever grow up to be a plain danger to him. But if you follow my plan, first you will earn the name of piety from our dead father below, and from our brother with him. And then you will be called free for the rest of your life, as you were born, and you will find a marriage worthy of you; because everyone likes to look at what is good.
And the fame of it. Do you not see how much glory you will bring on yourself and on me by listening to me? What citizen or stranger, seeing us, will not greet us with praise like this: "Look at these two sisters, friends. They saved their father's house. Their enemies were secure, and they took no thought for their own lives and stood up to do the killing. Those two should be loved; those two should be honoured by everybody; at the festivals, and wherever the whole city is gathered, everyone must honour them for their courage." That is what everyone will say of us, alive or dead, so that our glory never fails.
My dear, do as I say. Work alongside our father; share the labour with our brother; put an end to my troubles and to your own. And know this: for people born well, living shamefully is a shame.
Chorus. In matters like this, forethought is an ally to the one who speaks and the one who listens.
Chrysothemis. Yes — and before she opened her mouth, ladies, if she had had a sound mind she would have kept hold of caution, as she has not. Where were your eyes looking, that you arm yourself with boldness like this and call me to serve under you? Can you not see? You were born a woman, not a man, and your arm is weaker than your enemies'. Their fortune prospers day by day; ours is draining away and coming to nothing. Who could plot to bring down a man like that and get clear of ruin unhurt? Take care that, badly as we are doing now, we do not do worse, if anyone hears this talk of yours. It is no release for us and no help to win a fine name and die a disgraceful death. And death is not the worst thing; the worst is to want to die and not be able to get even that.
I beg you, before we are utterly destroyed, both of us, and the family is wiped out — hold back your rage. What you have said I will keep for you unspoken and undone. But you, get some sense at last, and since you have no strength, give way to the people who have the power.
Chorus. Listen to her. There is no better gain a human being can get than foresight and a sensible mind.
Electra. You have said nothing I did not expect. I knew very well you would throw away what I offered. Then the job must be done by my own hand, and by me alone. I will not leave it undone.
Chrysothemis. Oh, if only you had thought like this on the day our father died. You would have carried the whole thing off.
Electra. I was the same by nature. My mind was younger, that is all.
Chrysothemis. Then work at keeping your mind that young for the rest of your life.
Electra. You lecture me like somebody who is not going to help.
Chrysothemis. No. Because the one who puts her hand to a thing like this is likely to come to grief by it.
Electra. I envy you your good sense. Your cowardice I loathe.
Chrysothemis. I will listen just as calmly the day you have something good to say about me.
Electra. You will never have to put up with that from me.
Chrysothemis. There is a long time still to come to decide that in.
Electra. Go away. There is no help in you.
Chrysothemis. There is. It is you who cannot be taught.
Electra. Go and tell your mother all of this.
Chrysothemis. No. I do not hate you as much as that.
Electra. Then at least understand what dishonour you are dragging me down into.
Chrysothemis. Not dishonour. I am thinking ahead for you.
Electra. So I have to follow your idea of what is right?
Chrysothemis. Yes. When you have some sense, you can lead the two of us.
Electra. Terrible, that somebody can talk so well and be so wrong.
Chrysothemis. You have just described exactly the fault you cling to.
Electra. What? You do not think justice is on my side in this?
Chrysothemis. There are times when even justice does harm.
Electra. I do not want to live by those laws.
Chrysothemis. Well, if you go through with it, you will end up agreeing with me.
Electra. I will go through with it. You have not frightened me at all.
Chrysothemis. Is that really true? You will not think it over again?
Electra. No. There is nothing I hate more than bad advice.
Chrysothemis. You seem to take in nothing of what I am saying.
Electra. I made up my mind about this long ago, not today.
Chrysothemis. Then I am going. You cannot bring yourself to approve of what I say, and I cannot approve of the way you behave.
Electra. Go on inside. I will never come after you, however much you may wish I would. It is a great foolishness even to go chasing what is empty.
Chrysothemis. Well, if you think you are being sensible, go on thinking it. When you are already standing in the wreckage, you will agree with what I said.
(Chrysothemis goes into the house.)
Chorus. We look up at the birds, the wisest of all creatures, and see how they take care to feed the ones who gave them life and the good of it. Why do we not pay the same debt? No. By the lightning of Zeus, by Themis who sits in the sky, the punishment is not long in coming. Voice that goes down under the earth to the dead, carry a pitiful cry for me to the sons of Atreus below, a shame no dancing goes with.
Chorus. Tell them that the house is sick now, sick to the root; that between the children a double quarrel has broken out and nothing loving levels it any more. Betrayed, Electra rides the storm alone, miserable, mourning her father without end, like the nightingale that cries for everything. She takes no thought for dying. She is ready to go into the dark if she could only bring down the pair who are the Fury of this house. Who was ever so much her father's child?
Chorus. No one born good is willing to live badly and shame a fair name, and go into the dark without one, my child, my child. So you too chose a life of nothing but weeping, shared with the dead, and armed yourself against dishonour, so as to carry two names in a single breath: the clever one, and the best of daughters.
Chorus. May I see you live as far above your enemies, in strength and in wealth, as you now live under their hand. Because I have found you walking in no good fortune, and yet, of the greatest laws there are, you carry off the prize, by your reverence for Zeus.
(Orestes comes in with Pylades and two attendants. One of them carries a small bronze urn.)
Orestes. Ladies, were we told the way correctly? Is this the right road to where we want to be?
Chorus. What are you looking for? What brings you here?
Orestes. I have been asking for a while where Aegisthus lives.
Chorus. Then you have found it, and whoever told you did nothing wrong.
Orestes. Which of you, then, would let the people inside know that we have arrived — a party they have been waiting for?
Chorus. She will, if it is the nearest of kin who should announce it.
Orestes. Then go in, lady, and tell them that some men from Phocis are asking for Aegisthus.
Electra. Oh, no. No. You are not bringing plain proof of the story we heard?
Orestes. I know nothing of your story. Old Strophius sent me with news about Orestes.
Electra. What news, stranger? The fear is creeping up on me.
Orestes. He is dead. We are carrying what little is left of him, in a small urn, as you see.
Electra. Oh. Then this is it. It is certain now, it seems, and I am looking at it: the weight in your hand.
Orestes. If you are weeping for anything that happened to Orestes, know that this vessel holds his body.
Electra. Stranger, if this urn really holds him, then in the gods' name give it to me, let me take it in my hands, so that I can weep over these ashes — for myself, and for our whole family with me.
Orestes. Bring it and give it to her, whoever she is. She is not asking for it out of any ill will. She is one of his own, or of the same blood.
(The urn is put into Electra's hands.)
Electra. The one thing left to remember him by — the man I loved best in the world — all that is left of Orestes. How far this is from the hopes I had when I sent you away. Now I am lifting you in my hands and you are nothing; and you were shining, child, when I sent you out of this house. I wish I had left this life first, before I stole you away with these two hands and sent you into a strange country and saved you from being murdered — because then you would have been dead that same day, and had your share of our father's tomb beside him. Instead, an exile, far from home, on somebody else's soil, you died miserably, with your sister nowhere near you. These hands that loved you never washed you or laid you out; I never lifted your poor weight, as I should have, out of the fire that burns everything. Strangers tended you, poor boy, and that is how you come back to us: a little heap in a little jar.
Oh, all the care I gave you long ago, and it was for nothing — the work I did for you so often, and it was sweet work. You were never your mother's darling. You were mine. Nobody else in the house nursed you. I did, and you always called me sister. And now in a single day all of it is gone, because you are dead. You have gone like a whirlwind and swept everything away with you. Our father is gone. I am dead, because of you. You yourself are dead and gone. Our enemies are laughing. And our mother, who is no mother, is out of her mind with joy — the woman you used to send me secret messages about, so many times, saying that you would come yourself to punish her. But the bad luck that is yours and mine has snatched all of that away, and sent you back to me like this: instead of the face I loved best, ash and a useless shadow.
Electra. Oh, oh. Poor body. Oh, oh. You were sent on the most terrible road of all, my dearest, and it has destroyed me. It has destroyed me, brother. So take me in with you, into this house of yours — me, nothing, into your nothing — and let me live down there with you from now on. When you were up here I had an equal share in everything with you. Now I want to die and not be shut out of your grave. The dead, as far as I can see, are not in pain.
Chorus. Electra, remember: you are a mortal father's daughter, and Orestes was mortal. So do not grieve too much. Every one of us has this debt to pay.
Orestes. Oh — what am I to say? I am lost. Where do I go for words? I have no strength left to hold my tongue.
Electra. What is hurting you? Why do you say that?
Orestes. Is this the famous Electra? Is this her?
Electra. This is her. And in a very wretched state.
Orestes. Then this is a miserable thing to have happened.
Electra. Stranger, surely it is not me you are groaning over?
Orestes. A body wasted away — dishonoured, godlessly.
Electra. Those ugly words fit nobody but me, stranger.
Orestes. Oh — no husband, and a life as unlucky as this.
Electra. Stranger, why are you looking at me like that, and groaning?
Orestes. Because it seems I knew nothing of my own sorrows.
Electra. What was said that made you see that?
Orestes. The sight of you, marked out by so much pain.
Electra. And you are seeing only a little of what I suffer.
Orestes. How could there be anything uglier to look at than this?
Electra. Because I live in the same house as the murderers.
Orestes. Whose murderers? Where does this evil you are pointing at come from?
Electra. My father's. And on top of that I am their slave, by force.
Orestes. Who is it that forces this on you?
Electra. She is called my mother. She is nothing like a mother.
Orestes. What does she do? Use her hands, or make your life a misery?
Electra. Her hands, and misery, and every kind of evil.
Orestes. And there is nobody to help you, nobody to stop it?
Electra. No. There was one. You have set his ashes in front of me.
Orestes. Poor girl. I have pitied you for a while now, looking at you.
Electra. Then you are the only human being who ever has.
Orestes. Yes, because I am the only one who came here and feels the same pain.
Electra. You are not — you cannot be some kinsman of ours, from somewhere?
Orestes. I would tell you, if these women are on your side.
Electra. They are. You can speak in front of them; they can be trusted.
Orestes. Then put down that urn, and you will learn everything.
Electra. No. In the gods' name, stranger, do not do that to me.
Orestes. Do as I say, and you will not go wrong.
Electra. No, please, by your beard — do not take from me the dearest thing I have.
Orestes. I will not let you keep it.
Electra. Oh, Orestes — this is misery, if I am robbed even of burying you.
Orestes. No ill-omened words. You have no right to grieve.
Electra. No right to grieve for my dead brother?
Orestes. It is not for you to talk about him that way.
Electra. Have I so little claim on the dead?
Orestes. You have every claim. But this is not your business.
Electra. It is, if this is Orestes' body that I am holding.
Orestes. It is not Orestes'. Only a story has dressed it up as his.
(He takes the urn out of her hands.)
Electra. Then where is that poor man's grave?
Orestes. There is none. The living have no grave.
Electra. What did you say, boy?
Orestes. Nothing I am saying is a lie.
Electra. The man is alive?
Orestes. If I am breathing.
Electra. You — are you him?
Orestes. Look at this. Our father's ring. Then tell me whether I speak the truth.
Electra. Oh, light. Oh, dearest light.
Orestes. Dearest. I will bear witness to that.
Electra. Your voice — you have come?
Orestes. Do not ask anyone else about it again.
Electra. I am holding you? In my arms?
Orestes. And may you hold me so for the rest of our lives.
Electra. Dearest women, women of my own city, look — this is Orestes. He was dead by a trick, and now by a trick he is safe and home.
Chorus. We see him, child, and at this turn of your fortune a tear of joy is running out of my eyes.
Electra. Oh, child of the man I loved best, child of his body, born of him, you have come at last, you have found, you have reached, you have seen the ones you longed for.
Orestes. I am here. But keep quiet, and wait.
Electra. Why?
Orestes. Better to be silent. Someone inside may hear.
Electra. No. By Artemis, who is a virgin for ever, I will never stoop to fear that — the useless weight of women shut up in that house all their lives.
Orestes. Take care, though. There is a war god in women too. You know that well enough, I think. You have felt it.
Electra. Oh — oh, oh, oh. You have laid it open again, the evil that no cloud can cover, that can never be undone, that can never be forgotten. It is ours.
Orestes. I know it too. But when the moment tells us to, then is the time to remember what was done.
Electra. All of it, all the time there is, every hour of it, would be right for me to say these things in, and justly. It was hard enough to get my mouth free now.
Orestes. I agree. So keep it free.
Electra. By doing what?
Orestes. When it is not the moment, do not want to talk at length.
Electra. But who could fairly change speech for silence like this, when you have appeared? I have seen you now, past all thought, past all hope.
Orestes. You saw me when the gods urged me to come.
Electra. Then you have told me of a grace higher still than the first, if a god brought you to our house. I count it the work of heaven.
Orestes. I hate to hold back your gladness, and I am afraid of too much joy getting the better of you.
Electra. Oh — after so long a time you thought this road the dearest one to take, and came to me. Do not, having seen me in all this pain —
Orestes. Do not do what?
Electra. Do not rob me of this, do not make me give up the joy of your face.
Orestes. I would be very angry if I saw anyone else try it.
Electra. You agree?
Orestes. How could I not?
Electra. My friends, I heard a voice I could never have hoped to hear, and hearing it I could not hold in what rose in me — not silent, not without a cry, wretch that I am. But now I have you. You have come into the light, with the dearest face, the face that even in my misery I could never forget.
Orestes. Leave out everything that does not need saying. Do not teach me how wicked our mother is, or how Aegisthus drains our father's property out of this house — pouring some of it away and scattering the rest for nothing. The story would only eat up the time we have. Tell me what fits the moment we are in: where we can show ourselves, or stay hidden, and stop our enemies laughing by this journey of ours. And see to it that our mother does not read your face, all lit up, when the two of us have gone into the house. Keep on mourning, for the disaster in the story that was never true. When we have won, then there will be time to be glad, and to laugh out loud, free.
Electra. Brother, whatever pleases you will please me. The joy I have I took from you; none of it is mine. And I would not accept the smallest hurt to you to win a great gain for myself. That would be no way to serve the power that is with us now.
You know how things stand here — how could you not? You will have heard that Aegisthus is away from the house and our mother is inside. And you need never be afraid that she will see my face light up with laughter. My old hatred of her has melted into me, and now that I have seen you I will never stop weeping — for joy. How could I stop? On one road, on one day, I have seen you dead and seen you alive. What you have done to me is past all reckoning. If my father came walking back to me alive I would no longer call it a miracle; I would believe that I was seeing him. So, since you have come to us by such a road, take the lead yourself, as your heart tells you. Left on my own, I would not have failed at one of two things: I would have saved myself well, or died well.
Orestes. Quiet. I hear someone inside, coming towards the door.
Electra. Go in, strangers — all the more because what you are carrying is a thing nobody could turn away from this door, and nobody could be glad to receive.
(The Tutor comes out of the house.)
Tutor. You utter fools, with no sense left in your heads. Have you stopped caring whether you live at all, or were you born without any wits, that you cannot see you are not near the worst danger but right in the middle of it? If I had not been standing at these doors this long while, keeping watch, what you are planning would have been inside the house before you were. As it is, I took care of that myself. Now stop these long speeches and this shouting for joy that never has enough of itself, and get inside. In business like this, delay is the danger; the moment is to have it finished.
Orestes. Then how do things stand for me inside, when I go in?
Tutor. Well. It helps that nobody will know you.
Orestes. You told them I was dead, I take it.
Tutor. Understand that in this house you are one of the men in Hades.
Orestes. And are they glad about it? What are they saying?
Tutor. I will tell you when it is all over. As things stand now, everything on their side is going well for us — even what is not going well.
Electra. Who is this man, brother? In the gods' name, tell me.
Orestes. You do not understand?
Electra. No. I cannot even guess.
Orestes. You do not know the man you once put me into the hands of?
Electra. What man? What are you saying?
Orestes. The one whose hands carried me out in secret to Phocis, because you thought ahead.
Electra. This is him? The one man out of so many I found faithful, when our father was murdered?
Orestes. This is him. Do not put me through any more questions.
Electra. Oh, dearest light. Only saviour of Agamemnon's house — how did you come here? Are you really the man who saved him, and me, out of so much suffering? Dearest hands — and feet that ran the sweetest errand — how could you be beside me so long and not know you, and give no sign, but kill me with stories while you had the sweetest truth in your keeping? Welcome, father — because it is a father I seem to be looking at. Welcome. And know this: in one day I have hated you and loved you more than any man alive.
Tutor. That is enough, I think. As for the story of everything in between, there are many nights circling round and as many days, and they will make it all clear to you, Electra. But I say this to you two, standing there: now is the moment to act. Now Clytemnestra is alone. Now there is not a man inside. If you hold back, think what you will be fighting then — the people in there, and others cleverer than they are, and more of them.
Orestes. Pylades, this work no longer needs any long words from us. It needs us inside, as fast as we can go — after we have bowed to the seats of my father's gods, all of them that live at these gates.
(Orestes and Pylades go into the house, and the Tutor after them. Electra stays outside.)
Electra. Lord Apollo, hear them kindly, and hear me with them — I who have stood before you so often, with my hands full of what I could find to give you. Now, Apollo of the wolves, with what I have, I ask you, I fall before you, I beg you: be our willing helper in these plans, and show mankind what the gods give back to people for their irreverence.
(She goes into the house.)
Chorus. Look where the war god is stalking forward, breathing the blood that no one can fight. They have just gone under the roof of the house, the hounds no one escapes, hunting down the crimes and the wickedness. So the dream in my mind will not hang there in the air much longer.
Chorus. The champion of the dead is led inside on stealthy feet, into the old rich seat of his father, with new-whetted death in his hands. And Hermes, the son of Maia, who hid the trick in darkness, leads him straight to the finishing line, and waits no longer.
(Electra comes back out of the house.)
Electra. Dearest women, the men are about to finish the work now. Wait, and keep silent.
Chorus. How? What are they doing now?
Electra. She is dressing the urn for burial. The two of them are standing close beside her.
Chorus. And why did you rush out?
Electra. To keep watch. So Aegisthus does not get in past us without our seeing.
Clytemnestra. Aiai. Oh, house — empty of friends, and full of the ones who kill.
Electra. Somebody is shouting inside. Can you not hear it, friends?
Chorus. I heard — what should never be heard. It makes me shudder.
Clytemnestra. Oh, no. Aegisthus, where are you? Where?
Electra. Listen. Someone is crying out again.
Clytemnestra. My son, my son — pity the one who bore you.
Electra. But you had none for him, or for the father who fathered him.
Chorus. City, wretched family, now the fate that held you day by day is dying, dying.
Clytemnestra. Oh — I am struck.
Electra. Strike her again, if you have the strength.
Clytemnestra. Oh — again.
Electra. If only Aegisthus were under it too.
Chorus. The curses are being carried out. The ones who lie under the ground are alive. The blood is flowing back the other way: the men killed long ago are draining it out of their killers.
(Orestes and Pylades come out of the house.)
Chorus. And here they are. The red hand drips with the war god's sacrifice, and I cannot find it in me to blame.
Electra. Orestes, how is it with you?
Orestes. Inside the house it is well — if Apollo's oracle spoke well.
Electra. Is the wretched woman dead?
Orestes. Never be afraid again that your mother's pride will trample you.
Chorus. Stop. I can see Aegisthus, out in the open.
Electra. Boys — back inside, now.
Orestes. Where do you see the man?
Electra. There, coming up from the edge of town. He is ours. He is full of joy.
Chorus. Go, as fast as you can, to the doorway, so that having done the first thing well you do this one well again.
Orestes. Do not worry. We will finish it.
Electra. Then hurry, wherever you mean to go.
Orestes. I am gone.
Electra. What happens here I will see to.
(Orestes and Pylades go back into the house.)
Chorus. It would be as well to say a few words into this man's ear, softly, so that he rushes blind into the trial where justice is waiting.
(Aegisthus comes in.)
Aegisthus. Which of you knows where those strangers from Phocis are? I am told they have brought us news that Orestes lost his life in a wreck of chariots. You — yes, you, I am asking you — the one who used to be so bold. I should think it concerns you most, and you know most about it, and can tell me best.
Electra. I know. How could I not? Otherwise I would be a stranger to what happened to the nearest of my own.
Aegisthus. Then where might the strangers be? Tell me.
Electra. Inside. They have found their way to the heart of the lady of the house.
Aegisthus. And did they report him dead — really dead?
Electra. Not just reported it. They have shown him.
Aegisthus. Then I can see him for myself, in plain view?
Electra. You can. It is not a sight anybody would envy.
Aegisthus. You have given me a great deal of joy — which is not like you.
Electra. Enjoy it, if there is anything in this for you to enjoy.
Aegisthus. Silence, I say. And open the gates wide, for every man of Mycenae and Argos to see — so that if any of them was buoyed up before on empty hopes of this man, he can look at the corpse now, and take my bit in his mouth, instead of waiting until I punish him and beat sense into him by force.
Electra. It is being done, on my side. Time has taught me sense: to go along with the stronger.
(The doors are opened. A body lies under a covering. Orestes and Pylades stand beside it.)
Aegisthus. Zeus — what I see is a thing that could not have fallen without the gods' envy. If there is a nemesis in saying so, I unsay it.
(He turns to Orestes and speaks to him.)
Take all the covering off the face, so that his kinsman, at least, can give him the mourning he is owed from me as well.
Orestes. Lift it yourself. It is not my place but yours to look at this, and to greet it with love.
Aegisthus. Good advice. I will take it.
(He turns to Electra and speaks to her.)
You — call Clytemnestra for me, if she is anywhere in the house.
Orestes. She is close by you. Do not look anywhere else.
(He lifts the covering.)
Aegisthus. Oh — what am I looking at?
Orestes. Who are you afraid of? Who is it you do not know?
Aegisthus. Whose nets have I walked into, wretch that I am? Who are these men?
Orestes. Have you not noticed yet that for some time now you have been talking to the living as if they were dead?
Aegisthus. Oh — I understand you. There is no way that this can be anyone but Orestes speaking to me.
Orestes. And such a fine prophet, and wrong for so long.
Aegisthus. Then I am finished, wretch that I am. But let me say a little. Only a little.
Electra. In the gods' name, brother, do not let him say another word, do not let him spin out speeches. When a man is tangled in trouble and is going to die, what does he gain by a little more time? Kill him as fast as you can, and when you have killed him, throw him out to the buriers he deserves — the birds and the dogs — far out of our sight. That is the only thing that could ever set me free from all these years of evil.
Orestes. Get inside, quickly. This is not a contest of words now. It is your life.
Aegisthus. Why take me into the house? If what you are doing is right, why does it need the dark? Why is your hand not ready to strike now?
Orestes. Do not give orders. Go to the place where you killed my father, so that you die on the same spot.
Aegisthus. Must this house see everything, then — all the evils of the sons of Pelops, now and still to come?
Orestes. Yours, at any rate. In that I am a prophet of the first rank.
Aegisthus. The skill you are boasting of was not your father's.
Orestes. You answer back and back, and the walk gets no shorter. Move.
Aegisthus. You lead the way.
Orestes. You go first.
Aegisthus. In case I escape you?
Orestes. No. In case you die the way you would like. I have to make sure this is bitter for you. This justice ought to come at once to everyone who wants to go beyond the laws: death. Then there would not be so much wickedness.
(He drives Aegisthus into the house. Electra follows.)
Chorus. Seed of Atreus, after so much suffering, you have come out at last, into freedom, made whole by what was done today.
(A rocky shore on Lemnos. Odysseus and Neoptolemus have just landed, with one sailor. Odysseus keeps back from the rocks.)
Odysseus. This is the shore of Lemnos. The sea goes all the way round it, and no one walks here and no one lives here. It was here, Neoptolemus — son of Achilles, raised by the strongest father any Greek ever had — that I once put ashore the man from Malis, the son of Poeas, and left him. I was ordered to do it by the men in command. His foot was dripping with a disease that was eating it away, and we could not so much as touch a drink-offering or a sacrifice in peace: he kept the whole camp in an uproar with his wild, unlucky cries, howling and groaning. But why go over that? This is no moment for long speeches. If he finds out I am here, I throw away the whole trick I mean to catch him with, and I mean to catch him fast.
Now the work is yours: help me with what is left. Look for a rock somewhere here with two mouths — a cave shaped so that in cold weather there are two places to sit in the sun, and in summer a breeze blows through the tunnel from end to end and brings sleep with it. A little below it, on the left, you may see water running from a spring, if it is still there. Go up quietly and signal to me whether he is still in the same place or somewhere else, so that you can hear the rest of the plan, and I can lay it out, and the two of us can carry it together.
Neoptolemus. King Odysseus, the job you describe is not far off. I think I can see a cave like the one you mean.
Odysseus. Above you or below? I cannot make it out.
Neoptolemus. Here, up above. And there is no sound of footsteps.
Odysseus. Make sure he is not lying in there asleep.
Neoptolemus. I see an empty dwelling. There is nobody inside.
Odysseus. And nothing in there to make it a home?
Neoptolemus. A bed of leaves, trodden down, as if someone sleeps here.
Odysseus. The rest bare? Nothing else under the roof?
Neoptolemus. A cup made out of a single piece of wood — some bad craftsman's work — and things for lighting a fire beside it.
Odysseus. That is his treasure you are describing.
Neoptolemus. Ugh. And here are more of them: rags drying in the sun, full of some heavy sickness.
Odysseus. The man lives in this place, that is clear, and he is not far off. How could a sick man walk far, with that old ruin in his leg? Either he has gone out to find food, or he knows of some leaf somewhere that dulls the pain. Send the man you have with you to keep watch, so that he does not come on me unawares. He would rather have me than all the Greeks together.
Neoptolemus. He is going, and the path will be watched. Now, if you need anything more, tell me the rest.
(The sailor goes.)
Odysseus. Son of Achilles, you must be true to your birth for the job you came on — and not just with your body. If you hear something new, something you have not been told before, you must serve it. You are here to serve.
Neoptolemus. What are you ordering me to do, then?
Odysseus. The mind of Philoctetes. You have to steal it out of him with a story, by cunning, as you talk to him. When he asks who you are and where you come from, say: the son of Achilles. There is nothing to hide in that. But say you are sailing home. You have left the Greek fleet and the army; you hate them with a great hatred. They sent for you, begging you to come from home, because you were their only hope of taking Troy — and when you came and claimed the arms of Achilles, which were yours by right, they judged you not worth them and handed them to Odysseus. Say what you like about me: the worst of the worst. You will not hurt me with any of it. But if you do not do this, you will bring grief on every Greek there is. If this man's bow is not taken, you cannot sack the land of Dardanus.
And let me explain why you can go up to him safely and be trusted, and I cannot. You sailed to Troy under oath to nobody, under no compulsion, and not with the first expedition. I can deny none of those things. So if he sees me while he is still master of his bow, I am dead, and I will take you down with me for being at my side. No — this is the very thing we have to be clever about: how you are to become the thief of those arms that cannot be beaten.
I know, boy. You were not born to say things like this or to scheme harm. But it is a sweet thing to take the prize of victory. Bring yourself to it. We will show ourselves honest men another time. For now, give yourself to me for one small, shameless part of one day, and then, for the rest of time, be called the most righteous man alive.
Neoptolemus. Son of Laertes, the things I hate hearing said, I hate doing. It is not my nature to get anything by a dirty trick — not mine, and not, they tell me, my father's, who begot me. But I am ready to take the man by force, not by cunning. He has one foot to stand on; he is not going to overpower this many of us by force. Still, I was sent here to work with you, and I do not like the thought of being called a traitor. But I would rather, my lord, do the right thing and fail than win by doing wrong.
Odysseus. Son of a good father — I was young once too, and I had a lazy tongue and a busy hand. Now I have come out and been tested, and I see that with men it is the tongue, not the deed, that leads everything.
Neoptolemus. What are you ordering me to do, then, other than lie?
Odysseus. I am telling you to take Philoctetes by cunning.
Neoptolemus. Why cunning? Why not persuade him and bring him?
Odysseus. He will never be persuaded. And you cannot take him by force.
Neoptolemus. Is he really so terrifyingly strong that he dares anything?
Odysseus. Arrows you cannot escape, and death goes ahead of them.
Neoptolemus. So a man cannot even go near him?
Odysseus. No. Not unless you take him by cunning, as I say.
Neoptolemus. You do not think it is shameful, then, to tell lies?
Odysseus. Not if the lie brings us through safe.
Neoptolemus. How does a man look him in the face and dare to say it?
Odysseus. When what you do is for gain, there is no place for hanging back.
Neoptolemus. And what gain is it to me that he should come to Troy?
Odysseus. That bow, and nothing else, takes Troy.
Neoptolemus. Then I am not the one who will sack it, as you told me?
Odysseus. Not you without the bow, and not the bow without you.
Neoptolemus. Then it has to be hunted down, if that is how things stand.
Odysseus. Do this, and you carry off two prizes.
Neoptolemus. What are they? Tell me, and I will not refuse to do it.
Odysseus. You will be called clever and a good man, both at once.
Neoptolemus. All right. I will do it, and throw off all shame.
Odysseus. You remember what I told you to say?
Neoptolemus. Be sure of it. I agreed, once and for all.
Odysseus. You stay here, then, and wait for him. I am going, so that I am not seen here with you, and I will send the lookout back to the ship. And if the two of you seem to me to be wasting time, I will send that same man back here again, disguised as the captain of a merchant ship, so that nobody knows him. He will talk in a roundabout way; take from what he says whatever is useful at the moment, my boy. I am going to the ship, and I leave all this to you. May Hermes the Deceiver, who sends us on this errand, be our guide — and Victory, Athena of the City, who keeps me safe, always.
(He goes. The Chorus comes in: sailors from Scyros, Neoptolemus's own men.)
Chorus. What must I, what must I do, master — a stranger in a strange land — what must I hide, what say to a man who will suspect us? Tell me. One man's skill outreaches another's skill, and so does his judgment, when he holds the sceptre of Zeus that comes from the god. And to you, my boy, all that power has come down from the beginning. So tell me what I must do to serve you.
Neoptolemus. For now — since you may want to see the place at the island's edge where he lies — look, and do not be afraid. But when the terrible traveller comes back to this house of his, keep close to my hand, watch it, and try to do what the moment needs.
Chorus. That care has been my care a long time, my lord: to keep my eye, before everything, on your good. Now tell me. What sort of house does he live in, sitting there, and what ground does he hold? It is not out of season for me to know, or he may fall on me from somewhere unseen. What is the place? Where does he sit? Where does he walk — inside, or out of doors?
Neoptolemus. You see his house, with its two doors — a bed in the rock.
Chorus. And the poor wretch himself — where has he gone?
Neoptolemus. It is plain to me that he is dragging a track along somewhere near here, after food. That, they say, is the way he lives: shooting animals with feathered arrows, a wretch, and wretchedly, and nobody comes near him with a cure for his troubles.
Chorus. I pity him, for my part. No one to care for him, no companion's face to look at, miserable, always alone, he is sick with a savage sickness and at a loss at every need as it comes. How, how does the unlucky man hold out? Oh, the contrivances of the gods. Oh, the unhappy race of men, whose life is never measured right.
Chorus. This man — second, it may be, to no one of the oldest houses — lies with no share in anything life gives, alone, apart from other men, among dappled beasts and shaggy ones, pitiful in his pain and in his hunger both, with troubles nothing can cure. And Echo of the mountains, her mouth never shut, heard from far off, answers back his bitter cries.
Neoptolemus. None of this is a wonder to me. It was gods' work, if I understand anything — the suffering that came at him from cruel-hearted Chryse, and what he suffers now, with no one to tend him. It cannot be but some god is seeing to it that he should not aim at Troy the god's arrows nobody can fight before the time is out when, they say, Troy has to fall to them.
Chorus. Quiet, boy.
Neoptolemus. What is it?
Chorus. A sound came up — the kind that lives with a man being worn down — from over there, or there. It strikes me, strikes me true, the voice of someone crawling along his track because he must. I cannot miss it, far off as it is, that heavy voice of a man worn out. He cries out, and it is clear.
Chorus. But listen, my boy —
Neoptolemus. Say it.
Chorus. — to a new thought. The man is not away from home. He is here, and not with the music of a pipe, like a shepherd with his flocks in the fields — no: stumbling, it may be, because he must, he cries a cry that carries far, or he is looking out at the harbour no ship comes into. He is calling out something terrible.
(Philoctetes comes in, from the cave side, dragging his foot.)
Philoctetes. You — strangers. Who are you? What country have you put in from, to this land with no harbour and no one living in it? What homeland, what people, should I guess you belong to? The cut of your clothes is Greek, and nothing is dearer to my eyes. But I want to hear your voices. Do not shrink back from me in fear, do not be frightened because I have gone wild to look at. Pity a man who is miserable and alone, cast away like this, with no one of his own, ill-used. Speak to me — if you have come here as friends. Answer me. It is not right that I should fail to get that much from you, or you from me.
Neoptolemus. Then know this first, stranger: we are Greeks. That is what you want to learn.
Philoctetes. Oh, the dearest sound there is. To be greeted by such a man — after so long! What need brought you in to shore, my boy, what carried you here? What errand? Which wind, the kindest of them all? Tell me all of it, so that I know who you are.
Neoptolemus. My people are from Scyros, the island the sea runs round. I am sailing home. I am called the son of Achilles — Neoptolemus. Now you know all of it.
Philoctetes. Son of the father I loved best, son of a country I loved — the old man Lycomedes' fosterling. On what voyage did you touch this land? Where have you sailed from?
Neoptolemus. From Troy, as it happens. That is where I am sailing from now.
Philoctetes. What? You were never on board with us at the start, when the fleet went out to Troy.
Neoptolemus. Were you part of that labour too?
Philoctetes. My boy — do you not know who you are looking at?
Neoptolemus. How could I know a man I have never once seen?
Philoctetes. Not even my name? You never heard a word of what happened to me, the troubles I have been dying of?
Neoptolemus. Take it that I know nothing of what you are asking.
Philoctetes. Oh, I am wretched many times over; the gods have turned bitter against me. Not a rumour of the state I am in has gone home, or reached any corner of Greece. The men who threw me out — an unholy act — keep quiet and laugh, and my sickness flourishes and keeps on growing.
My boy, son of Achilles your father: I am the man — you may have heard of him — who is master of the bow of Heracles. Philoctetes, the son of Poeas. The two commanders and the king of the Cephallenians, Odysseus, threw me out here in disgrace, alone as you see me, wasting away with a savage disease, bitten with the savage bite of the snake that kills men. With that for company, boy, they set me down here and went away and left me alone, when they had put in here with the fleet from Chryse out in the sea. They were glad, then, when they saw me asleep on the shore under the roof of the rock, after all the tossing at sea, and they left me and went — setting out a few rags first, as you would for a beggar who has come down in the world, and a little something to eat as well. A small charity. I hope they get the same.
Boy, can you picture what it was to get up out of sleep that day, when they were gone? What tears I cried, what evils I howled over — seeing the ships I had sailed with all gone, and not a man in the place, not one who could help me, not one who would take a hand with me in my sickness. I looked everywhere and found nothing there but pain — and plenty of that, my boy.
(He stops for a moment, then goes on.)
Philoctetes. So time went by for me, season after season, and in this narrow house I had to be my own servant, alone. For the belly, this bow found what was needed; it brought down the doves on the wing. And whatever the arrow struck, off the bowstring, I would crawl to it myself, in misery, dragging my wretched foot behind me. If I had to get a drink, or break a bit of wood when the frost was spread on the ground, as it is in winter, I would creep out in pain and manage it somehow. And then there would be no fire; but by grinding stone on stone I would at last bring out the hidden spark, and that is what keeps me alive, always. A roof to live under, and fire — that supplies everything except an end to being sick.
Now, my boy, let me tell you about the island. No sailor comes near it by choice. There is no anchorage, nowhere he can sail to and sell a cargo at a profit or be put up by a host. Men with any sense do not make their voyages here. But suppose someone is driven in against his will — in the long course of a man's life such things happen often enough. When they come, my boy, they have pitying words for me, and perhaps in their pity they have given me a share of food, or some clothing. But the one thing nobody will do, when I bring it up, is take me safely home. So I am dying, wretched, in this the tenth year now, of hunger and of hardship, feeding this sickness that never stops eating. That is what the sons of Atreus and the brute strength of Odysseus have done to me, boy. May the gods on Olympus give them the same, some day, in return for what I have suffered.
Chorus. I think I pity you too, son of Poeas, as much as the strangers who came before us.
Neoptolemus. And I can be a witness to what you say myself. I know it is true. I have met the wickedness of the sons of Atreus for myself, and the brute strength of Odysseus.
Philoctetes. What — do you have a complaint against those damned sons of Atreus as well? Some wrong they did you, to be angry about?
Neoptolemus. If only my hand could fill up my anger one day, so that Mycenae would learn, and Sparta, that Scyros too is a mother of fighting men.
Philoctetes. Well said, boy. What is it? Why have you come here with this great anger, laying a charge against them?
Neoptolemus. Son of Poeas, I will tell you — though it is hard to tell — how they insulted me when I came. When fate decreed that Achilles should die —
Philoctetes. Oh — say no more. Tell me this first: the son of Peleus is dead?
Neoptolemus. Dead. Not by any man's hand, but a god's. Shot, they say — brought down by Apollo.
Philoctetes. Well. The one who killed and the one who died were both of good birth. I do not know, boy, whether to ask about your wrong first or mourn for him.
Neoptolemus. I think your own pains are enough for you, poor man, without grieving over your neighbour's.
Philoctetes. You are right. So tell me your business again from the start — how they outraged you.
Neoptolemus. They came for me in a ship dressed out in colours, the great Odysseus and the man who raised my father, and they said — whether it was true or an empty story I do not know — that since my father was dead, it was not lawful for anyone but me to take the towers of Troy. That was what they told me, stranger, and it did not keep me long from sailing, and fast. Mostly it was longing for the dead man: to see him before he was buried, because I had never seen him. And then there was the fine story on top of it, that if I went I would take the towers of Troy.
It was the second day of my voyage when a fair wind and the oars brought me in to Sigeum — bitter Sigeum. As soon as I landed the whole army came round me in a ring to welcome me, swearing they were looking at Achilles alive again, the man who was gone. But he lay there dead. And I, unlucky, when I had wept for him, went not long afterwards to the sons of Atreus — my friends, as I had every reason to think — and asked for my father's arms, and everything else that had been his. And they said — oh, the most shameless thing anyone ever said: "Seed of Achilles, everything else your father had, you may take. But another man is master of those arms now: the son of Laertes." The tears came at once and I jumped up in a heavy rage and said, in pain, "You wretch, did you dare give my arms to somebody else instead of me, without asking me?" And Odysseus — he happened to be standing near — said, "Yes, boy. They gave them, and rightly. I was there and I saved them, and saved him too." And I was furious, and at once I started lashing at him with every insult there is, leaving nothing out, if he was going to rob me of my arms. He had come to that point, and he is not a man who angers easily, but stung by what he heard he answered like this: "You were not where we were. You were away, when you were needed. And since you have such a bold mouth, you will never sail back to Scyros with those arms." That is what I heard, that is how I was abused, and I am sailing home, robbed of what is mine by Odysseus himself, the worst man of a bad line.
And I do not blame him as much as the men in charge. A city belongs wholly to its leaders, and so does an army; and when men break the rules, it is their teachers' words that made them bad. There. The whole story is told. Whoever hates the sons of Atreus — may he be as dear to the gods as he is to me.
Chorus. Earth of the mountains, feeder of all things, mother of Zeus himself, you who hold the great Pactolus and its gold — there too, mother, lady, I called on you when all the outrage of the sons of Atreus came down on this man, when they handed over his father's arms, the thing most to be honoured, to the son of Laertes. Oh blessed one, who rides on lions that kill bulls.
Philoctetes. You have come to me, strangers, carrying a clear token of grief, it seems — a grief that matches mine. You sing the same tune I do, and I recognise the work: this is the sons of Atreus and Odysseus. I know that man would set his tongue to any dirty story and any villainy that would let him get to something wicked in the end. None of that surprises me. What does is that the greater Ajax, if he was there, could stand and watch it.
Neoptolemus. He was no longer alive, friend. I would never have been robbed like that while he lived.
Philoctetes. What are you saying? He is dead and gone too?
Neoptolemus. Think of him as one who no longer sees the light.
Philoctetes. Oh, no. But the son of Tydeus, Diomedes, and the son of Sisyphus that Laertes bought — Odysseus — they will never die. They are the ones who should not be alive.
Neoptolemus. No, they will not. Be sure of that. They are flourishing now, and greatly, in the Greek army.
Philoctetes. And what of my good old friend Nestor of Pylos — is he not alive? He used to hold back their wickedness, with his wise advice.
Neoptolemus. He is doing badly now. Antilochus, the son he had at his side, is dead and gone from him.
Philoctetes. Oh — two more men you have named that I would least have wanted to hear were dead. Oh, no. What is a man to look for, when these are dead and Odysseus is alive — here, again — when he should have been the one reported dead in their place?
Neoptolemus. He is a clever wrestler, that man. But even clever schemes, Philoctetes, get tripped up often enough.
Philoctetes. Tell me, in the gods' name — where was Patroclus when you needed him? Your father loved him more than anyone.
Neoptolemus. He was dead too. And in one short lesson I will teach you this: war never takes a bad man if it can help it. It always takes the good ones.
Philoctetes. I will be your witness on that. And on that exact point I will ask you about a man of no worth — but terrible with his tongue, and clever. How is he doing now?
Neoptolemus. Who could you mean, but Odysseus?
Philoctetes. I did not mean him. There was a man called Thersites, who would never choose to speak once when he could speak again, even where nobody let him speak at all. Do you know if he is alive?
Neoptolemus. I never saw him. But I heard he is still alive.
Philoctetes. He would be. Nothing bad has ever died yet. The gods wrap those up carefully; somehow they take pleasure in turning the villains and the twisted ones back from Hades, and the just and the good they are for ever sending down. How am I to reckon this? How praise it, when I praise the gods' ways and find the gods are bad?
Neoptolemus. For my part, son of a father from Oeta, from now on I will keep a long way off from Troy and from the sons of Atreus, and look at them from there. Where the worse man is stronger than the good, where what is decent goes to ruin and the coward wins — men like that I will never love. Rocky Scyros will be enough for me from now on; I will enjoy my home. Now I go to the ship. And you, son of Poeas — goodbye, all the good there is, goodbye. May the gods take the sickness away from you, as you wish. We must go, so that whenever the god lets us sail, we can be on our way.
Philoctetes. You are leaving already, boy?
Neoptolemus. The right moment calls us to watch for the wind near the ship, not far from it.
Philoctetes. By your father, then, and by your mother, boy, and by everything at home you love, I beg you as a suppliant: do not leave me alone like this, deserted in these troubles — you see what they are like; you have heard how many there are. Make me a side-job. There is a lot of disgust, I know, in a cargo like me. Put up with it all the same. To a man of good birth what is shameful is hateful and what is decent brings a good name. Leave this undone and you carry a blot on your name that is not pretty; do it, boy, and you win the greatest prize of a good name there is, if I get home alive to the land of Oeta.
Come. It is not one whole day's trouble. Bring yourself to it. Take me and throw me wherever you like — in the bilge, in the bow, in the stern, wherever I will trouble the men on board least. Nod yes, by Zeus himself, who watches over suppliants, boy; be persuaded. I fall at your knees, for all that I am a helpless wretch, and lame. Do not leave me deserted like this, far from any path men walk. Bring me safe to your own home, or to Euboea, where Chalcodon rules. From there it is no long voyage for me to Oeta, and the ridge of Trachis, and the fine stream of Spercheius, so that you can show me to my father, whom I love — though for a long time now I have been afraid he may be gone. I sent him many messages by the men who came here, prayers and begging, that he would send a ship himself and bring me safely home. But either he is dead, or — as I think likely — the messengers made little of my business and hurried on their voyage home.
Now, though, in you I have come to a man who can be my escort and my messenger both. You save me. You pity me. See how everything for men is full of fear and danger: to do well, and then to have the opposite happen. When a man is out of trouble he should watch for the terrible things, and when he is living well, that is the time to look hardest at his life, in case it is destroyed without his noticing.
Chorus. Pity him, my lord. He has told of many struggles, of pains hard to bear. May no one I love ever meet the like. And if you hate the sons of Atreus, my lord, if you hate them bitterly, then I would turn their wrong into this man's gain and carry him where he longs to go, home, in your fast, well-fitted ship, and get clear of the anger of the gods.
Neoptolemus. Take care. You are easy about it now, standing here looking on. When you have had your fill of the sickness, living alongside it, you may find you are no longer the man who said these things.
Chorus. Never. You will never have a fair reason to throw that in my face.
Neoptolemus. Well then, it would be a disgrace for me to be found less ready than you to work for a stranger when the moment calls for it. If you all agree, let us sail. Let him set out, and quickly. The ship will carry him, and will not say no. Only let the gods bring us safe out of this land, and on from here to wherever we choose to sail.
Philoctetes. Oh, dearest of days. Oh, sweetest of men — and you, sailors, my friends. How can I show you in deeds what a friend you have made of me? Let us go, my boy. But first the two of us will go in and say goodbye to my home that is no home, so you can learn what I lived on and how strong a heart I was born with. I think nobody else could have stood so much as the sight of it, let alone lived with it. Necessity was my teacher, and it taught me to put up with what is bad.
Chorus. Wait, both of you. Let us hear this. Two men are coming: one of them a sailor off your ship, the other a foreigner. Hear what they have to say, and then go in.
(A merchant comes in, with one of Neoptolemus's sailors.)
Merchant. Son of Achilles, this man here, my fellow traveller, was one of three keeping guard on your ship, and I asked him to tell me where you were to be found, since I had run into you — not by design, but by some chance that brought me to anchor on this same shore. I am a shipmaster, sailing home from Troy with no great company, to Peparethus, where the grapes grow thick; and when I heard that the sailors were all men who had sailed out with you, I decided not to go on my way in silence without first telling you what I know, and getting the same in return. You know nothing, I suspect, about your own affairs — what new plans the Greeks have about you. And not plans only: things being done, no longer put off.
Neoptolemus. I will remember the kindness of your thinking ahead, stranger, unless I was born bad. Tell me what you spoke of, so I can know what new plan of the Greeks you are carrying to me.
Merchant. They have set out after you with ships — old Phoenix, and the sons of Theseus.
Neoptolemus. To bring me back by force, or by talking?
Merchant. I do not know. I heard it, and I have come to tell you.
Neoptolemus. Phoenix and his shipmates are that keen to do this for the sons of Atreus?
Merchant. Take it as being done. Not about to be done. Done.
Neoptolemus. Then why was Odysseus not ready to sail and bring the message himself? Was some fear holding him back?
Merchant. He and the son of Tydeus were fitting out to go after another man, when I put to sea.
Neoptolemus. Who was this other man, that Odysseus himself was sailing after?
Merchant. There was a man — but first tell me who that is over there. And whatever you say, keep your voice down.
Neoptolemus. This, stranger, is the famous Philoctetes.
Merchant. Then ask me nothing more. Gather yourself up and get out of this land, as fast as you can, and sail.
Philoctetes. What is he saying, boy? What is this sailor selling of me to you, in whispers, in the dark?
Neoptolemus. I do not know yet what he means. Whatever he has to say, he must say it in the light — to you and me and these men.
Merchant. Seed of Achilles, do not get me in trouble with the army for saying what I should not. I do a good deal for them, and I get a good deal back, as much as a poor man can.
Neoptolemus. I am the enemy of the sons of Atreus, and this man is my greatest friend, because he hates them. You came to me as a friend. Then you must hide from us nothing of what you have heard.
Merchant. Watch what you are doing, boy.
Neoptolemus. I have been watching it a long time.
Merchant. I will hold you responsible.
Neoptolemus. Do. But talk.
Merchant. I am talking. It is this man that those two are sailing after — the two you heard me name, the son of Tydeus and the brute strength of Odysseus. They have sworn to bring him, either by talking him round or by main force. And all the Greeks heard it plainly, from Odysseus's own mouth; he had more confidence than the other that he could do it.
Neoptolemus. And what for? Why should the sons of Atreus, after so long a time, turn their minds so hard to a man they threw out years ago? What longing came over them? Or was it the force of the gods, and their anger — the gods who pay back evil deeds?
Merchant. I will teach you the whole of it, since it seems you have not heard. There was a seer of good family, a son of Priam, Helenus by name. That man went out alone one night — the man everybody calls foul and disgraceful names, Odysseus the trickster — and caught him, and led him in chains into the middle of the Greeks and showed him off: a fine catch. And Helenus prophesied everything else they asked him, and this about Troy: that they would never take its towers unless they talked this man round and brought him from the island where he lives now. And as soon as the son of Laertes heard the seer say it, he promised on the spot to bring the man and show him to the Greeks. He thought he would most likely get him willing; and if he would not come, then unwilling; and if he failed, anybody who liked could cut his head off. You have heard it all, boy. I advise speed — for you, and for anyone you care about.
Philoctetes. Oh, misery. He — that man, that walking harm — has sworn to talk me round and bring me to the Greeks? Then I will be talked round into coming up out of Hades, dead, into the light — the way his father did, Sisyphus, who talked his way back up once.
Merchant. I know nothing about that. I am going back to my ship. May a god bring the two of you whatever is best.
(He goes.)
Philoctetes. Is it not astonishing, my boy, that the son of Laertes should ever expect to lead me off his ship with soft words and show me in the middle of the Greeks? No. I would sooner listen to the thing I hate most in the world — the viper that made me the cripple I am. But there is nothing he would not say, nothing he would not dare. And I know now that he is coming here. Come, son, let us move, so that a wide sea can lie between us and Odysseus's ship. Let us go. Hurry at the right moment, and when the work is done there is sleep, and rest.
Neoptolemus. Then as soon as the wind off the bow drops, we sail. It is dead against us now.
Philoctetes. The sailing is always good when you are running from trouble.
Neoptolemus. No. It is against them too.
Philoctetes. No wind is ever against pirates, when there is a chance to steal something and grab it by force.
Neoptolemus. Well, if that is what you want, let us go — once you have taken from inside whatever you most need and most want.
Philoctetes. There are things I need. Not that there is much to choose from.
Neoptolemus. What is there that is not on board my ship?
Philoctetes. I have a leaf, a herb, that I use more than anything to put this wound to sleep, till it is quite tamed.
Neoptolemus. Bring it out, then. What else do you want to take?
Philoctetes. Any of these arrows that may have been forgotten and slipped out of my sight — so I do not leave one for someone else to pick up.
Neoptolemus. Is that really the famous bow — the one in your hands now?
Philoctetes. This one, and no other. The one I carry in my two hands.
Neoptolemus. Could I look at it closer? Hold it — and bow to it, as if it were a god?
Philoctetes. For you, my boy, that and anything else of mine that would do you good.
Neoptolemus. I do want to. But my wanting goes like this: if it is allowed, I would like it. If not, let it go.
Philoctetes. What you say is holy, son, and it is allowed. You alone have given me this light of the sun to look at, and the land of Oeta to see again, and my old father, and my own people; you alone, when I was down under my enemies' feet, have lifted me clear of them. Take heart. You may touch it, and give it back to the hand that gave it, and you can boast to the world that for your goodness you alone among men have laid a hand on it. It was by doing good that I got it myself.
Neoptolemus. I am not sorry I found you, and made a friend of you. A man who knows how to do good when good has been done to him is a friend worth more than any possession. Go in, please.
Philoctetes. And I will bring you in with me. The sickness in me wants you standing by.
(They go into the cave.)
Chorus. I have heard the story, though I never saw it: the man who once went near the bed of Zeus — Ixion — and how the all-powerful son of Cronus bound him to the running wheel. But of no other man, by hearsay or by sight, do I know one who met a fate more hateful than this man's. He did no one wrong. He robbed no one. He dealt fairly with fair men, and he was left to die like this, for nothing. It is a wonder to me, how — how in the world — alone, hearing the surf beat on both sides of him, he kept hold of a life so full of tears.
Chorus. Here he was his own only neighbour, with no way to walk, no one in the country to be near him in his misery, no one to answer his groans when he cried out over the heavy gnawing bloody thing, no one to gather soft leaves from the feeding earth and put to sleep the hot blood oozing from the sores of his poisoned foot, whenever the fit came on. He would crawl, this way and that, dragging himself like a child without its nurse, to wherever something could be had, when the ruin that bites the heart let go.
Chorus. Not the seed of the holy earth for food, nor anything else we eat, we men who work for our bread — only what his fast-shooting bow and its winged arrows won for his belly. Poor wretched soul. Ten years, and not one taste of poured wine; looking round for standing water, wherever he could find it, and always making his way towards it.
Chorus. But now he has met the son of good men, and out of all that he will come to happiness, and to greatness. After the fullness of many months the boy carries him on the sea-going timbers home, to his father's hall, the haunt of the Malian nymphs, the banks of the Spercheius, where the man of the bronze shield, Heracles, went up to the gods, all in a blaze of his father's divine fire, above the heights of Oeta.
(Neoptolemus comes out of the cave, carrying the bow. Philoctetes follows, and stops.)
Neoptolemus. Come on, if you are willing. Why are you silent like this, for no reason? Why are you standing there struck dumb?
Philoctetes. Aah. Aah.
Neoptolemus. What is it?
Philoctetes. Nothing terrible. Go on, son.
Neoptolemus. Is it the pain of the sickness? Has it come on you?
Philoctetes. No, no. I think it is easing just now. Oh, gods.
Neoptolemus. Why do you groan like that and call on the gods?
Philoctetes. For them to come to us, to save and to soothe. Aah. Aah.
Neoptolemus. What has happened to you? Will you not say, but stay silent like this? It is plain that you are in some trouble.
Philoctetes. I am finished, son. I cannot hide it from you. Attatai. It goes through me — it goes right through. Oh, I am wretched. I am finished, son. It is eating me, son. Papai. Apappapai. Papappapappapappapai. By the gods, if you have a sword ready to your hand, son, strike at the end of my foot. Cut it off, quickly. Do not spare my life. Go on, boy.
Neoptolemus. What is this new thing that has come on you so suddenly, that makes you howl and groan over yourself like this?
Philoctetes. You know, son.
Neoptolemus. What is it?
Philoctetes. You know, boy.
Neoptolemus. What is wrong with you? I do not know.
Philoctetes. How can you not know? Papappapappapai.
Neoptolemus. It is terrible, the weight of this sickness.
Philoctetes. Terrible past telling. Pity me.
Neoptolemus. What am I to do?
Philoctetes. Do not take fright at me and betray me. She comes now and then, this thing — perhaps when she has had her fill of wandering somewhere else.
Neoptolemus. Oh, oh — poor man. Poor, poor man, as all this pain has shown you to be. Do you want me to take hold of you? To touch you somewhere?
Philoctetes. No, not that. But take this bow of mine, as you asked me to just now, and keep it, and guard it, until this present fit of the sickness lets go. Sleep takes me as soon as the evil passes off, and it cannot stop before then. You must let me sleep in peace. And if those men come in the meantime, by the gods I charge you: not willingly, not unwillingly, not by any trick, let this bow go to them — or you will be the death of yourself and of me together, me, who am your suppliant.
Neoptolemus. Do not worry about my care. It will go into no hands but yours and mine. Give it to me, and good luck go with it.
Philoctetes. There. Take it, boy. And bow to the jealousy of the gods, so that it does not bring you pain on pain, as it did me, and the man who had it before me.
Neoptolemus. Gods, grant us that, both of us. And grant us a voyage with a fair wind, and a quick one, to wherever the god thinks right and our errand is bound.
Philoctetes. I am afraid your prayers are empty, son. Look — again the dark blood is dripping from deep down, oozing, and I expect something new. Papai. Oh. Papai — again — foot, what you do to me. It is creeping up. It is coming — here, close. Oh, I am wretched. Now you have the whole thing. Do not run away, whatever you do. Attatai. Odysseus — you stranger from Cephallenia — I wish this pain could go right through your chest and stay there. Oh. Papai. Papai again. You two generals, Agamemnon, Menelaus — if only you could feed this sickness in my place, for as long as I have. Oh, oh. Death. Death. I call you every day, day after day — why can you never come? Son. My noble boy. Take me up and burn me in this fire they call Lemnian, the fire of this island. Burn me, noble boy. I did that once myself, for the son of Zeus, and it was for that I got these weapons, that you are keeping safe now. What do you say, boy? What do you say? Why are you silent? Where are you, son?
Neoptolemus. I have been in pain a long while, groaning over your suffering.
Philoctetes. Then take heart too, son. She comes sharp and she goes quickly. Only I beg you — do not leave me alone.
Neoptolemus. Take heart. We will stay.
Philoctetes. You will stay?
Neoptolemus. Be sure of it.
Philoctetes. I do not think it right to put you on oath, son.
Neoptolemus. It is not allowed me to leave without you.
Philoctetes. Give me your hand on it.
Neoptolemus. I give it. To stay.
Philoctetes. Now take me there — over there —
Neoptolemus. Where do you mean?
Philoctetes. Up —
Neoptolemus. What is this? Are you raving again? Why are you staring at the sky's circle above us?
Philoctetes. Let me go. Let me go.
Neoptolemus. Let you go where?
Philoctetes. Let me go, will you.
Neoptolemus. I will not.
Philoctetes. You will kill me if you touch me.
Neoptolemus. There. I am letting you go, since you seem to know better.
Philoctetes. Earth, take me, dying, as I am. This evil will not let me stand up any more.
(He sinks down.)
Neoptolemus. Sleep will have the man before long, I think. His head is falling back. Yes — sweat is running down his whole body, and a dark vein has burst at the end of his foot, and the blood is pouring out. Let us leave him quiet, friends, so he can fall asleep.
Chorus. Sleep, who knows nothing of anguish, Sleep, who knows nothing of pain, come to us with a kind breath, come happy, come happy, and bring happiness, lord. Hold over his eyes this light that is spread across them now. Come, come to me, healer. My son, look where you are going to stand, where you will step from here, in your thinking. You see already. What are we waiting for? The right moment is the judge of everything, and wins a great, great victory at a single step.
Neoptolemus. No. He hears nothing. But I see this: we have hunted this bow for nothing if we sail without him. His is the crown. He is the one the god said to bring. To boast of a thing half done, and done with lies, is a foul disgrace.
Chorus. That, my son, a god will see to. But when you answer me again, softly, my son, softly, send me your words. In sickness every man's sleep is sleepless; it sees sharply. But as far as you can, as far as ever you can, that — that is what to look to, secretly: how you will bring it off. You know whom I mean. If you keep the mind you have now towards him, a shrewd man can see troubles ahead with no way out.
Chorus. A wind, my son, a fair wind. The man is eyeless, helpless, stretched out in his night — sleep in the sun is a good sleep — master of no hand, no foot, of nothing, like a man lying beside Hades. Look. See if what you say is timely. What my mind can take hold of, boy, is this: the work that frightens no one is the best work.
Neoptolemus. Quiet, I tell you, and keep your wits. The man is moving his eyes and lifting his head.
Philoctetes. Light, after sleep. And you — watchers, keeping guard by me, past anything I could have hoped for from strangers. I could never have boasted of this, boy: that you would bear to stay by my sufferings, pitying, standing by me and helping. The sons of Atreus certainly never had the stomach to bear it so lightly, those fine generals. But your nature is good, my son, and comes from good men, and so you made light of all of it, though you were full of my screaming and my stench. And now, since the evil seems to be giving me some forgetting and rest, son, you lift me up yourself, you set me on my feet, so that when the weakness lets me go we can start for the ship and not hold back from sailing.
Neoptolemus. I am glad to see you, past what I hoped, looking about you with no pain and still breathing. From your symptoms, set against the trouble you were in, you looked like a man already gone. Now lift yourself up. Or if you would rather, these men will carry you. They will not shirk the labour, since you and I have decided to do this.
Philoctetes. I thank you for that, boy. Lift me yourself, as you meant to. Leave them alone, so they are not weighed down with the foul smell before they have to be. It will be trouble enough for them, living on board with me.
Neoptolemus. So be it. Stand up, then, and hold on to me.
Philoctetes. Do not worry. My old habit will get me upright.
Neoptolemus. Papai. What am I to do now, from here?
Philoctetes. What is it, boy? Where has your talk gone wandering?
Neoptolemus. I do not know where to turn. There is no way through what I have to say.
Philoctetes. No way through — for you? Do not say that, son.
Neoptolemus. But that is where I am now. This is what it has come to.
Philoctetes. It is not the foulness of my sickness that has talked you out of taking me on board?
Neoptolemus. Everything is foul, when a man leaves his own nature and does what does not fit him.
Philoctetes. But you are doing nothing, saying nothing, that goes beyond the man who fathered you, when you help a good man.
Neoptolemus. I will be shown up for a disgrace. That is what has been eating me a long while.
Philoctetes. Not for anything you do. But what you say — that is starting to frighten me.
Neoptolemus. Zeus, what am I to do? Am I to be caught out twice over as bad — hiding what I should not hide, and saying the foulest words there are?
Philoctetes. This man, unless I am a poor judge, means to betray me: leave me here, and sail.
Neoptolemus. Leave you? Not I. Take you — and hurt you by it. That is what has been eating me.
Philoctetes. What are you saying, son? I do not understand.
Neoptolemus. I will hide nothing. You must sail to Troy. To the Greeks, and the sons of Atreus and their fleet.
Philoctetes. Oh. What did you say?
Neoptolemus. Do not groan before you understand.
Philoctetes. Understand what? What do you mean to do to me?
Neoptolemus. Save you from this misery first. Then go with you and lay waste the plains of Troy.
Philoctetes. And you truly mean to do this?
Neoptolemus. A great necessity governs it. Do not be angry to hear it.
Philoctetes. I am finished. Wretched — betrayed. What have you done to me, stranger? Give me back my bow. Now.
Neoptolemus. It cannot be done. Justice and my own interest, both of them, make me obey the men in command.
Philoctetes. You fire — you thing of pure terror — you hateful masterpiece of terrible cunning. What you have done to me. How you have cheated me. Are you not ashamed to look at me — the suppliant who turned to you, the man who begged you, you brute? You took the bow, and you took my life with it. Give it back, I beg you. Give it back, I implore you, son. By the gods of your fathers, do not take my life from me. Oh, I am wretched. He does not even speak to me any more. He looks away, like a man who will never let go.
Harbours. Headlands. You mountain beasts who lived here with me. You broken rocks. To you — I know no one else to say it to — to you who are here, my old companions, I cry out what the son of Achilles has done to me. He swore to take me home, and he takes me to Troy. He gave me his right hand on it, and he has taken my bow, the holy bow of Heracles, son of Zeus, and keeps it, and wants to show it to the Greeks. He drags me off by force as if he had caught a strong man, and does not see that he is killing a corpse, a shadow of smoke, a phantom and nothing more. He could never have taken me with my strength in me. Not even as I am, except by a trick. Now I have been cheated, damned as I am. What am I to do?
Give it back. Even now — come back to yourself. What do you say? Silence. I am nothing, I am damned. Cave, you rock with two doors, back I come to you, back again, stripped, with nothing to live on. I will wither in that den alone, bringing down no winged bird with this bow, no beast that walks the hills; I will die there myself, wretched, and make a meal for the creatures I fed on, and the ones I hunted will hunt me now. Blood for blood — I will pay it, wretched, at the hands of a man who seemed to know nothing of evil. Damn you — no. Not yet. Not till I learn whether you will change your mind again. If you will not, die a bad death.
Chorus. What do we do? It is with you, my lord, whether we sail now, or give way to what this man says.
Neoptolemus. A terrible pity for this man has fallen on me — not now for the first time, but long since.
Philoctetes. Have mercy, boy, by the gods. Do not let men call you a disgrace for cheating me.
Neoptolemus. Oh, what am I to do? I wish I had never left Scyros. That is how sick I am at what is happening.
Philoctetes. You are not bad. You came here, it seems, having learned bad things from bad men. Leave that to the others — the ones it suits — and sail. Give me my weapons, and go.
Neoptolemus. What do we do, men?
(Odysseus comes out from where he has been hiding, with two of his men behind him.)
Odysseus. You worst of men, what are you doing? Get back here and hand that bow to me.
Philoctetes. Oh. Who is that? Is that Odysseus I hear?
Odysseus. Odysseus. Be sure of it. Me, the man you are looking at.
Philoctetes. Oh. I am sold, and I am finished. So this was the man who trapped me and stripped me of my weapons.
Odysseus. I did. Be sure of that too. Nobody else. I admit it freely.
Philoctetes. Give it back. Boy, let me have the bow.
Odysseus. That he will never do, not even if he wanted to. And what is more, you are coming with it. Or these men will take you by force.
Philoctetes. Me? You worst of the bad, you most shameless of them all, these men will take me by force?
Odysseus. If you will not crawl there on your own.
Philoctetes. Land of Lemnos. Fire that Hephaestus made, that masters everything. Are you going to put up with this, this man dragging me off your ground by force?
Odysseus. It is Zeus, understand that. Zeus, who rules this land. Zeus, who has decided it. I am only his servant.
Philoctetes. You hateful thing. What things you find to say. You hold the gods up in front of you, and you make liars of the gods.
Odysseus. No. Truth-tellers. And the road has to be walked.
Philoctetes. I say no.
Odysseus. And I say yes. You will do as you are told.
Philoctetes. Oh, I am wretched. So my father bred me a slave, plainly, and not a free man.
Odysseus. No. The equal of the best men there are, the men you are going to take Troy with, and pull it down by force.
Philoctetes. Never. Not if I have to suffer every evil there is. Not while this island's steep rock is under my feet.
Odysseus. What are you going to do?
Philoctetes. Throw myself off. This head of mine, I will bloody it on the rocks below, right now.
Odysseus. Hold him, both of you. Do not let him have that.
Philoctetes. My hands. Look what is done to you, for want of the bowstring you love, hunted down, both of you, and roped by this man.
And you, you who have never had one healthy thought or one free one, how you crept up on me again. How you hunted me. You took this boy for your shield, a boy I did not know, who was too good for you and good enough for me; who knew nothing except to do what he was ordered, and who is plainly in pain now, even now, over what he did wrong himself and over what I have suffered. But that bad soul of yours, always peering out from some corner, taught him well. He had no gift for it and no wish for it, and still you taught him to be clever at evil.
And now, you wretch, you mean to tie me up and take me from this shore, the same shore where you threw me out: no friend, no company, no city, a corpse among the living. Ah. Damn you. I have prayed that for you often enough. But the gods deal me out nothing sweet, so you are alive and glad of it, and I have the pain, this exact pain, that I am alive at all, with all these evils on me, and laughed at by you and by the two sons of Atreus, the pair of generals you do these errands for. And yet you sailed with them only when they yoked you by a trick and forced you. I sailed of my own free will, with seven ships, to my utter ruin, and they threw me out with no honour. So you say. They say it was you.
And now what are you taking me for? Why haul me off? What for? I am nothing. To you I have been dead for years. How is it, you thing the gods hate most, that I am not lame to you any more, and not stinking? How will you burn your offerings to the gods if I sail with you? How will you pour them a drink? That was your excuse for throwing me out in the first place.
A bad death to you. And you will die badly, for the wrong you have done this man, if the gods care anything for justice. And I know they care. You would never have sailed on this errand for one miserable man if some goad from the gods had not driven you here after me.
Land of my fathers. Gods who look down and see. Pay them back. Pay them back, all of them, in time, at last, if there is any pity in you for me. My life is a pitiful thing. But if I saw those men destroyed, I would think I had got clear of my sickness.
Chorus. That is a hard man, Odysseus, and hard words he has said. His troubles have not bent him.
Odysseus. I could say a good deal in answer to that, if I had the time. As it is, I have one thing to say. Where a certain kind of man is needed, I am that kind of man. And where the contest is one of just and good men, you would not find anyone more god-fearing than me. It is my nature to want to win, everywhere, except against you. To you, this once, I will gladly give way.
Let him go. Take your hands off him. Let him stay. We have no further need of you, not now we have these weapons. Teucer is with us, and he has the skill; and so have I. I think I could handle this bow no worse than you, and point it no worse. So what do we need you for? Goodbye. Enjoy walking about on Lemnos. We are leaving. And perhaps this prize of yours will bring me the honour that should have been yours.
Philoctetes. Oh, what am I to do, in my bad luck? Are you going to show yourself to the Greeks decked out in my weapons?
Odysseus. Not another word to me. I am leaving.
Philoctetes. Seed of Achilles, will you not even speak to me? Are you going to walk off like that?
Odysseus. Move. Do not look at him. You are a decent man, and you will wreck our luck.
Philoctetes. And you, strangers, will you leave me here too, alone like this? Have you no pity for me?
Chorus. The boy here commands our ship. Whatever he says to you, we say too.
Neoptolemus. I am going to be told by this man that I am too full of pity. All the same, stay, if he agrees to it, for as long as it takes the sailors to get the ship ready and for us to make our prayers to the gods. In that time perhaps he will come to think better of us. We two are going. And you, when we call, come quickly.
(Odysseus and Neoptolemus go out towards the ships. Philoctetes is left with the Chorus.)
Philoctetes. Hollow cave in the rock, hot, and then freezing. So I was never going to leave you after all. Poor fool. You will be with me while I die. Oh. Oh, oh. Wretched shelter, filled to the brim with the pain that came out of me, what will there be for me now, day by day? Where will I find any hope of food? Who will feed me? Up there the timid doves will go by on the shrill wind. I cannot stop them any more.
Chorus. You did this. You, I say. You chose it, you and your heavy luck. This did not come from anywhere else, from some power stronger than you. You could have seen sense, and you chose to praise the worse fate over the better.
Philoctetes. Wretched, then. Wretched, and broken by suffering. From now on I live here with no man after this, and I die here. Aiai. Aiai. No more bringing home food, no more winged arrows in my strong hands to take it with. Words I could not see through, words with a lie inside, from a crooked mind, crept under me. Let me see him, the man who planned it, allotted my pain for exactly as long as I have had it.
Chorus. Fate. Fate from the gods did this to you. No trick from my hand caught you. Turn that hateful, ill-fated curse of yours onto other men. Because I care about this too: do not push away my friendship.
Philoctetes. Oh, oh. Somewhere on the grey shore he is sitting, laughing at me, tossing in his hand the thing that fed me, my poor life's food, the bow nobody else ever carried. Dear bow, forced out of the hands that loved you, if you have any feeling you must look with pity at the friend of Heracles, who will never use you again. Now you are handled in another man's turn, a man of many devices; you are looking at shameful tricks, at a hateful face, my enemy's, and at the countless evils that rose out of shameful things, the evils he planned against me. Oh, Zeus.
Chorus. A man should always say what is right. But once he has said it, let him not spit out spiteful, stinging words. That man was one man, picked from many, and at their command he did what was a service to all his friends.
Philoctetes. Winged things I hunted, and tribes of bright-eyed beasts that this ground feeds on the hills, you need not leap from your dens and run from me any more. My hands do not hold the strength of the arrows they held before. I am wretched now. Come freely. The place is not fearful to you any more. Crawl in. Now it is a fine time to fill your mouths with blood for blood, on my discoloured flesh, all you want. I will be leaving life soon. Where would food come from? Who feeds on the winds like this, with no power any more over anything the life-giving earth sends up?
Chorus. By the gods, if you have any respect for a stranger, come near to one who comes near you with nothing but good will. But know this. Know it well: it is in your own hands to escape this doom. It is a pitiful thing to feed it, and to have no way of learning to carry the endless weight that lives with it.
Philoctetes. Again. Again you have brought the old pain back to me, you, the best of all who ever came here. Why have you destroyed me? What have you done to me?
Chorus. What do you mean?
Philoctetes. If you hoped to take me to the land of Troy, which I hate.
Chorus. I think that is the best thing.
Philoctetes. Then leave me. Now.
Chorus. Gladly. Gladly. That is an order I am happy to obey. Let us go, let us go, each to his place in the ship.
Philoctetes. No. By Zeus who hears a curse, do not go. I beg you.
Chorus. Be reasonable.
Philoctetes. Strangers. Stay. By the gods.
Chorus. Why are you shouting?
Philoctetes. Aiai. Aiai. My god, my god. I am finished. Foot, my foot, what am I going to do with you for the rest of my life? Strangers, come back to me. Come back.
Chorus. To do what? With what different mind from what you showed us before?
Philoctetes. There is no call for anger when a man is out of his wits with a storm of pain, and talks nonsense.
Chorus. Then come, poor man, the way I tell you.
Philoctetes. Never. Never. Understand that. It is fixed. Not even if the lord of the fire and the lightning comes to burn me in the blaze of his thunder. Damn Troy, and every man under its walls who could bear to send this foot of mine away. But, strangers, give me one thing I ask.
Chorus. What thing is that?
Philoctetes. A sword, if you have one anywhere, or an axe, or any weapon. Hand it to me.
Chorus. So you can do what with it?
Philoctetes. Cut off all this flesh, cut off my limbs, with my own hand. My mind is on killing. Killing, now.
Chorus. Why?
Philoctetes. Looking for my father.
Chorus. Where on earth?
Philoctetes. In Hades. He is not in the light any more. My city. My father's country. How could I look at you, wretched man that I am, who left your holy river and went to help the Greeks, my enemies. I am nothing now. Nothing.
(He goes into the cave.)
Chorus. I would have been on my way to my ship long ago, if I had not seen Odysseus coming this way, and the son of Achilles with him, heading for us.
(Neoptolemus comes in fast, carrying the bow. Odysseus is behind him.)
Odysseus. Will you tell me why you have turned round and come back up this road in such a hurry?
Neoptolemus. To undo the wrong I did before.
Odysseus. That is an alarming thing to say. What wrong?
Neoptolemus. The one I did when I obeyed you and the whole army —
Odysseus. What did you do that was beneath you?
Neoptolemus. I took a man with shameful tricks and lies.
Odysseus. Which man? Oh no. You are not planning something new?
Neoptolemus. Nothing new. But to the son of Poeas —
Odysseus. What are you going to do? Something is frightening me.
Neoptolemus. — from whom I took this bow, back again —
Odysseus. Zeus. What are you going to say? You do not mean to give it back?
Neoptolemus. I do. I got it shamefully, and with no right to it.
Odysseus. By the gods, are you saying this to mock me?
Neoptolemus. If telling the truth is mockery.
Odysseus. What are you saying, son of Achilles? What are these words?
Neoptolemus. Do you want me to go over the same thing twice and three times?
Odysseus. I would rather not have heard it once.
Neoptolemus. Then you have heard all I have to say. Be sure of that.
Odysseus. There is someone, there is, who will stop you doing it.
Neoptolemus. What? Who is going to stop me?
Odysseus. The whole people of the Greeks. And I am one of them.
Neoptolemus. Clever as you were born, there is nothing clever in what you are saying.
Odysseus. And nothing clever in what you say, or in what you want to do.
Neoptolemus. But if it is just, it is better than clever.
Odysseus. And how is it just, to let go of what you won by my planning?
Neoptolemus. I made a shameful mistake. I am going to try to take it back.
Odysseus. And the Greek army does not frighten you, doing this?
Neoptolemus. With justice on my side, I am not afraid of the fear you are offering me.
Odysseus. With justice on my side, my hand will make you.
Neoptolemus. Not your hand either. I am not going to be made to do it.
Odysseus. Then it is not the Trojans we fight. It is you.
Neoptolemus. Let what is coming come.
Odysseus. Do you see my right hand, on the hilt of my sword?
Neoptolemus. You will see mine do the same. And not slowly.
Odysseus. Still, I will leave you be. I am going to tell all this to the whole army, and it will punish you.
Neoptolemus. Now you are being sensible. Go on thinking like that and perhaps you will keep your feet out of trouble.
(Odysseus goes, but not far.)
Son of Poeas. Philoctetes, I mean you. Come out. Leave that stone roof of yours.
(Philoctetes appears at the mouth of the cave.)
Philoctetes. What is this shouting again at my cave? Why are you calling me out? What do you want, strangers? Oh. This is bad. Have you come to bring me new evils on top of the old?
Neoptolemus. Take heart. Listen to what I have come to tell you.
Philoctetes. I am afraid to. Fine words did me harm before, when I believed what you said.
Neoptolemus. Is there no room for a man to change his mind?
Philoctetes. You talked like this when you were stealing my bow. To be trusted, and ruin underneath.
Neoptolemus. Not now. Not this time. I want to hear from you: have you decided to stay here and stick it out, or to sail with us?
Philoctetes. Stop. Not another word. Anything you say will be said for nothing.
Neoptolemus. That is decided?
Philoctetes. More firmly than I can say.
Neoptolemus. Well. I would have liked you to be persuaded by what I say. But if nothing I say is any use, I am finished.
Philoctetes. Everything you say is for nothing. You will never have my good will, you who took my life away with tricks, robbed me of it, and then come here to lecture me. The worst son of the best father. Damn all of you: the sons of Atreus first, then the son of Laertes, then you.
Neoptolemus. No more curses. Take these weapons from my hand.
Philoctetes. What did you say? Am I being tricked a second time?
Neoptolemus. No. I swear it by the holy majesty of Zeus most high.
Philoctetes. The dearest words I ever heard, if they are true.
Neoptolemus. What I do will make it plain. Hold out your right hand. Be master of your weapons.
(He gives him the bow. Odysseus steps out.)
Odysseus. And I forbid it, with the gods as my witnesses, in the name of the sons of Atreus and the whole army.
Philoctetes. Boy, whose voice was that? Was that Odysseus I heard?
Odysseus. It was. And you can see him, close by: the man who is going to ship you to the plains of Troy by force, whether the son of Achilles likes it or not.
Philoctetes. Not gladly, you will not. Not if this arrow flies straight.
(He fits an arrow to the string. Odysseus runs.)
Neoptolemus. No. No, by the gods, do not let it go.
Philoctetes. Let go of my hand, by the gods. Dear boy, let go.
Neoptolemus. I will not.
Philoctetes. Ah. Why did you stop me killing him? A man who hates me, an enemy, with my own bow.
Neoptolemus. Because it would be no credit to me, and none to you.
Philoctetes. Well, know this much anyway: the first men of the army, the Greeks' lying heralds, are cowards with a spear and bold with words.
Neoptolemus. Good. You have the bow, and there is nothing left for you to be angry with me about, or to blame me for.
Philoctetes. Agreed. You have shown the stock you sprang from, boy. Not Sisyphus for a father. Achilles, who had the best name of all men while he was alive, and has it now among the dead.
Neoptolemus. I am glad to hear you speak well of my father, and of me. Now hear what I want from you. Men have to bear what the gods send them. But when men sit inside a harm they chose for themselves, as you do, there is no justice in forgiving them, and no justice in pitying them either. You have gone wild. You will take no advice; if someone tries to set you right, meaning nothing but good, you hate him and count him an enemy who wishes you ill.
I am going to say it anyway, and I call on Zeus who watches over oaths. Understand this, and write it inside your mind. You are sick with this pain because a god sent it, because you came too close to the guardian of Chryse, the snake that keeps hidden watch over her open-air shrine. And know that you will never find rest from this heavy sickness, as long as this same sun rises on one side of the sky and sets on the other, until you come of your own free will to the plains of Troy and meet the two sons of Asclepius, the healers, who are with us, and are eased of this sickness, and are seen to take the towers of Troy, with this bow and with me.
How I know this is so, I will tell you. We have a man taken from Troy, Helenus, the best of the prophets, who says plainly that this must happen. And more: that this very summer all Troy must fall. If he is lying, he offers himself up freely to be killed.
So now that you know it, give way, and willingly. It is a fine thing to gain: to be judged the one best man of the Greeks, and first to come into hands that heal you, and then to take Troy, which has cost so many tears, and win the highest fame there is.
Philoctetes. Hateful life. Why, why do you keep me up here looking at the light, and not let me go down to Hades? Oh, what am I to do? How can I refuse to believe what this man says, when he meant well by me in saying it? Then give way? And then how do I come out into the light, in my bad luck, having done that? Who would I speak to?
You eyes that have watched everything that was done around me, how could you bear to see it: me, keeping company with the sons of Atreus, who destroyed me? Or with that son of Laertes, ruin to everything he touches? It is not the pain of what is past that bites me. It is what I think I can see coming, what I will have to suffer at their hands still. When a man's mind has once given birth to wrongdoing, it teaches him to be a wrongdoer in everything after.
And you. I am amazed at you in this. You ought never to go back to Troy yourself, and you ought to keep me from it. They did you outrage. They stripped you of your father's prize, when they judged poor Ajax a lesser man than Odysseus in the contest for the arms. And after that you are going to fight beside them, and force me to as well? No, boy. Not that. Do what you swore to me: send me home. Stay on Scyros yourself, and let bad men die badly. Do that, and you will have thanks from me twice over, and twice over from your father, and you will not look like a man born the same as the bad men because you helped them.
Neoptolemus. What you say is reasonable. But all the same I want you to trust the gods, and trust what I say, and sail out of this land with me, a friend.
Philoctetes. To the plains of Troy? To the hateful son of Atreus? On this wretched foot?
Neoptolemus. To the men who will stop the pain in that foot, with the pus in it, and save you from your sickness.
Philoctetes. That is a terrible thing to recommend. What are you saying?
Neoptolemus. What I see is best for you and for me, once it is done.
Philoctetes. You say that, and feel no shame before the gods?
Neoptolemus. How could a man be ashamed of helping his own?
Philoctetes. Helping the sons of Atreus, do you mean, or me?
Neoptolemus. You, I should think. I am your friend, and that is a friend talking.
Philoctetes. How, when you want to hand me to my enemies?
Neoptolemus. Sir. Learn not to be so defiant when things are bad.
Philoctetes. You will destroy me with this talk. I know you.
Neoptolemus. I will not. I say you do not understand.
Philoctetes. Do I not know the sons of Atreus threw me out?
Neoptolemus. They threw you out. Now see whether they will not save you.
Philoctetes. Never. Not if it means agreeing to look at Troy.
Neoptolemus. Then what are we to do, if nothing I say can persuade you of anything? The easiest thing is for me to stop talking, and for you to go on living as you live now, with no way out.
Philoctetes. Let me suffer what I have to suffer. But what you promised me with your right hand in mine, to take me home, do that for me, boy. Do not delay, and do not mention Troy to me again. I have had enough of weeping and lamenting.
Neoptolemus. If that is what you want, let us go.
Philoctetes. That is a noble thing to say.
Neoptolemus. Now set your feet firmly against mine.
Philoctetes. As far as I have the strength.
Neoptolemus. But how do I escape the blame of the Greeks?
Philoctetes. Do not think about it.
Neoptolemus. And if they come and lay waste my country?
Philoctetes. I will be there —
Neoptolemus. And what help will you be?
Philoctetes. — with the arrows of Heracles —
Neoptolemus. Meaning what?
Philoctetes. — I will keep them off.
Neoptolemus. Then kiss the ground goodbye, and come.
(Heracles appears above them.)
Heracles. Not yet. Not until you have heard what I have to say, son of Poeas. Know that it is the voice of Heracles your ears are hearing, and his face your eyes see. For your sake I have come, leaving my seat in the sky, to tell you the plans of Zeus and to hold you back from the road you are taking. Listen to my words. First I will tell you my own fortunes: how many labours I laboured through to the end, and won undying excellence, as you can see. For you too, be sure of it, this is what is owed: out of these sufferings, to make your life famous. You will go with this man to the city of Troy. First you will be cured of your cruel sickness. Then, judged first of the whole army in excellence, you will take Paris, the cause of all this evil, and with my bow you will part him from his life. You will sack Troy. You will send the spoils home, the prize for the bravest, taken from the army, to your father Poeas, on the high ground of Oeta. And whatever spoils you take from that army, carry to my pyre, in memory of my bow. And this is for you as well, son of Achilles: you cannot take the plain of Troy without him, and he cannot without you. Guard each other, like two lions who hunt together, he you, and you him. I will send Asclepius to Troy to end your sickness. It is fated to fall a second time to my bow. But remember this, when you sack the land: show reverence to the gods. Father Zeus counts everything else second. Reverence does not die when men die. Alive or dead, they do not lose it.
Philoctetes. Voice I longed for. You sent it to me and showed yourself at last. I will not disobey what you say.
Neoptolemus. And I set my judgement the same way.
Heracles. Then do not wait long. Act. The moment is right, and the wind is pushing at your stern.
Philoctetes. Then let me call to the land as I go. Goodbye, house that kept watch with me. Goodbye, nymphs of the water-meadows, and you, deep pounding of the sea on the headland, where so often my head was wet far inside the cave from the blows of the south wind, and often the hill of Hermes sent my own voice back, groan for groan, when I was in the storm. Now, springs, and you Lycian water, I am leaving you, leaving you at last. I never thought I would stand on this hope. Goodbye, Lemnos, ground with the sea all round you. Send me off with a fair wind, and no blame, to where great Fate is carrying me, and the judgement of my friends, and the god who tames everything, who brought this to pass.
Chorus. Let us all go now, together, after a prayer to the nymphs of the sea to come and see us safely home.
(The edge of a grove at Colonus, a mile or so outside Athens. Oedipus, blind and old, comes in led by Antigone.)
Oedipus. Antigone, child of a blind old man — where have we come to? Whose city is this? Who is going to take in the wanderer Oedipus today, with a little something to spare for him? I ask for little, and I get less than that, and it is enough for me. Suffering has taught me to be content, and the long years I have lived with it, and thirdly the good blood in me. Now, child, if you see a place to sit, on open ground or in some grove of the gods, stop me and settle me there, so we can find out where we are. We are strangers here. We have come to learn from the townspeople, and to do whatever we are told.
Antigone. Father — poor worn-out Oedipus — the towers that shut in the city are a long way off, as far as I can see. And this place is holy, by the look of it: it is thick with laurel and olive and vine, and inside it the nightingales are singing, a whole crowd of them. Bend your legs and sit here, on this rough stone. It has been a long road for an old man.
Oedipus. Then sit me down, and keep watch over the blind man.
Antigone. I have been doing that long enough not to need telling.
Oedipus. Can you tell me where we have stopped?
Antigone. I know it is Athens. I do not know this place.
Oedipus. Yes — every traveller on the road told us that much.
Antigone. Shall I go somewhere and find out what the place is called?
Oedipus. Yes, child, if anyone lives here.
Antigone. Someone lives here. But there is no need, I think. I can see a man, close by.
Oedipus. Coming this way? Heading for us?
(A man of Colonus has come up to them.)
Antigone. He is here already. Whatever seems right to you to say, say it. The man is in front of you.
Oedipus. Stranger — this girl sees for both of us, and she tells me you have come at a lucky moment, a scout to explain what we do not know —
Stranger. Before you ask me anything else, get up off that seat. You are on ground it is not holy to walk on.
Oedipus. What ground is it? Which god does it belong to?
Stranger. Nobody touches it and nobody lives on it. The goddesses of fear hold it — the daughters of Earth and Darkness.
Oedipus. What holy name do they have? If I hear it I can pray to them.
Stranger. The people here would call them the Eumenides, the Kindly Ones, who see everything. Other places like other names.
Oedipus. Then may they be kind, and take in the man who kneels to them. I will not leave this seat, in this land, ever again.
Stranger. What is that supposed to mean?
Oedipus. It is the sign I was told to wait for. The password of my fate.
Stranger. Well, I would not dare move you myself without the city behind me, before I report what I am doing.
Oedipus. Then in the gods' name, stranger, do not refuse me — a wanderer, look at me — the answers I am begging you for.
Stranger. Ask. You will get no refusal from me.
Oedipus. What is this place, then, that we have come into?
Stranger. Everything I know, you will hear. This whole place is holy. Poseidon the revered holds it, and the fire-carrying god is in it too, the Titan Prometheus. And the spot you are standing on is called the bronze threshold of this land, the thing that props Athens up. The fields round about claim the horseman Colonus as their founder — that is his statue there — and all the people take his name together and call themselves by it. That is what this place is, stranger. It is not honoured in stories. It is honoured by living with it.
Oedipus. So people do live in these parts?
Stranger. Certainly. They are named for that god there, Colonus.
Oedipus. Does someone rule them? Or does the decision lie with the people?
Stranger. The king in the city rules here.
Oedipus. And who is he, this man with the power of word and of force?
Stranger. His name is Theseus, son of Aegeus who was king before him.
Oedipus. Could one of you go to him with a message?
Stranger. To say what? To get him to come?
Oedipus. To tell him that a small service will win him a great gain.
Stranger. And what help can there be from a man who cannot see?
Oedipus. Everything I say will have eyes in it.
Stranger. Listen, stranger — I do not want you coming to harm. You have good blood in you, anyone can see it, whatever your luck has been. Stay where I found you, right here, while I go and tell the people of this district — here, not in the city. They will decide for you whether you stay or go back the way you came.
(The stranger goes off the way he came.)
Oedipus. Child, has the stranger gone?
Antigone. He has gone. You can say anything you like now, father, in peace. There is nobody near you but me.
Oedipus. Ladies with the terrible eyes — since yours is the first seat in this land where I have bent my knees, do not be hard on Apollo, or on me. When he foretold all those evils for me, he told me this too: that after a long time I would find rest here. I would come to a land at the end of my journey, where I would find a seat of the Revered Goddesses and a place to shelter a stranger, and there I would round off my miserable life — a profit to the people who took me in, if I settled among them, and a ruin to the ones who sent me away, who drove me out. And he promised that signs would come to warn me: an earthquake, or thunder, or the lightning of Zeus.
I know now that it must have been some trustworthy sign from you that guided me on this road into this grove. Otherwise I would never have come across you first of all in my wandering — I who drink no wine, meeting you who take none — or sat down on this holy seat that no axe has shaped. So, goddesses, according to the word of Apollo, give me now some way to reach the end and close my life — unless you think me beneath your notice, a slave for ever to the worst troubles any man on earth has known. Come, sweet daughters of ancient Darkness. Come, Athens, called the city of great Athena, honoured above every city: pity this wretched ghost of the man Oedipus. It is not the body he once had.
Antigone. Quiet. Some men are coming — old men, by their years — to see who is sitting here.
Oedipus. I will be quiet. Hide me in the grove, off the road, until I hear what they say. Knowing is the safe way to act.
(They hide. The Chorus comes in, old men of Colonus, searching.)
Chorus. Look. Who was he? Where is he lodged? Where has he run to, out of the place, the most shameless man alive, of all men the most shameless? Search. Look for him. Hunt for him everywhere. A wanderer, that old man, a wanderer, not one of ours. He would never have walked into the untrodden grove of these girls no one can fight, whose name we tremble to speak, whom we pass without a look, without a sound, without a word, only the lips moving in silent prayer. And now they say someone has come with no fear of them at all, and I look across the whole holy ground and still I cannot find where he is hiding.
Oedipus. Here is the man. I am the one. I see by the voice, as people say.
Chorus. Oh. Oh. Terrible to look at. Terrible to hear.
Oedipus. I beg you — do not look at me as a lawbreaker.
Chorus. Zeus, keep us safe. Who is this old man?
Oedipus. Not one whose lot you would call happy, not the best of luck, guardians of this land. That is plain. Or I would not creep along on somebody else's eyes, a big man moored to a small one.
Chorus. Ah. Those blind eyes — were you born with them? A hard life, and a long one, by the look of you. But not with my help will you add this curse to it. You are trespassing. Trespassing. Do not stumble on into that silent glade deep in grass, where the bowl of water runs together with the honeyed drink. Stranger, cursed in everything, take care. Move. Come away. Come out. There is a long way between us. Do you hear, worn-out wanderer? If you have anything to say to us, come off the forbidden ground to where everyone may go, and speak there. Until then, keep off.
Oedipus. Daughter, what are we to think?
Antigone. Father, we must do as the townspeople do, giving way where we must, and listening.
Oedipus. Then take hold of me.
Antigone. I have you.
Oedipus. Strangers, do not let me be wronged for trusting you and moving from my place.
Chorus. Never, old man. Nobody will take you from this resting place against your will.
Oedipus. Further?
Chorus. Come further still.
Oedipus. Further?
Chorus. Lead him on, girl, further. You can hear what we say.
Antigone. Come, father, come this way with your dark steps, where I am leading you.
Chorus. Stranger in a strange land, poor man, bring yourself to hate what the city has learned to hate, and to honour what it loves.
Oedipus. Then lead me, child, to where we can stand on holy ground and speak, and listen, and stop fighting what has to be.
Chorus. There. Do not lean your foot past that ledge of natural rock.
Oedipus. Like this?
Chorus. Enough. You heard me.
Oedipus. Shall I sit?
Chorus. Yes — sideways, on the edge of the stone, crouch down low.
Antigone. Father, this is my job. Gently —
Oedipus. Oh. Oh no.
Antigone. — one step fitted to the next, and lean your old body on my arm, that loves you.
Oedipus. Oh, the ruin, the madness of it.
Chorus. Poor man, now that you are at ease, tell us: who are you, what man? Who is led here in such pain? What country can you name as yours?
Oedipus. Strangers, I have no city. But do not —
Chorus. Do not what? What are you forbidding, old man?
Oedipus. Do not, do not, do not ask me who I am. Do not question me. Do not dig further.
Chorus. Why?
Oedipus. A terrible birth.
Chorus. Speak.
Oedipus. Child — oh — what am I to say?
Chorus. What seed are you from, stranger? Speak. Who was your father?
Oedipus. Oh no. What is going to happen to me, my child?
Antigone. Say it. You are at the very edge now.
Oedipus. Then I will say it. There is no hiding it.
Chorus. You are both taking too long. Quickly.
Oedipus. You know of a son of Laius?
Chorus. Oh. Oh.
Oedipus. And the house of Labdacus?
Chorus. Oh, Zeus.
Oedipus. The wretched Oedipus?
Chorus. You are that man?
Oedipus. Do not be afraid of anything I say —
Chorus. Oh. Oh, no.
Oedipus. I am cursed.
Chorus. Oh. Oh.
Oedipus. Daughter, what happens now?
Chorus. Out. Get out of this country, far away.
Oedipus. And your promise? What will you do with that?
Chorus. No fate punishes a man who pays back what was first done to him. Trick set against trick is paid in pain, not thanks. You — up from this seat, out again, off my land, away with you, fast, before you fasten some heavier debt on my city.
Antigone. Strangers, you have respect in you. You will not put up with my old father, because you have heard the story of things he did without meaning to. Then pity me, I beg you, strangers, pity a wretched girl, who begs you for her father alone, who looks at you with eyes not blind, eyes meeting eyes, as if I were one of your own blood, and asks respect for a broken man. We lie in your hands as in a god's, we poor sufferers. Come, grant us the kindness we hardly dared to hope for. I beg you by whatever is dear to you at home, by a child, by a wife, by property, by a god. Look where you like, you will not find the man alive who could escape if a god were leading him.
Chorus. Daughter of Oedipus, be sure of this: we pity you, and we pity him as much, for what has happened to you. But we are afraid of what comes from the gods, and we cannot say anything beyond what we have said to you already.
Oedipus. Then what is the good of a reputation? What use is a fine name that runs away like water, if Athens, as they say, is the most god-fearing city there is, and the only one able to save a stranger who has been badly treated, and the only one able to help him? Where is any of that for me, when you have raised me up off this seat only to drive me out of the country — and all for fear of a name? Not of my body, surely, and not of my acts. My acts were things done to me, far more than things I did — if I have to speak of my mother and my father, which is what makes you afraid of me. I know that perfectly well. And yet how am I evil by nature? I was struck, and I struck back. Even if I had known what I was doing, I could not have been called evil for that. As it was, I knew nothing, and I went where I went — while the ones who wronged me knew exactly what they were doing, and were out to destroy me.
So I beg you by the gods, strangers: you made me stand up; now keep me safe. Do not honour the gods and then, in the same breath, treat the gods as if they were fools. Reckon instead that they look at the man who respects them, and they look at the man who does not, and that no godless man has ever yet escaped them. With those gods behind you, do not cloud over the good fortune of Athens by making yourselves the servants of an unholy act. You took the suppliant in on your word; now rescue me and guard me to the end. Do not look at this face — I know it is hard to look at — and dishonour me. I come here holy, a man who respects the gods, and I bring a benefit to the people of this city. When your master comes, whoever is your leader, you will hear all of it and understand. Until then, do not be bad to me.
Chorus. Old man, what you have laid before us has to be respected. You have not put it in a few words. But I am content that the lords of this land should judge the matter.
Oedipus. And where is the ruler of this country, strangers?
Chorus. He is in his father's city, in our land. The man who spotted you and sent us here has gone to fetch him.
Oedipus. And do you think he will have any regard for a blind man, or care enough to come himself?
Chorus. Certainly — the moment he hears your name.
Oedipus. And who is going to carry him that word?
Chorus. It is a long road, and travellers' talk gets around. He will hear it, and he will come; do not worry. Your name, old man, has reached everyone, and even if he is slow and half asleep, once he hears it is you he will come quickly enough.
Oedipus. Then let him come, and good fortune with him, for his city and for me. What good man is not a friend to himself?
Antigone. Zeus — what am I to say? What am I to think, father?
Oedipus. What is it, Antigone, child?
Antigone. I see a woman coming towards us, riding a pony from Sicily, and a wide Thessalian hat on her head shading her face from the sun. What can I say? Is it her? Is it not? Is my mind playing tricks? Yes — no — I cannot tell. Oh, I am wretched. It is no one else. Her eyes are bright, she is greeting me as she comes close. She is waving to me. Clearly it is Ismene, and nobody else.
Oedipus. What did you say, child?
Antigone. That I see your daughter, my own sister. In a moment you can know her by her voice.
(Ismene comes in, with one attendant.)
Ismene. Father — sister — the two sweetest words I have to say. It was hard to find you, and now I have found you, it is hard to see you through my tears.
Oedipus. Child, you have come?
Ismene. Father — what a sight you are.
Oedipus. Child, you are really here?
Ismene. It was not easy getting here.
Oedipus. Touch me, child.
Ismene. I have you both — one hand for each.
Oedipus. Oh, my own blood.
Ismene. Oh, what a wretched way to live.
Oedipus. Her life and mine?
Ismene. And mine, wretched as I am, makes three.
Oedipus. Child, why have you come?
Ismene. Out of concern for you, father.
Oedipus. Because you missed me?
Ismene. Yes, and to bring you news with my own mouth. I had one servant I could trust, and I brought him.
Oedipus. And the young men, your brothers — where are they, when there is work to be done?
Ismene. They are where they are. It is terrible between them now.
Oedipus. Those two! In their nature and the way they live they are copies of the Egyptians. Over there the men sit at home at the loom, and the wives go out and earn the daily bread. And you two, children — the ones who should be doing this work sit at home keeping house like girls, while you, in their place, carry your wretched father's troubles for him. This one, from the time she stopped being a child and her body grew strong, has wandered with me always, poor girl, an old man's guide, often going hungry and barefoot through wild woodland, often drenched by rain and burned by sun — hard going, and she puts the comforts of home second, so long as her father is looked after. And you, child — before this you came out to your father, without the Thebans knowing, bringing every oracle that had been given about this body of mine, and you stood guard for me faithfully when I was being driven from the land. And now what story have you brought your father, Ismene? What errand has sent you from home? You have not come empty-handed; I know that much for certain. You are bringing me something to fear.
Ismene. What I went through, father, hunting for the place where you were living — I will let that go. I do not want to suffer it twice, once in the doing and again in the telling. It is the trouble that is on your two unlucky sons now that I have come to tell you about.
At first they wanted to leave the throne to Creon and not stain the city, when they looked with cool heads at the old blight on our family and how it has clung to your wretched house. But now some god, and their own guilty minds, have put a wicked rivalry into the two of them — three times wretched — to seize the rule and the power of a tyrant. The younger one, the one born second, has stripped Polyneices, the elder, of the throne and driven him out of the country. And Polyneices — this is the story everywhere among us — has gone as an exile down to the valley of Argos, and there he is taking a new marriage and new shield-companions for allies, meaning that Argos will soon either hold the land of Thebes in honour, or lift Thebes' name to the sky. These are not just words piled up, father. They are terrible deeds. And where the gods will take pity on your sufferings, I cannot tell.
Oedipus. So you actually had hope that the gods would ever give me a thought, and that I would be saved one day?
Ismene. I do, father. From the new oracles.
Oedipus. What oracles? What has been prophesied, child?
Ismene. That the people there will want you one day, dead and alive, for their own safety's sake.
Oedipus. And who could be helped by a man like me?
Ismene. Their power, they say, comes to rest in you.
Oedipus. When I no longer exist, then I am a man?
Ismene. Yes. The gods are raising you up now. Before, they were destroying you.
Oedipus. It is a poor thing, to prop up an old man who fell when he was young.
Ismene. Well, know this: Creon is coming to you because of it — and soon, not in some far-off time.
Oedipus. To do what, daughter? Explain it to me.
Ismene. To settle you near the Theban border, so they have control of you, but you never set foot inside the land.
Oedipus. And what good am I to them, lying outside their gates?
Ismene. Your tomb, if it is neglected, weighs heavily on them.
Oedipus. A man could work that out without a god's help.
Ismene. That is why they want you close to the country — and not somewhere you would be your own master.
Oedipus. Will they at least cover me with Theban earth?
Ismene. No, father. The blood of your own family forbids it.
Oedipus. Then they will never get their hands on me.
Ismene. One day that will be a heavy thing for Thebes.
Oedipus. How? What will bring it about, child?
Ismene. Your anger, when they stand at your tomb.
Oedipus. And who told you what you are telling me?
Ismene. The sacred envoys, coming back from the hearth at Delphi.
Oedipus. And Apollo really said this about me?
Ismene. So say the men who came back to Thebes.
Oedipus. And has either of my sons heard it?
Ismene. Both of them, and they understand it well.
Oedipus. And then those two — the worst of men — heard this, and still put the throne before wanting me back?
Ismene. It hurts to hear it, but I bear it.
Oedipus. Then may the gods never put out the quarrel that is fated between them, and may the end of the fight they are set on — with spears already lifted — rest with me. Then the one who holds the sceptre and the throne now would not keep it, and the one who has gone out would never come back. When I, their father, was being shoved out of my own country in that disgrace, they did not stop it, they did not defend me; I was uprooted and sent out by them, and proclaimed an exile.
You might say the city gave me what I wanted then, and gave it reasonably. No. On that first day, when my heart was boiling and the sweetest thing would have been to die, to be stoned to death — nobody came forward to help me to what I wanted. Later, when the whole pain had softened and I had learned that my anger had run out ahead of me, a bigger punishment than my old mistakes deserved — then, after all that time, the city drove me out of the land by force, and they, the sons of their father, who could have helped their father, would not lift a finger. For the sake of one small word from them I was thrown out, a beggar, and I have wandered ever since.
From these two girls, as far as their nature allows, I get the food that keeps me alive, and safety on the road, and the support of my own family. Those two chose the throne over the father who made them — the sceptre, and ruling the land as tyrants. Well, they will not get me for an ally, and they will never have any joy of ruling Thebes. I know that, hearing this girl's oracles and thinking over the old prophecies Apollo made to me long ago, which he has now brought to pass. So let them send Creon to hunt me, and anyone else with power in the city. Strangers, if you are willing — together with the Revered Goddesses who stand guard over your people — to make a defence of me, you will win a great saviour for this city, and pains for my enemies.
Chorus. You deserve pity, Oedipus, you and these two girls with you. And since you add to that plea the claim that you will be this country's saviour, we want to give you some advice that is in your interest.
Oedipus. Dearest friends, be my sponsors here, and I will carry out all of it.
Chorus. Then make an act of cleansing to these goddesses, whose ground you walked on when you first came in.
Oedipus. What is the way of doing it? Teach me, strangers.
Chorus. First bring holy water for the offering from a spring that never runs dry, and touch it only with hands that are clean.
Oedipus. And when I have got this pure water?
Chorus. There are bowls, the work of a skilled hand. Wreathe the rims of them, and the handles on both sides.
Oedipus. With leafy twigs, or strips of wool, or in what way?
Chorus. With the new-shorn fleece of a young ewe.
Oedipus. Very well. And after that, how do I finish it?
Chorus. Pour the offering out, standing with your face to the first light of dawn.
Oedipus. Do I pour it from those jars you spoke of?
Chorus. Yes, three streams; and empty the last jar to the bottom.
Oedipus. And what do I fill that one with before I set it down? Teach me this too.
Chorus. With water and with honey. Bring no wine near it.
Oedipus. And when the earth under its dark leaves has taken all this?
Chorus. Lay three times nine sprigs of olive on it with both your hands, and say this prayer over them.
Oedipus. I want to hear the prayer. That is the most important part.
Chorus. We call them the Kindly Ones. So ask them, out of hearts that are kindly, to receive the man who begs their protection and to keep him safe. Ask it yourself, or let someone else ask it for you, speaking so low that no one can hear and never raising your voice. Then walk away, and do not turn round. Do all that and we would stand beside you with a good heart. Otherwise, stranger, we would be afraid for you.
Oedipus. Daughters, do you hear what these men of the place are saying?
Antigone. We heard. Tell us what has to be done.
Oedipus. I cannot make the walk. Two things are against me: I have no strength and I have no eyes. One of you must go and do it in my place. I think one soul can pay this debt for ten thousand, if it comes with a good will. But do it quickly. Only do not leave me alone. This body of mine has not the strength to crawl about with no one there and no hand to guide it.
Ismene. I will go and do it. But I want to be told where I am to find the place.
Chorus. On the far side of this grove, young woman. And if you find you need anything, there is a keeper of the place who will show you.
Ismene. Then I will go. Antigone, you stay here and watch over our father. When it is for a parent, whatever the labour is, it is not to be counted as labour.
(Ismene goes into the grove.)
Chorus. It is a terrible thing, stranger, to wake an old evil that has lain quiet so long. And still I long to ask.
Oedipus. Ask what?
Chorus. About that misery with no way out of it, the pain you have wrestled with.
Oedipus. By the welcome you have given me, do not open up the shameful things that were done to me.
Chorus. The story is everywhere and it never dies down. I want to hear it, friend, told straight.
Oedipus. Oh.
Chorus. Give way. I beg you.
Oedipus. Oh. Oh.
Chorus. Do as I ask. I did all that you asked of me.
Oedipus. Then I have borne the worst of evils, strangers. I bore it, but not by my own will. Let a god be witness. Not one part of it was chosen.
Chorus. But what was it?
Oedipus. A wicked marriage. The city tied me, knowing nothing, to a bed that was my ruin.
Chorus. Is it true, as I hear, that you filled your mother's bed, a bed with an evil name?
Oedipus. Oh. It is death to hear it said, stranger. And these two girls of mine —
Chorus. What are you saying?
Oedipus. Two children. Two curses —
Chorus. Oh, Zeus.
Oedipus. — born from the same womb that bore me.
Chorus. Then they are your children, and also —
Oedipus. Yes. Their own father's sisters.
Chorus. Oh.
Oedipus. Oh, yes. Ten thousand evils, wheeling back on me.
Chorus. You suffered —
Oedipus. I suffered what can never be forgotten.
Chorus. You did it —
Oedipus. I did not do it.
Chorus. Then what?
Oedipus. I was given a gift. I wish to my aching heart I had never earned that gift from the city I had served.
Chorus. Wretched man. And then? The killing —
Oedipus. What is this? What do you want to know?
Chorus. — of your father?
Oedipus. Ah. You strike a second time. Wound on top of wound.
Chorus. You killed —
Oedipus. I killed. But there is something in it for me —
Chorus. What?
Oedipus. — on the side of justice.
Chorus. How?
Oedipus. I will tell you. The men I killed would have killed me. Before the law I am clean. I came to it not knowing.
Chorus. Look, here is our king, Theseus, son of Aegeus. Your message reached him, and he has come to do what it asked.
(Theseus comes in.)
Theseus. I have heard from so many people over the years about the bloody ruin of your eyes that I knew who you were, son of Laius; and what I have been told on the road just now makes me more certain still. Your clothes and that unhappy face tell us plainly who you are. I pity you, and I want to ask you, ill-starred Oedipus, what it is you have come to beg from my city and from me, you and the poor girl who stands beside you. Tell me. It would have to be some terrible business you described before I would turn my back on it. I know what it is to be brought up in exile, as you were, and in foreign lands I have wrestled with more dangers to my own life than any man alive. So I would never turn away from a stranger like you and refuse to help him to safety. I know very well that I am a man, and that I have no larger share in tomorrow than you have.
Oedipus. Theseus, your generosity in a few words has left me needing only a few in reply. You have said yourself who I am, who my father was and what land I come from. So nothing is left for me but to say what I want, and then the talking is over.
Theseus. Then tell me exactly that, so that I understand it.
Oedipus. I have come to give you my wretched body as a gift. It is not much to look at. But what comes of it is worth more than a handsome shape.
Theseus. And what is this gain you claim to be bringing?
Oedipus. In time you will learn it. Not now, I think.
Theseus. Then when will your offering show itself?
Oedipus. When I am dead, and you have buried me.
Theseus. You are asking for the last service of a life. What lies in between, you have either forgotten or you count as nothing.
Oedipus. Yes. Because in that one thing all the rest is gathered up for me.
Theseus. Well, then, this favour you ask of me is a small one.
Oedipus. Be careful, though. This is not a small struggle. No, it is not.
Theseus. Do you mean between your sons and me?
Oedipus. They will want to carry me back there, my lord. To Thebes.
Theseus. But if you are willing to go, exile is no fit thing even for you.
Oedipus. No. When I was willing, they would not allow it.
Theseus. Fool. Anger is no use to a man in trouble.
Oedipus. When you have heard me out, lecture me. Until then, let it be.
Theseus. Speak. I should not say anything without understanding.
Oedipus. I have suffered, Theseus. Terrible things, evil on top of evil.
Theseus. Do you mean the old disaster of your family?
Oedipus. No. Every Greek talks about that.
Theseus. Then what is this sickness of yours that is bigger than a man's?
Oedipus. It is this. I was driven out of my own country by my own sons. And I can never go back, because I killed my father.
Theseus. Then why would they send for you, if you must live apart from them?
Oedipus. The voice of the god will force them to it.
Theseus. What do the oracles say they should be afraid of?
Oedipus. That they must be struck down in this land.
Theseus. And how could there be bitterness between them and me?
Oedipus. Dearest son of Aegeus, only to the gods does old age never come, and death never. Everything else all-mastering time throws into confusion. The strength of the earth decays, and the strength of the body; trust dies, and distrust grows up in its place; and the same wind never blows for long between one man and his friends, or between city and city. For some now, for others later, what was sweet turns bitter, and then turns back to love. If it is all fine weather now between Thebes and you, time in its endless going gives birth to endless nights and days, and in one of them the pledges that join hands today will be scattered by the spear over some small word. And then, one day, my corpse, sleeping and hidden and cold, will drink their warm blood — if Zeus is still Zeus, and Apollo, the son of Zeus, speaks true.
But there is no pleasure in saying words that should stay unmoved. Let me stop where I began. Only keep your own word good, and you will never say that you took Oedipus in as a useless resident of this place — unless the gods are lying to me.
Chorus. My lord, from the first this man has shown that he means to carry out these promises, or promises like them, for our land.
Theseus. Who would throw away the goodwill of a man like this? First, the hearth of an ally in war is always open to him with us, by a right that goes both ways. Then, he has come here to beg protection from our gods, and he pays this land and me no small tribute for it. I respect those claims. I will never throw away what he offers, and I will settle him in this country as one of our own. If it pleases the stranger to stay here, I will order you to guard him. Or, if he prefers, he can come with me. Choose whichever you like, Oedipus, and take it. I will go along with you either way.
Oedipus. Zeus, be good to men like this one.
Theseus. Then what do you want? To come to my house?
Oedipus. If it were allowed me. But this is the place —
Theseus. Where you will do what? I will not stand in your way.
Oedipus. — where I will get the better of the men who threw me out.
Theseus. Then the gift of your staying here would be a great one.
Oedipus. Yes, if you hold to what you have said and do it for me.
Theseus. Have no fear on that man's account. I will not betray you.
Oedipus. I will not bind you with an oath, as if you were a bad man.
Theseus. You would get nothing more by it than you have by my word.
Oedipus. Then how will you manage it?
Theseus. What is it that frightens you most?
Oedipus. Men will come —
Theseus. These men here will see to that.
Oedipus. Take care, if you leave me —
Theseus. Do not tell me what I have to do.
Oedipus. Fear makes me —
Theseus. My heart feels no fear.
Oedipus. You do not know the threats —
Theseus. I know that no man will take you out of here by force against my will. Threats have blustered many times, many loud and empty words out of a man's temper; but when the mind comes back to itself, the threats are gone. And as for those people — even if they have talked themselves up to some bold plan of carrying you off, I know that the sea between here and there will turn out long, and hard to sail. Whatever I may decide, I tell you to take heart, if it really was Apollo who sent you here. And even when I am not with you, I know my name will guard you from harm.
(Theseus goes.)
Chorus. Stranger, in this land of fine horses you have come to the fairest farmstead on earth, white Colonus, where the nightingale, clear-voiced, sings and sings, a constant guest in the green hollows, keeping to the wine-dark ivy and the god's untrodden leaves heavy with ten thousand berries, where no sun comes and no wind out of any storm; where Dionysus, drunk with his own joy, walks always on the ground, going about with the goddesses who nursed him.
Chorus. And under the dew of heaven the narcissus with its lovely clusters blooms new every day, the ancient crown of the two great goddesses, Demeter and her daughter; and the crocus, with its gleam of gold. The springs never sleep and never dwindle, the springs that feed the wandering streams of Cephisus, but every day it comes down over the plain with its clean water, quick to bring the crops, over the broad breast of the land. The dancing Muses have never turned away from this place, nor has
Chorus. Aphrodite with her golden reins. And there is a thing here I have not heard of in the land of Asia, nor ever yet in the great Dorian island of Pelops: a tree no hand has tamed, that plants itself, a terror to the spears of the enemy, and it grows best of all in this land — the grey-leaved olive, the nurse of children. No man young or old will lay a hand on it and wreck it and get away, for the eye of Zeus who guards the olives looks on it always and never closes, and so does grey-eyed Athena.
Chorus. And I have another praise for this mother city, the strongest of all, the gift of a great god, the land's proudest boast: good horses, good foals, and a good sea. Son of Cronus, Lord Poseidon, it was you who set her on that height of pride, when on these roads, the first of any, you made the bit that cures the rage of horses. And the oar, well shaped for the hand, that goes flashing past the land on the salt water, leaps on the sea to follow the Nereids with their hundred feet.
Antigone. Land that is praised above all lands, now is the time to show these bright words in what you do.
Oedipus. What is it, child? What has happened?
Antigone. Creon is coming towards us, father. He is close, and he has men with him.
Oedipus. Dearest old men, now let me have from you the last proof that I am safe.
Chorus. Take heart. You will have it. I may be old, but the strength of this country has not grown old.
(Creon comes in, with armed men behind him.)
Creon. Gentlemen, well-born people of this land, I can see in your eyes that my coming has put a sudden fear into you. Do not shrink from me, and do not let a hard word slip out. I have not come here meaning to do anything. I am an old man, and I know that the city I have come to is strong — as strong as any in Greece. No. I have been sent, old as I am, to persuade this man to come with me back to the land of Cadmus. Not sent by any one man: the whole people gave me the order, because it falls to me, as his kinsman, more than to anyone in Thebes, to grieve for what has happened to him.
Poor Oedipus, listen to me and come home. All the people of Cadmus call you, and they have the right to; and I most of all, because — unless I am the worst man ever born — I hurt most for your troubles, old man, when I see you, wretched as you are, a stranger and a wanderer for ever, going about with nothing to live on and one girl to lean on. I never thought, poor fool that I am, that she could sink as low as she has sunk, this unlucky child, looking after you and that head of yours for ever on a beggar's diet, at her age, with no husband, and there for the first passer-by to seize. Is that not a miserable reproach — oh, it is misery to say it — that I have thrown at you and at me and at our whole family? But what is out in the open cannot be hidden. So, Oedipus, by the gods of your fathers, listen to me and hide it: agree to come to the city and the house of your fathers. Say a kind goodbye to this city, which has deserved it. But the city at home has the older claim on your respect, because it was Thebes that raised you, long ago.
Oedipus. You who will dare anything, who can spin a cunning device out of any honest argument — why are you trying this on me? Why do you want to catch me a second time, in the trap where being caught would hurt me most? Before, when I was sick with the evils of my own house and it would have been a joy to me to be thrown out of the country, you would not do me that favour, though I wanted it. But when my anger had had its fill at last and living quietly in the house had become sweet to me — that was when you shoved me out and threw me away. And this kinship you talk about was nothing to you then. And now, again, when you see that this city and its whole people have taken me in and wish me well, you try to drag me away, saying hard things in a soft voice.
And what pleasure is there in being loved against your will? It is as if a man begged you and begged you for something and you gave him nothing and would not help him, and then, when his heart was full of all he had wanted, you handed it over — when the favour was no favour at all. Would that not be an empty kind of pleasure? Yet that is exactly what you are offering me: good in the words, evil in the deeds. And I will say it in front of these men too, to show them what you are. You have come to fetch me — not to take me home, but to plant me on your border, so that your city may get clear of this land without harm. That is not what you will get. What you will get is this: my avenging spirit living in your country for ever. And my sons will get just so much of my land as will serve them to die in.
Do I not understand the affairs of Thebes better than you do? Far better — because the voices I hear them from are truer: Apollo's, and Zeus's himself, who is Apollo's father. But your mouth has come here with a lie in it, and a very sharp edge; and with all your talking you are more likely to reap harm than safety. Still, I know I will not persuade you of that. Go. And let us live here. Even as we are, our life would not be a bad one, if we were content with it.
Creon. Which of us do you think comes off worse in this exchange — me, by what you have said, or you, by your own words?
Oedipus. The sweetest thing for me is that you cannot persuade me, and cannot persuade these men beside me either.
Creon. You poor wretch. Will you show everyone that not even time has grown you a mind, and that you feed your old age on what disgraces it?
Oedipus. You have a clever tongue. But I never knew an honest man who could make a fine speech out of any case at all.
Creon. Saying a great deal and saying what fits the moment are two different things.
Oedipus. As if what you say were short, and fitted the moment.
Creon. Not to anyone with a mind like yours, it does not.
Oedipus. Get out. I say it for these men too. And stop standing guard over me, watching the place where I am meant to stay.
Creon. I call these men to witness, not you, how you answer your own people. And if I ever get my hands on you —
Oedipus. And who is going to lay hands on me, against all these allies of mine?
Creon. I promise you, you will be hurt soon enough without that.
Oedipus. What have you done, that lets you make that threat?
Creon. Of your two daughters, one I have just now seized and sent away. The other I will take with me shortly.
Oedipus. Oh.
Creon. You will soon have more to cry about than that.
Oedipus. You have my child?
Creon. And this one too, before long.
Oedipus. Oh, strangers, what will you do? Will you betray me? Will you not drive this godless man out of your land?
Chorus. Out, stranger. Quickly. There is no justice in what you are doing now, and none in what you did before.
Creon. (to his men) It is time you took this girl away, whether she likes it or not, since she will not come willingly.
Antigone. Oh, no. Where can I run to? What help can I find, from gods or from men?
Chorus. What are you doing, stranger?
Creon. I will not touch this man. Only what is mine.
Oedipus. Lords of this land.
Chorus. Stranger, what you are doing is not just.
Creon. It is just.
Chorus. How is it just?
Creon. I am taking my own.
Oedipus. Oh, city.
Chorus. What are you doing, stranger? Let her go. It will come to a trial of strength between us soon.
Creon. Stand off.
Chorus. Not from you. Not while this is what you mean to do.
Creon. You will be at war with Thebes if you do me any harm.
Oedipus. Did I not say so?
Chorus. Take your hands off the girl. Now.
Creon. Do not give orders where you are not the master.
Chorus. Let her go, I tell you.
Creon. And I tell you: be on your way.
Chorus. Here, men of Colonus — come here, come here. The city is being taken by force. My city. Come here to me.
Antigone. They are dragging me away. Strangers. Strangers.
Oedipus. Child, where are you?
Antigone. They are taking me by force.
Oedipus. Reach out your hands to me, child.
Antigone. I cannot. I have no strength.
Creon. (to his men) Take her. Go.
Oedipus. Oh. I am wretched, wretched.
(The men go off with Antigone.)
Creon. So. You will never go walking on those two sticks again. And since you are set on beating your own country and your own people — whose orders I am carrying out, though I am the ruler there too — go on and beat them. In time, I know, you will understand this: that you are doing yourself no good now, and did none before, when you went against your own people and gave your anger its way. Your anger has always been the ruin of you.
(He moves towards Oedipus. The Chorus closes in on him.)
Chorus. Stop where you are, stranger.
Creon. Keep your hands off me, I tell you.
Chorus. I will not let you go until you give back those girls.
Creon. Then you will soon be paying the city a bigger ransom. I will lay hold of more than those two.
Chorus. What will you turn to next?
Creon. I will take this man, and carry him off.
Chorus. That is a terrible thing to say.
Creon. It will be done, now.
Chorus. Not unless the ruler of this land stops you.
Oedipus. Voice without shame. You are going to lay hands on me?
Creon. Be quiet, I tell you.
Oedipus. No. May the goddesses of this place not take my voice from me before I have said this one curse more. You, worst of men, when these eyes of mine were already dark, you tore from me the helpless girl who was my eyes, and you are making off with her by force. And so may the Sun, the god who sees everything, give you and your family a life like mine — an old age exactly like this.
Creon. Do you see this, people of the land?
Oedipus. They see you and they see me. And they understand that what was done to me was done with hands, and I fight back with words.
Creon. I will not hold my temper any longer. I will take this man by force, alone as I am and slow with age.
Oedipus. Oh. I am wretched.
Chorus. What arrogance you brought here with you, stranger, if you think you can carry this off.
Creon. I think so.
Chorus. Then I no longer count this a city at all.
Creon. When a man has justice on his side, the small man beats the big one.
Oedipus. Do you hear what he is saying?
Chorus. He will not do it. Great Zeus be my witness.
Creon. Zeus would know that. You do not.
Chorus. Is this not outrage?
Creon. Outrage. And you will have to put up with it.
Chorus. All of you, everyone, leaders of this land, come here, come quickly! These men are over the line already.
(Theseus comes in, with his men behind him.)
Theseus. What is that shouting? What has happened? What were you so afraid of, that you stopped me in the middle of a sacrifice at the altar of the sea god, the god who watches over this Colonus? Tell me all of it. I ran here faster than my legs enjoyed, and I want to know why.
Oedipus. Dearest of friends. I know your voice. This man here has just done me a terrible wrong.
Theseus. What wrong? Who has hurt you? Speak.
Oedipus. Creon. The man you are looking at. He has torn my children away from me, the only pair I had, and he is taking them off.
Theseus. What did you say?
Oedipus. You have heard what has been done to me.
Theseus. Then one of you men, quick, to the altars over there. Order the whole people to leave the sacrifice and race, on foot and on horseback, with the reins loose, to the place where the two roads the traders use come together, so that the girls do not get past, and I am not made a laughing-stock to this stranger, beaten by force. Go. Do as I have ordered, and fast.
As for this man: if I let my anger go as far as he has earned, he would not get out of my hands unhurt. As it is, he will be judged by the very laws he brought in here with him, and by no others. You will never leave this country until you have brought those girls back and set them here in front of me, where I can see them. What you have done is a disgrace to me, and to your own ancestors, and to your own land. You came into a city that practises justice and settles nothing without law; you brushed aside the authority of this country, burst in, took what you wanted and made it yours by force. You must have decided that my city was empty of men, or a city of slaves, and that I counted for exactly nothing.
And yet it was not Thebes that trained you to be bad. Thebes does not like to breed lawless men, and she would not praise you if she heard you were robbing me, and robbing the gods, dragging off by force the unhappy people who came to them for protection. If I had set foot in your country, even with the justest claim in the world, I would not have dragged anybody off or led anybody away without the consent of whoever ruled there. I would have known how a stranger ought to behave among citizens. But you are disgracing a city that does not deserve it, your own city; and the years piling up on you have made you old and empty of sense at the same time.
I said it before and I say it again now: somebody bring those girls here, fast, unless you want to become a resident of this country yourself, by force and not by choice. That is what I am telling you, and what is in my mind is the same as what is on my tongue.
Chorus. Do you see where you have landed, stranger? By where you come from, you look like a just man. By what you do, you turn out to be evil.
Creon. Son of Aegeus, I did not do this because I took this city for a place empty of men, or empty of counsel, as you say. I did it because I judged that nobody here would ever feel such a passion for my relatives that they would keep them against my will. And I knew this people would not take in a man who killed his father, a polluted man, a man found living in a marriage that was unholy, with children in it. That much I knew: this country has a council on the hill of Ares that judges well, and it does not allow wanderers like that to settle in this city. I trusted in that, and I laid hands on my prize.
And I would not have done it, if he had not called down bitter curses on me and on my family. That was the wrong done to me, and I thought I had the right to pay it back. Anger has no old age except death; only the dead feel no pain.
So do what you like. Even if I am in the right, having nobody on my side makes me small. Still, old as I am, I will try to answer what you do with what I do.
Oedipus. You shameless thing. Whose old age do you think you are insulting with this? Mine, or your own? Killings, marriages, disasters: you have let all of that out of your mouth at me, and I bore all of it, poor wretch, against my will. That was what the gods wanted; perhaps they had some old anger against my family. Take me by myself and you could not find one fault in me to throw in my face, no crime to explain why I did these wrongs to myself and to my own people.
Tell me this. If an oracle came to my father from the gods, saying he would die at the hands of his children, how can you justly hold that against me, when I had not been born yet, when no father had begotten me and no mother conceived me? I did not exist. And if, having been born unlucky, as I was, I came to blows with my father and killed him, understanding nothing of what I was doing or whom I was doing it to, how can you reasonably blame an act nobody meant?
And my mother. You wretch. Have you no shame, forcing me to speak of her marriage, when she was your own sister, and when it was the kind of marriage I am now going to describe? Because I will not keep quiet, when you have gone that far in unholy talk. She bore me. Yes, she bore me, oh, the misery of it, not knowing, and I not knowing; and having borne me, she gave me children, to her own shame. But one thing I know for certain: you foul-mouth her and me on purpose. I married her without meaning to, and I speak of it now without wanting to. No. I will not be called evil for that marriage, nor for my father's killing, which you keep flinging at me over and over, bitterly, as a taunt.
Answer me one question, only one. If someone came up to you, here and now, and tried to kill you, you, the just man, would you stop to ask whether the killer was your father, or would you pay him back on the spot? I think, if you are fond of living, you would pay back the man who did it, and not look round for a justification. Well, those are the evils I walked into, with the gods leading me. And I do not think my father's soul, if it came back to life, would say a word against me on that.
But you are not just. You think it is fine to say everything, what may be said and what may not, and so you taunt me like this in front of these men. And you find it fine to flatter Theseus's name, and Athens, and how well she is governed; and in the middle of all that praise you forget one thing: that if any land knows how to worship the gods with honour, this one comes first at it. And it is from this land that you tried to steal me, an old man and a suppliant. You laid hands on me, and you have taken my girls and gone. For that, I call on the goddesses of this place, I beg them, I lay it on them with my prayers: come as my helpers and my allies, so that you find out what kind of men stand guard over this city.
Chorus. The stranger is a good man, my lord. What has happened to him is utter ruin, and it deserves our help.
Theseus. Enough talk. The men who did this are running, and we, who were wronged, are standing still.
Creon. Then what are your orders for a man with no strength left?
Theseus. Lead the way on the road out there, and I will be your escort. If you are keeping the girls somewhere in these parts, you can show me where yourself. If your men are running off with them in their grip, there is no need for us to trouble: others are after them already, and they will never get out of this country to thank their gods. Go on. Lead. And understand this: the man who held has been held. Luck caught you in the middle of your hunt. What is got by dishonest trickery does not stay got.
And you will have nobody else to help you in this. I know very well you did not come to this pitch of outrage, this daring you have shown just now, unarmed and unprepared. There is somebody you trusted when you did it. That I must look into; I must not let this city be weaker than one man. Do you take any of that in? Or does it seem as empty to you now as it did when you were planning this?
Creon. Say what you like while I am here; I will not object. At home, we too shall know what has to be done.
Theseus. Threaten as you go. Oedipus, you stay here quietly, and trust me for this: unless I die first, I will not stop until I have put your children back in your hands.
Oedipus. Bless you, Theseus, for your nobility, and for the just care you have taken of us.
(Theseus goes out with his men, taking Creon with him.)
Chorus. Oh, to be there, where the enemy turn and stand, and soon the bronze cry of battle breaks: on Apollo's shore, perhaps, or the shore of the torches, where the great goddesses keep their holy rites for mortals, and their priests, the Eumolpids, carry a golden key upon the tongue. There, I think, Theseus, the man who wakes the fight, and the two unwed sisters will soon meet, in a shout that settles it, somewhere in these fields.
Chorus. Or maybe they are nearing the pastures west of Oea's snowy rock, on colts, or in chariots racing away at full stretch. He will be caught. Terrible is the war god of these parts, terrible the strength of Theseus's men. Every bridle flashes, every rider lets the reins go loose and comes on: all of them who honour Athena of the horses and the sea god who holds the earth, Rhea's own son.
Chorus. Are they at it, or still to start? Something tells me, my mind is a prophet, that soon I shall meet the girls who suffered terribly, who found terrible things at a kinsman's hands. Zeus will finish something, finish it today. I foretell a good fight. Oh, to be a dove, storm-fast, storm-strong, and reach a cloud high in the air, and hang my eye above the battle.
Chorus. Zeus, all-ruler of the gods, all-seeing Zeus, grant the guardians of this land the strength that wins, and bring the ambush to a good catch; and you, holy Pallas Athena, his child. And Apollo the hunter, and his sister, who follows the dappled deer that run so fast: I want them to come, two helpers, for this land and for its people. Wandering stranger, you will not say your watchman was a false prophet. I see the girls, there, with their escort, coming close again.
Oedipus. Where? Where? What are you saying? What did you say?
(Antigone and Ismene come in, with Theseus and his men.)
Antigone. Father. Father. If only some god would let you see this best of men, who has brought us back here to you.
Oedipus. Child, are you both really here?
Antigone. Yes. These arms saved us: Theseus's, and his dearest men's.
Oedipus. Come here to your father, children. Let me hold you. I never hoped you would come back.
Antigone. You will get what you ask for. We want the gift as much as you do.
Oedipus. Where are you, then? Where?
Antigone. Here. We are coming to you together.
Oedipus. My dearest branches.
Antigone. Everything is dear to the one who made it.
Oedipus. The props a man leans on.
Antigone. Unlucky props of an unlucky man.
Oedipus. I have what I love most. Now if I died I would not be wholly wretched, with the two of you standing beside me. Press against me, children, one on each side, grown to the father who grew you, and give me rest from that wandering, so lonely and so wretched, before this. And tell me what happened, as briefly as you can. For girls of your age a short account is enough.
Antigone. Here is the man who saved us. Hear it from him, father; the deed was his. That way my part will be short.
Oedipus. Stranger, do not wonder if I go on at length, and stubbornly, with children who have come back when I had given up hope. I know very well that this joy in them has come to me from you and from nobody else. You saved them; no other man alive did. And may the gods give you what I wish for you, you yourself and this land; because it is among you alone, of all people, that I have found reverence, and decency, and mouths that do not lie. I know it, and these words are how I pay it back. What I have, I have through you and through no other man.
Give me your right hand, my lord, so I can touch it, and kiss your face, if that is allowed. But what am I saying? How could a man like me, born to misery, want you to touch a man in whom every stain of evil has come to live? I will not do it. I would not let you, if you offered. Only people who have been through this can share the weight of it. Take my greeting from where you stand, and go on caring for me justly, as you have up to this hour.
Theseus. I am not surprised that you spun your words out at some length in your delight at these children, or that you put their words ahead of mine. There is nothing in that to weigh on me. It is not with words that I try to make my life shine, but with things done. And here is the proof: I have broken none of what I swore to you, old man. I am here, bringing the girls alive, untouched by all those threats. As for how the fight was won, why should I boast about it for nothing, when you will hear it yourself from these two once you are together?
But there is something that came my way just now, as I was walking here. Give me your opinion on it. It is a small thing to tell, but it is worth wondering about; and a man should treat nothing as beneath his notice.
Oedipus. What is it, son of Aegeus? Tell me. I know nothing of what you are asking about.
Theseus. They say a man, not from your city, but of your blood, has thrown himself down somehow at the altar of Poseidon and is sitting there as a suppliant. The altar where I was sacrificing when I set out to come here.
Oedipus. Where is he from? What does he want by sitting there?
Theseus. I know only one thing. They tell me he asks for a short word with you. Nothing heavy.
Oedipus. What kind of word? A seat at an altar is not the seat for a small matter.
Theseus. They say he asks only to come and speak with you, and to go back the way he came in safety.
Oedipus. Who could it be, sitting at that altar?
Theseus. Think. Is there anybody of your family in Argos who might want that favour from you?
Oedipus. Dearest friend, stop there.
Theseus. What is wrong?
Oedipus. Do not ask me to —
Theseus. To what? Say it.
Oedipus. From what I have heard, I know who this suppliant is.
Theseus. And who is he, that I should have anything against him?
Oedipus. My son, my lord. The hated one. Of all men alive, his are the words it would hurt me most to hear.
Theseus. Why? Can you not listen, and still not do what you do not want to do? What is painful to you in hearing him?
Oedipus. That voice, my lord, has become the most hateful thing there is to his father. Do not force me to give way in this.
Theseus. But consider whether his sitting there compels you. Whether you have a duty to the god that you must keep.
Antigone. Father, listen to me, even if I am young to be giving advice. Let this man do what his own heart and the god want; let him give that favour. And give way to the two of us, and let our brother come. He will not drag you off your resolve by force, do not be afraid of that, with words that are not to your good. What harm is there in hearing words? Things badly planned show themselves in the telling. You fathered him. So even if he is doing you the wickedest of the wickedest wrongs, father, it is not right for you to wrong him back. Let him come. Other men have bad children and a sharp temper too, and still they are talked round; their friends' words work on their nature like a spell.
Look back at those things, not at now: at what you suffered through your father and your mother. If you look at that, I know you will see how bad an end comes of a bad temper. You have no small reason to think about it, robbed as you are of the eyes that cannot see. Give way to us. It is not right that people asking for what is just should have to keep on asking; nor that a man should be treated well and then not know how to pay it back.
Oedipus. Child, you win, and the pleasure you win from me weighs heavily. Let it be as you two want. Only, stranger, if that man is to come here, let nobody ever get power over my life.
Theseus. I need to hear that once, old man, not twice. I do not want to boast; but know that you are safe, so long as any god keeps me safe.
(Theseus goes out.)
Chorus. Whoever wants the larger share of life, and lets the fitting measure go, is keeping company with folly: that is plain to me. Because the long days lay down a great deal that is nearer to pain, and where the pleasures are you will not find, once a man falls past what he needs. And the helper comes to all alike in the end, when the doom of Hades shows itself, no wedding song, no lyre, no dance: death at the last.
Chorus. Not to be born beats every argument. And once a man has appeared, to go back where he came from as fast as he can is next best by far. For when youth goes by, with its light-headed follies in its hands, what heavy blow stays away? What labour is not in it? Envy, faction, strife, battles, and killings. And last of all, allotted, comes despised old age, weak, unsociable, friendless, where every evil of evils lives together.
Chorus. That is where he is, this poor man, and not I alone. Like some headland facing north, beaten by the waves on every side in winter, so the terrible ruins break on him too, wave after wave, from crown to base, and never leave him: some from the setting of the sun, some from its rising, some from the beam of noon, some from the Rhipaean hills of night.
Antigone. And look, here comes the stranger, it seems, and alone, father, nobody with him. He is walking this way with the tears pouring from his eyes.
Oedipus. Who is it?
Antigone. The man we have had in mind all this while. Polyneices has come to us.
(Polyneices comes in.)
Polyneices. Oh, what am I to do? Do I weep first for my own troubles, sisters, or for what I see of his, my father's, an old man's? I have found him here, in a strange country, cast out, with the two of you, in clothes like these, whose filth, old and loathsome, has settled on the old man's body and is wasting his sides; and on his eyeless head the hair blows uncombed in the wind. And the food he carries for his poor belly, it seems, is a match for all the rest.
I am wretched, utterly, and I learn it all far too late. And I say it against myself: I have come here the worst of men, in the matter of feeding you. Do not learn what I am from anybody else. But Shame sits beside Zeus on his throne, over everything men do; let her stand beside you too, father. There are cures for the wrongs I have done; there is no adding to them any more.
Why are you silent? Say something, father. Do not turn away from me. Will you not answer me at all? Will you send me off in dishonour, without a word, without even telling me what you are angry about?
Seed of this man, my sisters, you at least try to move our father's mouth, which will not be approached and will not speak, so that he does not send me off like this, dishonoured, when I am the god's suppliant, without one word in answer.
Antigone. Say it yourself, poor man: what you have come needing. A flood of words, by pleasing somehow, or angering, or stirring pity, has given a voice before now to people who had none.
Polyneices. Then I will say it. You guide me well. First I make the god himself my helper, the god from whose altar the ruler of this land raised me up to come here, granting me the right to speak and to hear and to leave in safety. And I will want the same from you, strangers, and from these two sisters, and from my father.
Now what I came for, father. I want to tell you. I have been driven out of my own country as an exile, because I claimed, as the elder-born, the right to sit on your throne, the throne of sole power. For that Eteocles, my younger brother, thrust me out of the land, not by beating me in argument, not by coming to any test of hand or deed, but by persuading the city. And the chief cause of that, I say, is your Fury; and I hear the same from the prophets.
When I came to Dorian Argos, and took Adrastus as my father-in-law, I bound to myself by oath every man in the land of Apia who is called first and honoured with the spear, so that with them I could gather the army of seven spears against Thebes, and either die in a wholly just cause or throw the men who did this out of the land.
Well. Why have I come now? To you, father, with a suppliant's prayers, on my own account and on my allies', who now with seven companies and seven spears stand round the whole plain of Thebes. There is Amphiaraus, the spear-shaker, first with the spear and first in the paths of birds; second, the Aetolian, Tydeus, son of Oeneus; third, Eteoclus, Argive born; fourth, Hippomedon, sent by his father Talaus; the fifth, Capaneus, swears he will raze the town of Thebes and burn it to the ground; sixth, Parthenopaeus the Arcadian comes hurrying, named for the mother who was long a virgin before she bore him, the true son of Atalanta; and I, your son, or if not yours, then the child of an evil fate, but called yours at least, lead the fearless army of Argos against Thebes.
And all of us, father, beg you by these children and by your own life, and we ask you to let go of your heavy anger against this man, as he sets out to punish his brother, who thrust him out and robbed him of his country. Because if there is anything to trust in oracles, they said the power would be with whichever side you joined.
So now, by our springs and by the gods of our blood, I ask you to listen and give way. We are beggars and strangers, and you are a stranger; you and I live by flattering other men, both of us, with the same fate allotted to us. And he, the tyrant at home, oh, the misery of it, laughs at us both and grows soft on it. If you stand with my purpose, I will scatter him with little trouble and in little time. And then I will bring you home and set you in your own house, and set myself there too, once I have thrown him out by force. That is a boast I can make, with you on my side. Without you, I have not the strength even to survive.
Chorus. Oedipus — for the sake of the man who sent him, say whatever is right to say, and then send him back.
Oedipus. Men who hold this land: if it had not been Theseus who sent him here to me — Theseus, who thought it fair that he should hear my answer — he would never have heard my voice at all. As it is, he has been granted that much, and he will go away having heard from me things that will never once make his life any happier.
You. Worst of men. When you held the sceptre and the throne that your brother holds in Thebes now, you drove out your own father — this man here — and made me a man with no city, and made me wear these rags, the rags that bring tears to your eyes now you look at them, now that you have walked into the same misery I am in. This is nothing to weep over. It is something I have to carry, for as long as I live, remembering you as my murderer. You are the one who put me here, to live on hardship. You threw me out. It is because of you that I wander and beg my daily bread from strangers. And if these girls had not been born to me to look after me, I would be dead, for anything you did. As it is they keep me alive. They are the ones who look after me. They are men, not women, when it comes to sharing the work. You two are some other man's sons, not mine.
So the god's eye is on you — not yet as it will be, very soon, if those companies of yours are really marching on the city of Thebes. There is no way you will ever tear that city down. Before that, you will fall, fouled with blood, and your brother with you, the two of you alike. Those are the curses I sent up against the pair of you before, and I call on them now to come and fight on my side, so that you two learn to respect the parents who made you, and not to hold your father in contempt because the father who fathered such sons is blind. These girls did not do that. So my curses have your seat of supplication in their power, and your throne with it — if Justice, spoken of from of old, still sits beside Zeus under the ancient laws.
Now get out. I spit you out. You have no father in me. Worst of all bad men, take these curses with you that I call down on you: never to conquer the land of your own blood with the spear, never to come home to the valley of Argos, but to die by a kinsman's hand, and to kill the man who drove you out. That is my prayer. And I call on the hateful darkness of Tartarus, where my fathers are, to take you away and house you there. I call on the goddesses of this place. I call on Ares, who threw that terrible hatred into the two of you. You have heard it. Now go. Go and tell all the people of Cadmus, and your loyal allies with them, what kind of inheritance Oedipus has divided among his sons.
Chorus. Polyneices, I take no pleasure in the road that brought you here. Now go back, as fast as you can.
Polyneices. Oh, my journey. Oh, the failure of it — and my companions. So that is the end of the road we set out on from Argos. I am wretched. An end I cannot even speak of to a single one of my companions, and cannot turn them back from. I have to go and meet it without a word.
Sisters — his daughters, my own blood — you have heard the hard things our father is praying for. If his curses are fulfilled, and you somehow find a way home, then by the gods do not dishonour me. Put me in a grave, with the rites the dead are owed. The praise you get from this man now, for the work you do for him, will bring you another praise no smaller, for what you do for me.
Antigone. Polyneices, I beg you. Listen to me about one thing.
Polyneices. What is it, dearest Antigone? Say it.
Antigone. Turn your army back to Argos, as fast as you can. Do not destroy yourself and the city both.
Polyneices. It cannot be done. How could I ever lead the same army out again, once I had shown fear?
Antigone. But why do you need to be angry a second time, brother? What do you gain by tearing down your own homeland?
Polyneices. It is shameful to be in exile — I am the elder — and to be laughed at like this by my brother.
Antigone. Then do you see how you are carrying his prophecies straight to their mark? He says the two of you will die at each other's hands.
Polyneices. Because that is what he wants. I cannot give way to it.
Antigone. Oh, I am wretched. But who will dare to follow you, once they hear what this man has foretold?
Polyneices. I will not report bad news. A good commander tells the better side and keeps the worse to himself.
Antigone. So that is what you have decided, brother?
Polyneices. Yes. And do not hold me back. This road is mine to take now, doomed and evil, thanks to my father here and his Furies. As for you two — may Zeus be good to you, if you do this for me when I am dead. Alive, you will not have me again. Let go of me now. Goodbye. You will never see me living again.
Antigone. Oh, I am wretched.
Polyneices. Do not grieve for me.
Antigone. Who could help grieving for you, brother, when you are hurrying towards a death you can see in front of you?
Polyneices. If I have to, I will die.
Antigone. No. Listen to me instead.
Polyneices. Do not urge what must not be.
Antigone. Then I am wretched past all bearing, if I lose you.
Polyneices. That lies with the god — this way, or the other. As for you two, I pray to the gods that you never meet with harm. Everyone knows you do not deserve to suffer.
(Polyneices goes.)
Chorus. New troubles — here they come, new, heavy with fate, from the blind stranger, unless what is allotted is finding its mark. I cannot say that any purpose of the gods is empty. Time sees these things. Time always sees them, throwing some of them down, and the next day raising others up again. The sky cracked. Zeus!
Oedipus. Children, children — is there anyone here who could bring Theseus, the best of men, to me?
Antigone. Father, what is it you want him for?
Oedipus. This winged thunder of Zeus is going to take me to Hades, now. Send for him. Quickly.
(Thunder.)
Chorus. Look — a great one. It comes crashing down, the unspeakable noise, thrown by Zeus. Terror has run up into the ends of my hair. My heart is cowering. The lightning is burning across the sky again. What end will it let loose? I am afraid. It never flies out for nothing, never without something coming after it. Great sky! Zeus!
Oedipus. Children, the end of my life that was foretold has come for me. There is no turning from it now.
Antigone. How do you know? What tells you so?
Oedipus. I know it well. Somebody go, as fast as he can, and bring the lord of this land to me.
(Thunder.)
Chorus. Ah — ah — there! Once again the piercing crash is all round us. Be kind, god, be kind, if you are bringing something dark for the earth, our mother. Let me find you gracious. Let me not, because I looked on a man under a curse, come in for a favour that brings no gain. Lord Zeus, I am calling to you.
Oedipus. Is the man near? Will he find me still breathing, children, and my mind still steady?
Antigone. What is the promise you want fixed in his mind?
Oedipus. To give them, for the good they did me, the favour I promised when I received it — in full.
Chorus. Come, my son, come! Even if you are out on the headland, in the hollow, making the altar holy with an ox for Poseidon, god of the sea — come. The stranger thinks you and your city and your people deserve a just return for what he was given. Hurry. Run, my lord.
(Theseus comes in.)
Theseus. What is this noise again, all of you together — my own people plainly, and the stranger as clear as they are? Was it a thunderbolt from Zeus, or a burst of hail out of the rain? When a god sends a storm like this, you can guess at anything.
Oedipus. My lord, you have appeared just when I wanted you. Some god has made this journey of yours a lucky one.
Theseus. What is it now, son of Laius? What is new?
Oedipus. My life is tipping on the scale. I want to die without cheating you and this city of what I agreed to.
Theseus. What proof of your death are you relying on?
Oedipus. The gods themselves are the heralds. They are announcing it to me, and not one of the signs that were laid down is false.
Theseus. How do you mean, old man? What makes it plain?
Oedipus. The thunder, crash after crash, and the many bolts of lightning flashing from the hand that nobody has ever beaten.
Theseus. You convince me. I have seen you prophesy a good deal, and none of it false. Tell me what has to be done.
Oedipus. I will teach you, son of Aegeus, what will be laid up for this city and will never grow old or bring you pain. I myself, now, with no hand to guide me, will lead the way to the place where I must die. Never tell any human being where it is — neither where it is hidden nor what part of the country it lies in — so that it may stand for you always as a defence, better than many shields, better than allied spears brought in from your neighbours. The things too holy to be stirred by speech you will learn for yourself when you come to that place alone. I cannot speak them to any of these citizens, nor to my own children, though I love them. Keep them yourself, always; and when you come to the end of your life, tell them to your eldest son alone, and let him show them in turn to the one who comes after him, for ever. That way you will keep this city safe from the men who grew from the dragon's teeth. Countless cities, however well they are governed, slip easily into outrage. The gods see well, but they see late, when a man throws away what is theirs and turns to madness. Do not want that to happen to you, son of Aegeus. But I am teaching a man what he knows already.
Now, the place — the god's presence is pressing me — let us go, and not hold back any longer. Children, follow me, this way. It is my turn now. I have come out as a new guide for the two of you, as you were for your father. Come. Do not touch me. Let me find the holy tomb by myself, where it is allotted that this man be hidden in this earth. This way. Here — this way. Hermes the guide is leading me this way, and the goddess of the dead. Light — no light to me — once, somewhere, you were mine; now my body feels you for the last time. I am going now to hide the end of my life in the house of Hades. Dearest of hosts — you, and this land, and your people — may you be happy; and in your good fortune remember me when I am dead, and be fortunate for ever.
(He goes into the grove, leading. His daughters, Theseus and his men follow him.)
Chorus. If it is right for me to honour with my prayers the goddess no one sees, and you, lord of the things of the night, Aidoneus, Aidoneus — I beg you: let the stranger come to the end without pain, without a death of heavy groaning, to the plain of the dead below that hides everything, and the house of the Styx. Many were the sufferings that came to him for nothing. Let a just god raise him up again.
Chorus. Goddesses under the earth, and you, the body of the beast nobody has beaten, who lie at the gates where so many come, and snarl out of the cave — the untamed guard beside Hades, so the story has always gone: I pray to you, Death, child of Earth and Tartarus, that the beast leave the way clear for the stranger as he sets out for the plain of the dead below. You are the one I call on, the sleep that does not end.
(A Messenger comes out of the grove.)
Messenger. Citizens — the shortest way to tell it is to say that Oedipus is dead. But what happened cannot be told in a few words, and what was done there was not small either.
Chorus. He is dead, then — the poor man?
Messenger. You can be sure that he has left this everyday life behind him.
Chorus. How? By some god's doing, and without pain, poor man?
Messenger. That is exactly the part worth wondering at. How he set out from here you know yourself; you were here. No one of his friends leading him — he himself leading all of us. When he had come to the steep path down, the one rooted into the earth with steps of bronze, he stopped on one of the many branching tracks, near the hollow basin in the rock where the pact of Theseus and Peirithous is kept, faithful for ever. He stood midway between that basin and the Thorician rock, between the hollow wild pear and the tomb of stone, and there he sat down, and undid his filthy clothes. Then he called his daughters and told them to bring water from somewhere running, for washing and for an offering. The two of them went to the hill in sight of us, the hill of Demeter of the green shoots, and did what their father asked in a short time; they washed him and dressed him the way it is done.
When he had had everything he wanted done, and nothing he had asked for was left undone, Zeus under the earth thundered. The girls shivered when they heard it. They fell at their father's knees and wept, and did not stop beating their breasts and wailing at full length. And when he heard that sudden bitter sound he folded his arms round them and said: "Children, on this day you have no father any more. All that was mine is gone now, and you will not have the hard work of looking after me any longer. It was hard, I know, children. But one word alone undoes all that labour. Love — no one ever gave you more of that than this man did; and now you will be without him for the rest of your lives."
Messenger. Like that, clinging to one another, all of them sobbed and wept. But when they came to the end of their weeping and the sound had died away, there was silence. And suddenly a voice called out to him, so that every one of us stood with our hair on end in a sudden terror. The god called him, again and again, from every side: "You — you there, Oedipus. Why are we waiting to go? You have kept us too long already." When he understood it was a god calling him, he asked for the lord of the land to come to him, Theseus himself. And when Theseus came, he said: "Dear friend, give me the pledge of your right hand, the one an oath is sworn on, for my children — and you, children, give yours to him. Promise never to betray these girls of your own free will, and always to do whatever, in your good judgement, is for their good." And he, like the fine man he is, without any show of pity, swore to the stranger that he would do it.
When that was done, Oedipus at once felt for his children with his blind hands, and said: "Children, you must bear it bravely in your hearts and go away from this place. Do not think it right to look at what must not be seen, or to hear people saying what must not be heard. Go, as fast as you can. Only Theseus, who has the right, must stay and learn what is done here." That much we all heard him say, and we went with the girls, groaning, our tears running unchecked. When we had gone a little way, in a short time we turned and looked back — and the man was nowhere. Not there at all any more. Only the king, alone, holding his hand up in front of his face to shade his eyes, as if something terrible had appeared, something not to be looked at. And then, in a very short while, we saw him bowing down to the earth and to Olympus of the gods in one and the same prayer.
By what death that man died, no mortal could tell you, except Theseus alone. No fiery thunderbolt of the god took him off; no whirlwind rose from the sea in that hour. Either some escort came from the gods, or the dark floor of the underworld opened kindly for him, without pain. The man was sent on his way with no grieving, no sickness, no suffering — and if any mortal ever was, he was a wonder. If I seem to anyone to be talking nonsense, I would not try to win over a man who thinks I am a fool.
Chorus. Where are his daughters, and the friends who went with them?
Messenger. Not far. The sound of their grief is plain enough. It tells you they are coming this way.
(Antigone and Ismene come in.)
Antigone. Aiai. Oh — now, now it is ours, the two of us, and not one thing only but all of it: to weep for the cursed blood in our father, planted in us, doomed as we are — the father for whom we carried the long labour, steady, all that time, and now at the last we bring back what cannot be reckoned: what we saw and what we suffered.
Chorus. What is it?
Antigone. You can guess it, friends.
Chorus. He is gone?
Antigone. Just as you would most wish, if you were wishing. How not? No war god met him, and no sea; the plains that no eye can see took him, carried off in some death nobody witnessed. Wretched — and on our eyes a night of destruction has come down. How are we to find the hard bread of life, wandering some far land, or the swell of the sea?
Ismene. I do not know. Let Hades, the killer, take me down to die with my old father. I am wretched. The life ahead of me is not a life to be lived.
Chorus. Best pair of daughters — what a god brings, you must bear. Do not burn too hot with grief. You have come through nothing to be blamed for.
Antigone. So there was a longing even for troubles. What was in no way dear was dear, all the while I held him in my arms. Father — dear one — you who wear the dark under the earth for ever, even down there you will never be unloved by me and by her.
Chorus. He did it?
Antigone. He did what he wanted.
Chorus. What was that?
Antigone. He died on the foreign ground he wanted. He has his bed under the earth, well shaded, for ever, and he did not leave a grief behind him unwept. This eye of mine, father, weeps for you and goes on weeping. I do not know how I am to make a pain this size disappear. Oh — you wanted to die on foreign ground, but you died like this, with no one by you. Not me.
Ismene. Wretched — what lot is waiting for you and me now, dear one, left like this without a father?
Chorus. But since he untied the end of his life in blessedness, friends, stop this grieving. Nobody is out of the reach of harm.
Antigone. Let us hurry back, dear one.
Ismene. To do what?
Antigone. A longing has hold of me.
Ismene. For what?
Antigone. To see the hearth under the earth —
Ismene. Whose?
Antigone. Our father's. Oh, I am wretched.
Ismene. How can that be allowed? Surely you see —
Antigone. Why do you scold me?
Ismene. And this too —
Antigone. What now? What is it this time?
Ismene. He fell without a tomb, apart from everyone.
Antigone. Take me there, and then kill me too.
Ismene. Aiai. Wretched past bearing — where, now, alone like this, with no way out, am I to live my hard life?
Chorus. Girls — do not be afraid.
Antigone. But where am I to run?
Chorus. Before this, something escaped —
Antigone. What?
Chorus. Your affairs. They escaped falling out badly.
Antigone. I know.
Chorus. Then what is it you are thinking?
Antigone. How we are to get home — I do not know.
Chorus. Do not even look for it.
Antigone. Hardship has hold of us.
Chorus. It had before, too.
Antigone. Then it was past bearing. Now it is worse than that.
Chorus. A great sea of it is what you two were allotted.
Antigone. Yes. Yes.
Chorus. I say so too.
Antigone. Aiai — where are we to go, Zeus? To what hope, of all that are left, is the god driving me now?
(Theseus comes in.)
Theseus. Stop your wailing, children. Where the favour of the night below is stored up as a treasure shared by all, grieving is not right. It brings retribution.
Antigone. Son of Aegeus, we fall at your feet.
Theseus. To have what done, children?
Antigone. We want to see our father's tomb ourselves, with our own eyes.
Theseus. That is not allowed.
Antigone. What do you mean, my lord — ruler of Athens?
Theseus. Children, he forbade me to let anyone come near that place, or any mortal call out over the holy tomb that holds him. If I did that well, he said, I would keep this country free of pain for ever. The god heard me say it, and the Oath of Zeus, that hears all things.
Antigone. If that is what he had in mind, then it must be enough for us. But send us to Thebes, old Thebes, in case we can somehow stop the killing that is coming for our brothers.
Theseus. I will do that, and everything else I can do that is of use to you and pleasing to the man under the earth who has just gone from us. I must not tire of it.
Chorus. Stop now. Do not raise the lament any higher. All this stands settled. It holds.