Read Online Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles - Free Book Online

From Corinth. He says Polybos your father is dead.
1110 OEDIPUS Say it, old man. I want to hear it from your mouth.
MESSENGER If the plain tact is what you want first,
have no doubt he is dead and gone.
OEDIPUS Was it treason, or did disease bring him down?
MESSENGER A slight push tips an old man into stillness.
OEDIPUS Then it was some sickness that killed him?
MESSENGER That, and the long years he had lived.
OEDIPUS Oh yes, wife, why should we search Pythian smoke
or be terrorized by birds screaming up there?
If signs like these had been telling the truth
1120 I would have killed my father. But he's dead.
He's safely in the ground, and I'm here,
who never raised a spear. Unless
he died of longing for me, and that
is what my killing him means. No more than that.
This time, Polybos' death has swept
those worthless oracles with him to Hades.
JOCASTA Didn't I promise you before they were worthless?
OEDIPUS You did. But I was too worried to believe you.
JOCASTA It's time to stop caring about all this.

     

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1130 OEDIPUS I must care. I must not touch my mother's bed.
JOCASTA What should a human being fear?
Chance is what shapes our lives.
There's no such thing as real foreknowledge.
The best life is one taken as it comes.
This marriage with your motherdon't fear it.
In their very dreams, too, many men
have slept with their own mothers.
A man who shrugs off such things
as meaningless will bear his life best.
1140 OEDIPUS A brave speech which I would like to believe.
But how can I if my mother is still living?
While she lives, I will live in fear,
though you do your best to reason with me.
JOCASTA Your father's tomb is a great flood of light.
OEDIPUS Great, yes! But she's aliveshe is my fear.
MESSENGER What woman do you fear?
OEDIPUS I dread that oracle from the god, stranger.
MESSENGER Would it be wrong for someone else to know it?
OEDIPUS No, you may hear it. Apollo told me
1150 I would become my mother's lover, that I
would have my father's blood on these hands.
I haven't gone near Corinth since I heard that.
Ever since, I have been luckyyet,
what happiness to see
our parents with our own eyes!
MESSENGER Did this oracle force you into exile?
OEDIPUS To keep me from being my father's killer, old man.
MESSENGER Then let me free you from your fear, King.
I came here only with helping you in mind.
1160 OEDIPUS I would give anything to be free of fear.
MESSENGER I confess I came partly for that reason
to be favored by you when you've come home.
OEDIPUS I'll never live where my parents live.
MESSENGER My son, you can't possibly know what you're doing.
OEDIPUS Why is that, old man? In god's name, tell me.
MESSENGER Is it because of them you won't go home?

     

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OEDIPUS I am afraid Apollo told the truth.
MESSENGER Afraid you'd do your parents unforgivable harm?
OEDIPUS Exactly that, old man. I am in constant fear.
1170 MESSENGER Your fear is groundless. Do you grasp that?
OEDIPUS How can it be groundless if I'm their son?
MESSENGER But Polybos was no relation to you.
OEDIPUS What? Polybos was not my father?
MESSENGER No more than I am. The same.
OEDIPUS How the same? He fathered me and you didn't.
MESSENGER He didn't father you any more than I did.
OEDIPUS Why did he say, then, I was his son?
MESSENGER He took you from my hands as a gift.
OEDIPUS He loved me so muchknowing I came from you?
1180 MESSENGER His lack of children taught him to love you.
OEDIPUS And you? Did you buy me? Or find me somewhere?
MESSENGER I found you. In the wooded hollows of Cithairon.
OEDIPUS Why were you traveling out there?
MESSENGER I had charge of sheep grazing those slopes.
OEDIPUS A migrant hired to work our flocks?
MESSENGER I saved your life that day, my son.
OEDIPUS From what? Was something wrong with me?
MESSENGER Your ankles might answer that question.
OEDIPUS You know that? Why do you name my oldest wound?
1190 MESSENGER I cut the thongs that pierced and laced your feet.
OEDIPUS From birth I've carried the shame of