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    The Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Rex, & Antigone
    The Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Rex, & Antigone
    The Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Rex, & Antigone
    Ebook236 pages2 hours

    The Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Rex, & Antigone

    By Sophocles

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    Sophocles’ Theban Plays— King Oedipus, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone—lie at the core of the Western literary canon. Chronicling the downfall of Oedipus, the legendary king of Thebes, and his descendants, the Theban Plays are as relevant to present-day thought about love, duty, patriotism, family, and war as when they were written 2,500 years ago.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media
    Release dateAug 28, 2018
    ISBN9781974997411
    The Theban Plays: Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Rex, & Antigone
    Author

    Sophocles

    Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than or contemporary with those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides.

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      The Theban Plays - Sophocles

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      OEDIPUS REX

      ARGUMENT

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      OEDIPUS REX

      OEDIPUS AT COLONUS

      ARGUMENT

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      OEDIPUS AT COLONUS

      ANTIGONE

      ARGUMENT

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      ANTIGONE

      OEDIPUS REX

      ARGUMENT

      To Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found the babe and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him to his master, the King of Corinth. Polybus being childless adopted the boy, who grew up believing that he was indeed the King's son. Afterwards doubting his parentage he inquired of the Delphic god and heard himself the word declared before to Laius. Wherefore he fled from what he deemed his father's house and in his flight he encountered and unwillingly slew his father Laius. Arriving at Thebes he answered the riddle of the Sphinx and the grateful Thebans made their deliverer king. So he reigned in the room of Laius, and espoused the widowed queen. Children were born to them and Thebes prospered under his rule, but again a grievous plague fell upon the city. Again the oracle was consulted and it bade them purge themselves of blood-guiltiness. Oedipus denounces the crime of which he is unaware, and undertakes to track out the criminal. Step by step it is brought home to him that he is the man. The closing scene reveals Jocasta slain by her own hand and Oedipus blinded by his own act and praying for death or exile.

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      Oedipus.

      The Priest of Zeus.

      Creon.

      Chorus of Theban Elders.

      Teiresias.

      Jocasta.

      Messenger.

      Herd of Laius.

      Second Messenger.

      Scene: Thebes. Before the Palace of Oedipus.

      OEDIPUS REX

      Suppliants of all ages are seated round the altar at the palace doors, at their head a PRIEST OF ZEUS.

      To them enter OEDIPUS.

      OEDIPUS

      My children, latest born to Cadmus old,

      Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands

      Branches of olive filleted with wool?

      What means this reek of incense everywhere,

      And everywhere laments and litanies?

      Children, it were not meet that I should learn

      From others, and am hither come, myself,

      I Oedipus, your world-renowned king.

      Ho! aged sire, whose venerable locks

      Proclaim thee spokesman of this company,

      Explain your mood and purport.

      Is it dread

      Of ill that moves you or a boon ye crave?

      My zeal in your behalf ye cannot doubt;

      Ruthless indeed were I and obdurate

      If such petitioners as you I spurned.

      PRIEST

      Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king,

      Thou seest how both extremes of age besiege

      Thy palace altars—fledglings hardly winged,

      and greybeards bowed with years; priests, as am I

      of Zeus, and these the flower of our youth.

      Meanwhile, the common folk, with wreathed boughs

      Crowd our two market-places, or before

      Both shrines of Pallas congregate, or where

      Ismenus gives his oracles by fire.

      For, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State,

      Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head,

      Foundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.

      A blight is on our harvest in the ear,

      A blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,

      A blight on wives in travail; and withal

      Armed with his blazing torch the God of Plague

      Hath swooped upon our city emptying

      The house of Cadmus, and the murky realm

      Of Pluto is full fed with groans and tears.

      Therefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit,

      I and these children; not as deeming thee

      A new divinity, but the first of men;

      First in the common accidents of life,

      And first in visitations of the Gods.

      Art thou not he who coming to the town

      of Cadmus freed us from the tax we paid

      To the fell songstress?

      Nor hadst thou received

      Prompting from us or been by others schooled;

      No, by a god inspired (so all men deem,

      And testify) didst thou renew our life.

      And now, O Oedipus, our peerless king,

      All we thy votaries beseech thee, find

      Some succor, whether by a voice from heaven

      Whispered, or haply known by human wit.

      Tried counselors, methinks, are aptest found ¹

      To furnish for the future pregnant rede.

      Upraise, O chief of men, upraise our State!

      Look to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore

      Our country's savior thou art justly hailed:

      O never may we thus record thy reign:—

      He raised us up only to cast us down.

      Uplift us, build our city on a rock.

      Thy happy star ascendant brought us luck,

      O let it not decline!

      If thou wouldst rule

      This land, as now thou reignest, better sure

      To rule a peopled than a desert realm.

      Nor battlements nor galleys aught avail,

      If men to man and guards to guard them tail.

      OEDIPUS

      Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too well,

      The quest that brings you hither and your need.

      Ye sicken all, well wot I, yet my pain,

      How great soever yours, outtops it all.

      Your sorrow touches each man severally,

      Him and none other, but I grieve at once

      Both for the general and myself and you.

      Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams.

      Many, my children, are the tears I've wept,

      And threaded many a maze of weary thought.

      Thus pondering one clue of hope I caught,

      And tracked it up; I have sent Menoeceus' son,

      Creon, my consort's brother, to inquire

      Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine,

      How I might save the State by act or word.

      And now I reckon up the tale of days

      Since he set forth, and marvel how he fares.

      'Tis strange, this endless tarrying, passing strange.

      But when he comes, then I were base indeed,

      If I perform not all the god declares.

      PRIEST

      Thy words are well timed; even as thou speakest

      That shouting tells me Creon is at hand.

      OEDIPUS

      O King Apollo! may his joyous looks

      Be presage of the joyous news he brings!

      PRIEST

      As I surmise, 'tis welcome; else his head

      Had scarce been crowned with berry-laden bays.

      OEDIPUS

      We soon shall know; he's now in earshot range.

      [Enter CREON]

      My royal cousin, say, Menoeceus' child,

      What message hast thou brought us from the god?

      CREON

      Good news, for e'en intolerable ills,

      Finding right issue, tend to naught but good.

      OEDIPUS

      How runs the oracle? thus far thy words

      Give me no ground for confidence or fear.

      CREON

      If thou wouldst hear my message publicly,

      I'll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within.

      OEDIPUS

      Speak before all; the burden that I bear

      Is more for these my subjects than myself.

      CREON

      Let me report then all the god declared.

      King Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate

      A fell pollution that infests the land,

      And no more harbor an inveterate sore.

      OEDIPUS

      What expiation means he?

      What's amiss?

      CREON

      Banishment, or the shedding blood for blood.

      This stain of blood makes shipwreck of our state.

      OEDIPUS

      Whom can he mean, the miscreant thus denounced?

      CREON

      Before thou didst assume the helm of State,

      The sovereign of this land was Laius.

      OEDIPUS

      I heard as much, but never saw the man.

      CREON

      He fell; and now the god's command is plain:

      Punish his takers-off, whoe'er they be.

      OEDIPUS

      Where are they?

      Where in the wide world to find

      The far, faint traces of a bygone crime?

      CREON

      In this land, said the god; "who seeks shall find;

      Who sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind."

      OEDIPUS

      Was he within his palace, or afield,

      Or traveling, when Laius met his fate?

      CREON

      Abroad; he started, so he told us, bound

      For Delphi, but he never thence returned.

      OEDIPUS

      Came there no news, no fellow-traveler

      To give some clue that might be followed up?

      CREON

      But one escaped, who flying for dear life,

      Could tell of all he saw but one thing sure.

      OEDIPUS

      And what was that?

      One clue might lead us far,

      With but a spark of hope to guide our quest.

      CREON

      Robbers, he told us, not one bandit but

      A troop of knaves, attacked and murdered him.

      OEDIPUS

      Did any bandit dare so bold a stroke,

      Unless indeed he were suborned from Thebes?

      CREON

      So 'twas surmised, but none was found to avenge

      His murder mid the trouble that ensued.

      OEDIPUS

      What trouble can have hindered a full quest,

      When royalty had fallen thus miserably?

      CREON

      The riddling Sphinx compelled us to let slide

      The dim past and attend to instant needs.

      OEDIPUS

      Well, I will start afresh and once again

      Make dark things clear.

      Right worthy the concern

      Of Phoebus, worthy thine too, for the dead;

      I also, as is meet, will lend my aid

      To avenge this wrong to Thebes and to the god.

      Not for some far-off kinsman, but myself,

      Shall I expel this poison in the blood;

      For whoso slew that king might have a mind

      To strike me too with his assassin hand.

      Therefore in righting him I serve myself.

      Up, children, haste ye, quit these altar stairs,

      Take hence your suppliant wands, go summon hither

      The Theban commons.

      With the god's good help

      Success is sure; 'tis ruin if we fail.

      [Exeunt OEDIPUS and CREON]

      PRIEST

      Come, children, let us hence; these gracious words

      Forestall the very purpose of our suit.

      And may the god who sent this oracle

      Save us withal and rid us of this pest.

      [Exeunt PRIEST and SUPPLIANTS]

      CHORUS

      (Str. 1)

      Sweet-voiced daughter of Zeus from thy gold-paved Pythian shrine

      Wafted to Thebes divine,

      What dost thou bring me?

      My soul is racked and shivers with fear.

      (Healer of Delos, hear!)

      Hast thou some pain unknown before,

      Or with the circling years renewest a penance of yore?

      Offspring of golden Hope, thou voice immortal, O tell me.

      (Ant. 1)

      First on Athene I call; O Zeus-born goddess, defend!

      Goddess and sister, befriend,

      Artemis, Lady of Thebes, high-throned in the midst of our mart!

      Lord of the death-winged dart!

      Your threefold aid I crave

      From death and ruin our city to save.

      If in the days of old when we nigh had perished, ye drave

      From our land the fiery plague, be near us now and defend us!

      (Str. 2)

      Ah me, what countless woes are mine!

      All our host is in decline;

      Weaponless my spirit lies.

      Earth her gracious fruits denies;

      Women wail in barren throes;

      Life on life downstricken goes,

      Swifter than the wind bird's flight,

      Swifter than the Fire-God's might

      To the westering shores of Night.

      (Ant. 2)

      Wasted thus by death on death

      All our city perisheth.

      Corpses spread infection round;

      None to tend or mourn is found.

      Wailing on the altar stair

      Wives and grandams rend the air—

      Long-drawn moans and piercing cries

      Blent with prayers and litanies.

      Golden child of Zeus, O hear

      Let thine angel face appear!

      (Str. 3)

      And grant that Ares whose hot breath I feel,

      Though without targe or steel

      He stalks, whose voice is as the battle shout,

      May turn in sudden rout,

      To the unharbored Thracian waters sped,

      Or Amphitrite's bed.

      For what night leaves undone,

      Smit by the morrow's sun

      Perisheth.

      Father Zeus, whose hand

      Doth wield the lightning

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