First Read: Oedipus Rex
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[Enter TEIRESIAS, led by a boy.]
OEDIPUS: Teiresias, seer who comprehendest all, Lore of the wise and hidden mysteries,
High things of heaven and low things of the earth Thou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught, What plague infects our city; and we turn
To thee, O seer, our one defense and shield. The purport of the answer that the God
Returned to us who sought his oracle,
The messengers have doubtless told thee—how One course alone could rid us of the pest,
To find the murderers of Laius,
And slay them or expel them from the land.
Therefore begrudging neither augury
Nor other divination that is thine,
O save thyself, thy country, and thy king,
Save all from this defilement of blood shed. On thee we rest. This is man's highest end,
To others' service all his powers to lend.
TEIRESIAS: Alas, alas, what misery to be wise When wisdom profits nothing! This old lore
I had forgotten; else I were not here.
OEDIPUS: What ails thee? Why this melancholy mood?
TEIRESIAS: Let me go home; prevent me not; 'twere best That thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.
OEDIPUS: For shame! no true-born Theban patriot Would thus withhold the word of prophecy.
TEIRESIAS: Thy words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I For fear lest I too trip like thee...
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OEDIPUS: Oh speak, Withhold not,
I adjure thee, if thou know'st,
Thy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.
TEIRESIAS: Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice Will ne'er reveal my miseries—or thine.
OEDIPUS: What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak! Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?
TEIRESIAS: I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask Thus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?
OEDIPUS: Monster! thy silence would incense a flint. Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee, Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?
TEIRESIAS: Thou blam'st my mood and seest not thine own Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.
OEDIPUS: And who could stay his choler when he heard How insolently thou dost flout the State?
TEIRESIAS: Well, it will come what will, though I be mute. OEDIPUS: Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.
TEIRESIAS: I have no more to say; storm as thou willst, And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.
OEDIPUS: Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words, But speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he, Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too, All save the assassination; and if thou
Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.
TEIRESIAS: Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide By thine own proclamation; from this day
Speak not to these or me. Thou art the man,
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Thou the accursed polluter of this land.
OEDIPUS: Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts, And think'st forsooth as seer to go scot free.
TEIRESIAS: Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth. OEDIPUS: Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art. TEIRESIAS: Thou, goading me against my will to speak. OEDIPUS: What speech? repeat it and resolve my doubt. TEIRESIAS: Didst miss my sense wouldst thou goad me on? OEDIPUS: I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.
TEIRESIAS: I say thou art the murderer of the man Whose murderer thou pursuest.
OEDIPUS: Thou shalt rue it
Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.
TEIRESIAS: Must I say more to aggravate thy rage? OEDIPUS: Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.
TEIRESIAS: I say thou livest with thy nearest kin In infamy, unwitting in thy shame.
OEDIPUS: Think'st thou for aye unscathed to wag thy tongue? TEIRESIAS: Yea, if the might of truth can aught prevail.
OEDIPUS: With other men, but not with thee, for thou In ear, wit, eye, in everything art blind.
TEIRESIAS: Poor fool to utter gibes at me which all Here present will cast back on thee ere long.
OEDIPUS: Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power
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O'er me or any man who sees the sun.
TEIRESIAS: No, for thy weird is not to fall by me. I leave to Apollo what concerns the god.
OEDIPUS: Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own? TEIRESIAS: Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.
OEDIPUS: O wealth and empiry and skill by skill Outwitted in the battlefield of life,
What spite and envy follow in your train!
See, for this crown the State conferred on me. A gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown
The trusty Creon, my familiar friend,
Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned This mountebank, this juggling charlatan,
This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone
Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind. Say, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself
A prophet? When the riddling Sphinx was here Why hadst thou no deliverance for this folk? And yet the riddle was not to be solved
By guess-work but required the prophet's art; Wherein thou wast found lacking; neither birds Nor sign from heaven helped thee, but I came, The simple Oedipus; I stopped her mouth By mother wit, untaught of auguries.
This is the man whom thou wouldst undermine, In hope to reign with Creon in my stead.
Methinks that thou and thine abettor soon Will rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out. Thank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn What chastisement such arrogance deserves.
CHORUS: To us it seems that both the seer and thou, O Oedipus, have spoken angry words.
This is no time to wrangle but consult
How best we may fulfill the oracle.
TEIRESIAS: King as thou art, free speech at least is mine
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To make reply; in this I am thy peer.
I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve
And ne'er can stand enrolled as Creon's man. Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared To twit me with my blindness—thou hast eyes, Yet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen, Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate. Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know'st it not, And all unwitting art a double foe
To thine own kin, the living and the dead; Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword, Beyond our borders, and the eyes that now See clear shall henceforward endless night. Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach, What crag in all Cithaeron but shall then Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found With what a hymeneal thou wast borne Home, but to no fair haven, on the gale! Aye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not Shall set thyself and children in one line. Flout then both Creon and my words, for none Of mortals shall be striken worse than thou.