Oedipus Tyrannus (1275-1336)

With such a dire refrain, he struck his eyes with raised hand not once but often. At each blow the bloody eye-balls bedewed his beard, and sent forth not sluggish drops of gore, but all at once a dark shower of blood came down like hail.

From the deeds of the two of them such ills have broken forth, not on one alone, but with mingled woe for man and wife. The old happiness of their ancestral fortune was once happiness indeed. But now today lamentation, ruin, death, shame,

and every earthly ill that anyone could name are all theirs.

And does the sufferer have any respite from pain now?

He cries for some one to unbar the gates and show to all the Cadmeans his father’s slayer, his mother’s—the words must not pass my lips—

in order to banish himself from the land and not to put the house under his own curse by waiting here. And yet he lacks strength, and one to guide his steps, for the anguish is more than he can bear. He will soon show this to you: look, the bars of the gates are withdrawn,

and soon you will behold a sight which even he who abhors it must pity.

O dread fate for men to see, O most dreadful of all that I have set my eyes on! Unhappy one, what madness has come upon you?

Who is the unearthly foe who, with a leap of more than mortal range has made your ill-starred life his prey? Alas, alas, you hapless man! I cannot even look on you, though there is much I desire to ask, much I desire to learn,

much that draws my wistful gaze: with such a shuddering do you fill me!

Woe is me! Alas, alas, wretched that I am! Where, where am I carried in my misery?

How is my voice swept abroad on the wings of the air? Oh, my fate, how far you have sprung!

To a dread place, dire in men’s ears, dire in their sight.