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

OedipusOh horror of darkness that enfolds me, unspeakable visitant,resistless, sped by a wind too favorable! Oh, me! and once again, Oh, me! How my soul is pierced by the stab of these goads and by the memory of sorrows!ChorusNo wonder that amidst these woesyou mourn and bear a double pain.

OedipusAh, friend, you still are steadfast in your care for me, and still have patience to tend to the blind man! Ah, me!Your presence is not hidden from me—no, blind though I am, nevertheless I know your voice full well.ChorusMan of dread deeds, how could you quench your vision in this way? What divinity urged you on?

OedipusIt was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought these troublesto pass, these terrible, terrible troubles. But the hand that struck my eyes was none other than my own, wretched that I am!Why should I see, when sight showed me nothing sweet?ChorusThese things were just as you say.OedipusWhat, my friends, can I behold anymore, what can I love, what greeting can touch my ear with joy? Hurry, friends,lead me from the land, lead me from here, the utterly lost,the thrice-accursed, the mortal most hateful to the gods!ChorusWretched alike for your fortune and for your understanding of it, would that I had never known you!

OedipusPerish the man, whoever he was, who freed me in the past years from the cruel shackle on my feet—a thankless deed! Had I died then,I would not have been so sore a grief to my friends and to my own soul.ChorusI too would have had it thus.OedipusIn this way I would not have come to shed my father’s blood, or been known among men as the husband of the woman from whom I was born.Now I am forsaken by the gods, son of a defiled mother, successor to the bed of the man who gave me my own wretched being:if there is a woe surpassing all woes, it has become Oedipus’ lot.

ChorusI cannot agree that you have counseled well: you would have been better dead than living and blind.OedipusDo not tell me that things have not been best done in this way:give me counsel no more. If I had sight, I know not with what eyes I could even have looked on my father, when I came to the house of Hades, or on my miserable mother, since against both I have sinned such sins as hanging myself could not punish.But do you think that the sight of children, born as mine were, was lovely for me to look upon? No, no, never lovely to my eyes! No, neither was this town with its towering walls, nor the sacred statues of the gods, since I, thrice wretched that I am—I, noblest of the sons of Thebes—have doomed myself to know them no more by commanding that all should reject the impious one, the one whom the gods have revealed as unholy, a member of Laius’ own race! After bearing such a stain upon myself,was I to look with steady eyes on this folk? No indeed: were there a way to choke the source of hearing, I would not have hesitated to make a fast prison of this wretched frame, so that I should have known neither sight nor sound.It is sweet for our thought to dwell beyond the sphere of grief. Alas, Cithaeron, why did you provide a shelter for me? When I was given to you, why did you not slay me straightway, that I might never reveal my origin to men. Ah, Polybus, ah, Corinth, and you that were called the ancient house of my father,how fair-seeming was I, your nurseling, and what evils were festering underneath! Now I am found to be evil and of evil birth. Oh you three roads, and you secret glen, you, thicket, and narrow way where three paths met—