Oedipus Tyrannus (284-340)

I know that our lord Teiresias is the seer most like our

lord Apollo: from him, my king, an investigator might learn most clearly about these affairs.

Not even this have I neglected. On Creon’s suggestion, I sent a man twice to bring him. And I have been wondering for some time why he is not here.

Indeed—his skill apart—the rumors are but faint and old.

What are the rumors? I am investigating every tale.

He was said to have been killed by some wayfarers.

I too have heard that. But no one sees the one who saw it.

If he knows what fear is, he will not hesitate to come forward when he

hears your curses, so dire are they.

When a man does not shrink from a deed, he is not scared by a word.

But there is one to convict him. But here they bring at last the godlike prophet, the only man in whom truth lives.

Teiresias, whose soul grasps all things, both that which may be told and that which is unspeakable, the Olympian secrets and the affairs of the earth, you feel, though you cannot see, what a huge plague haunts our state. From which, great prophet, we find you to be our protector and only savior.

Now, Phoebus—if indeed you have not already heard the news—sent answer to our question that the only way to rid ourselves of this pest that afflicts us is to discover the slayers of Laius, and then to slay them or banish them from our land.

So do not begrudge us the voice of the birds or any other path of prophecy, but save yourself and your state, save me, save all that is defiled by the dead. We are in your hands, and man’s noblest task is to help others

to the best of his means and powers.

Alas, how terrible it is to have wisdom when it does not benefit those who have it. I knew this well, but let it slip from my mind: otherwise I would not have come here.

What now? How disheartened you have come!

Let me go home. For you will bear your own burden to the end, and I will bear mine, if you consent.

Your words are strange and unkind to the state which nurtured you, since you withhold this response.

I see that you, for your part, speak inappropriately.

Therefore do not speak, so I will not suffer the same.

For the love of the gods, do not turn away, if you have knowledge: all we suppliants implore you on our knees.

For all of you are without knowledge. But never will I reveal my troubles—not to call them yours.

What are you saying? Do you know the secret and refuse to tell it? Will you betray and destroy the state?

I will grieve neither myself nor you. Why do you ask these things in vain? You will not learn the answers from me.

Will you not, basest of the base—

you would anger a stone—speak out? can nothing touch you? Will you never make an end?

You blame my anger, but do not perceive your own: no, you blame me.

Who would not be angry hearing such words,

with which you now are slighting the city?