Oedipus Tyrannus (341-390)

The future will come of itself, though I shroud it in silence.

Since it must come anyway, it is right that you tell it to me.

I will speak no further: rage, if you wish, with the fiercest wrath your heart knows.

In my anger I will not spare to speak all my thoughts. Know that you seem to me to have helped in plotting the deed, and to have done it, short of performing the actual murder with your own hands: if you had eyesight, I would have said that you had done even this by yourself.

In truth? I order you to abide by you own decree, and from this day forth not to speak to these men or to me: you are the accursed defiler of this land.

So brazen with your blustering taunt?

Where do you think to escape to?

I have escaped. There is strength in my truth.

Who taught you this? Not your skill, at any rate.

You yourself. For you spurred me on to speak against my will.

What did you say? Speak again, so I may learn it better.

Did you not understand before, or are you talking to test me?

I cannot say I understood fully. Tell me again.

I say that you are the killer of the man whose slayer you seek.

Now you will regret that you have said such dire words twice.

Should I tell you more, that you might get more angry?

Say as much as you want: it will be said in vain.

I say that you have been living in unguessed shame with your closest kin, and do not see into what woe you have fallen.

Do you think that you will always be able to speak like this without smarting for it?

Yes, if indeed there is any strength in truth.

But there is, except not for you. You do not have that strength, since you are maimed in your ears, in your wit, and in your eyes.

And you are a poor wretch to utter taunts that every man here will soon hurl at you.

Night, endless night has you in her keeping, so that you can never hurt me,

or any man that sees the light of the sun.

No, it is not your fate to fall at my hands, since Apollo, to whom this matter is a concern, is sufficient.

Are these Creon’s devices, or your own?

Creon is no trouble for you: you are your own.

O wealth, and empire, and skill surpassing skill in life’s keen rivalries, how great is the envy in your keeping, if for the sake of this office which the city has entrusted to me, a gift unsought,

Creon the trustworthy, Creon, my old friend, has crept upon me by stealth, yearning to overthrow me, and has suborned such a scheming juggler as this, a tricky quack, who has eyes only for profit, but is blind in his art!

Come, tell me, where have you proved yourself a seer? Why, when the watchful dog who wove dark song was here, did you say nothing to free the people? Yet the riddle, at least, was not for the first comer to read: there was need of a seer’s help,