Oedipus at Colonus (401-465)

And how can I profit them while I rest beyond their gates?

Your tomb contains a curse for them, if it should suffer misfortune.

I need no god to help my wits so far.

For this reason, therefore, they wish to get you as their neighbor;

but in a place where they will have you at their mercy.

Will they really cover me in Theban dust?

No, the guilt of related blood forbids you, father.

Then never will they become my masters.

Someday then this will be a grief for the Cadmeans.

In what conjunction of events, my child?

Under the power of your anger, when they stand at your tomb.

And who has told you this, my child?

Sacred envoys, from the Delphian hearth.

And has Phoebus indeed spoken this concerning me?

So say the men who have come back to Thebes.

Has either of my sons heard this?

Yes, both have heard it, and know it well.

And then those most evil of sons, aware of this, preferred the kingship to the wish of recalling me?

It grieves me to hear this, but I must bear it.

Then may the gods not quench their fated strife, and may it fall to me to decide this war on which they are now setting their hands, raising spear against spear!

For then neither would he who now holds the scepter and the throne survive, nor would the exile ever return; seeing that when I, their father, was being thrust without honor from my country, they did not stop or defend me. No, they saw me sent forth homeless,

and heard the crier proclaim my sentence of exile. Perhaps you will say that that was my own wish then, and that the city fittingly granted me that gift. Not so! For on that first day, when my heart seethed,

and my sweetest wish was for death—indeed, death by stoning—no one was found to help me in that desire. But after a time, when all my anguish was now softened, and when I began to feel that my heart had been excessive in punishing those past errors,

then it was that the city set about to drive me by force from the land, after all that time. And my sons, when they had the strength to bring help—sons to their own father—they would not do it. For lack of one little word from them, I was left to wander, an outcast and a beggar forever.

Instead, it is from these, maidens as they are, insofar as nature enables them, that I obtain my daily food, and a shelter in the land, and the aid of family. Their brothers have bartered their father for the throne, the scepter of power, and the rule of the realm.

No, never will they win Oedipus for an ally, nor will good ever come to them from this reign at Thebes; that I know, when I hear this maiden’s oracles and reflect on the old prophecies stored in my own mind, which Phoebus has fulfilled for me at last.

Therefore let them send Creon to seek me—or whoever else is mighty in Thebes. For if you, strangers, with the help of the dread goddesses who reign among your district, are willing to defend me, you will obtain a great savior for this city,

and troubles for my enemies.

You are worthy of compassion, Oedipus, both you and these maidens. And since to this plea you append your power to save our land, I wish to advise you for your advantage.

Dearest friends, be my patrons, and I will bring everything to completion.