#Strophes antistrophe episodes full

Who sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind.' OEDIPUS Where are they? Where in the wide world toĬREON In this land, said the god 'who seeks shall OEDIPUS I heard as much, but never saw the man.ĬREON He fell and now the god's command is plain: OEDIPUS Whom can he mean, the miscreant thus denounced?ĬREON Before thou didst assume the helm of State, This stain of blood makes shipwreck of our state. OEDIPUS What expiation means he? What's amiss?ĬREON Banishment, or the shedding blood for blood. Is more for these my subjects than myself.ĬREON Let me report then all the god declared. OEDIPUS Speak before all the burden that I bear I'll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within. Give me no ground for confidence or fear.ĬREON If thou wouldst hear my message publicly, OEDIPUS How runs the oracle? thus far thy words What message hast thou brought us from the god?ĬREON Good news, for e'en intolerable ills,įinding right issue, tend to naught but good. OEDIPUS We soon shall know he's now in earshot range.Įnter CREON. Had scarce been crowned with berry-laden bays. PRIEST As I surmise, 'tis welcome else his head OEDIPUS O King Apollo! may his joyous looks PRIEST Thy words are well timed even as thou speakest 'Tis strange, this endless tarrying, passing strange.īut when he comes, then I were base indeed, Since he set forth, and marvel how he fares. How I might save the State by act or word. Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine, Thus pondering one clue of hope I caught,Īnd tracked it up I have sent Menoeceus' son, Many, my children, are the tears I've wept,Īnd threaded many a maze of weary thought. Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams. The quest that brings you hither and your need. OEDIPUS Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too If men to man and guards to guard them tail. This land, as now thou reignest, better sure

O let it not decline! If thou wouldst rule Thy happy star ascendant brought us luck, Our country's savior thou art justly hailed: Look to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore Upraise, O chief of men, upraise our State! Tried counselors, methinks, are aptest found

Some succor, whether by a voice from heaven Prompting from us or been by others schooled To the fell songstress? Nor hadst thou received Therefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit,

#Strophes antistrophe episodes full

Of Pluto is full fed with groans and tears. Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head,įoundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.Ī blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,Īrmed with his blazing torch the God of Plague Meanwhile, the common folk, with wreathed boughsīoth shrines of Pallas congregate, or whereįor, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State, Of Zeus, and these the flower of our youth. Thy palace altars-fledglings hardly winged,Īnd greybeards bowed with years, priests, as am Thou seest how both extremes of age besiege PRIEST Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king, Of ill that moves you or a boon ye crave? What means this reek of incense everywhere,Ĭhildren, it were not meet that I should learnĮxplain your mood and purport. Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands OEDIPUS My children, latest born to Cadmus old, Suppliants of all ages are seated round the altar at the palace doors, at their head a PRIEST OF ZEUS.