Sophocles Oedipus Trilogy | Page 7

will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask
Thus idly
what from me thou shalt not learn?
OEDIPUS
Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.
Will nothing
loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee,
Or shake thy dogged
taciturnity?
TEIRESIAS
Thou blam'st my mood and seest not thine own

Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.
OEDIPUS
And who could stay his choler when he heard
How
insolently thou dost flout the State?
TEIRESIAS
Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.
OEDIPUS
Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.
TEIRESIAS
I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,
And give
the rein to all thy pent-up rage.
OEDIPUS
Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
But speak
my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,
Who planned the crime,
aye, and performed it too,
All save the assassination; and if thou

Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot
That thou alone didst
do the bloody deed.

TEIRESIAS
Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide
By thine own
proclamation; from this day
Speak not to these or me. Thou art the
man,
Thou the accursed polluter of this land.
OEDIPUS
Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts,
And
think'st forsooth as seer to go scot free.
TEIRESIAS
Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.
OEDIPUS
Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art.
TEIRESIAS
Thou, goading me against my will to speak.
OEDIPUS
What speech? repeat it and resolve my doubt.
TEIRESIAS
Didst miss my sense wouldst thou goad me on?
OEDIPUS
I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.
TEIRESIAS
I say thou art the murderer of the man
Whose
murderer thou pursuest.
OEDIPUS
Thou shalt rue it
Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.
TEIRESIAS
Must I say more to aggravate thy rage?
OEDIPUS
Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.
TEIRESIAS
I say thou livest with thy nearest kin
In infamy,
unwitting in thy shame.
OEDIPUS
Think'st thou for aye unscathed to wag thy tongue?
TEIRESIAS
Yea, if the might of truth can aught prevail.

OEDIPUS
With other men, but not with thee, for thou
In ear, wit,

eye, in everything art blind.
TEIRESIAS
Poor fool to utter gibes at me which all
Here present
will cast back on thee ere long.
OEDIPUS
Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power
O'er me
or any man who sees the sun.
TEIRESIAS
No, for thy weird is not to fall by me.
I leave to
Apollo what concerns the god.
OEDIPUS
Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own?
TEIRESIAS
Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.
OEDIPUS
O wealth and empiry and skill by skill
Outwitted in the
battlefield of life,
What spite and envy follow in your train!
See, for
this crown the State conferred on me.
A gift, a thing I sought not, for
this crown
The trusty Creon, my familiar friend,
Hath lain in wait to
oust me and suborned
This mountebank, this juggling charlatan,

This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone
Keen-eyed, but in his proper
art stone-blind.
Say, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself
A prophet?
When the riddling Sphinx was here
Why hadst thou no deliverance
for this folk?
And yet the riddle was not to be solved
By
guess-work but required the prophet's art;
Wherein thou wast found
lacking; neither birds
Nor sign from heaven helped thee, but _I_ came,

The simple Oedipus; _I_ stopped her mouth
By mother wit,
untaught of auguries.
This is the man whom thou wouldst undermine,

In hope to reign with Creon in my stead.
Methinks that thou and
thine abettor soon
Will rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out.

Thank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn
What chastisement
such arrogance deserves.
CHORUS
To us it seems that both the seer and thou,
O Oedipus,
have spoken angry words.
This is no time to wrangle but consult


How best we may fulfill the oracle.
TEIRESIAS
King as thou art, free speech at least is mine
To make
reply; in this I am thy peer.
I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve

And ne'er can stand enrolled as Creon's man.
Thus then I answer:
since thou hast not spared
To twit me with my blindness--thou hast
eyes,
Yet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen,
Nor where thou
dwellest nor with whom for mate.
Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou
know'st it not,
And all unwitting art a double foe
To thine own kin,
the living and the dead;
Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire

One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword,
Beyond our
borders, and the eyes that now
See clear shall henceforward endless
night.
Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach,
What crag in all
Cithaeron but shall then
Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found

With what a hymeneal thou wast borne
Home, but to no fair haven,
on the gale!
Aye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not
Shall set
thyself and children in one line.
Flout then both Creon and my words,
for none
Of mortals shall be striken worse than thou.
OEDIPUS
Must I endure this fellow's insolence?
A murrain on
thee! Get thee hence! Begone
Avaunt! and never cross my threshold
more.
TEIRESIAS
I ne'er had come hadst thou