I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask
Thus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?
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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.
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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
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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
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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 not bidden me.
OEDIPUS
I know not thou wouldst utter folly, else
Long hadst thou waited to be summoned here.
TEIRESIAS