ant. 2. By such deaths, past numbering, the city perishes: unpitied, her children lie on the ground, spreading pestilence, with none to mourn:180 and meanwhile young wives, and gray-haired mothers with them, uplift a wail at the steps of the altars, some here, some there, entreating for their weary woes. The prayer to the Healer rings clear, and, blent therewith, the voice of lamentation: for these things, golden daughter of Zeus, send us the bright face of comfort.
str. 3. And grant that the fierce god of death,190 who now with no brazen shields, yet amid cries as of battle, wraps me in the flame of his onset, may turn his back in speedy flight from our land, borne by a fair wind to the great deep of Amphitritè, or to those waters in which none find haven, even to the Thracian wave; for if night leave aught undone, day follows to accomplish this. O thou who wieldest the powers of the fire-fraught lightning,200 O Zeus our father, slay him beneath thy thunderbolt!
ant. 3. Lycean King, fain were I that thy shafts also, from thy bent bow's string of woven gold, should go abroad in their might, our champions in the face of the foe; yea, and the flashing fires of Artemis wherewith she glances through the Lycian hills. And I call him whose locks are bound with gold,210 who is named with the name of this land, ruddy Bacchus to whom Bacchants cry, the comrade of the Maenads, to draw near with the blaze of his blithe torch, our ally against the god unhonoured among gods.
Oe. Thou prayest: and in answer to thy prayer,—if thou wilt give a loyal welcome to my words and minister to thine own disease,—thou mayest hope to find succour and relief from woes. These words will I speak publicly, as one who has been a stranger to this report, a stranger to the deed;220 for I should not be far on the track, if I were tracing it alone, without a clue. But as it is,—since it was only after the time of the deed that I was numbered a Theban among Thebans,—to you, the Cadmeans all, I do thus proclaim.
Whosoever of you knows by whom Laïus son of Labdacus was slain, I bid him to declare all to me. And if he is afraid, I tell him to remove the danger of the charge from his path by denouncing himself; for he shall suffer nothing else unlovely, but only leave the land, unhurt. Or if any one knows an alien,230 from another land, as the assassin, let him not keep silence; for I will pay his guerdon, and my thanks shall rest with him besides.
But if ye keep silence—if any one, through fear, shall seek to screen friend or self from my behest—hear ye what I then shall do. I charge you that no one of this land, whereof I hold the empire and the throne, give shelter or speak word unto that murderer, whosoever he be,—make him partner of his prayer or sacrifice, or serve him with the lustral rite;240 but that all ban him their homes, knowing that this is our defiling thing, as the oracle of the Pythian god hath newly shown me. I then am on this wise the ally of the god and of the slain. And I pray solemnly that the slayer, whoso he be, whether his hidden guilt is lonely or hath partners, evilly, as he is evil, may wear out his unblest life. And for myself I pray that if, with my privity,250 he should become an inmate of my house, I may suffer the same things which even now I called down upon others. And on you I lay it to make all these words good, for my sake, and for the sake of the god, and for our land's, thus blasted with barrenness by angry heaven.
For even if the matter had not been urged on us by a god, it was not meet that ye should leave the guilt thus unpurged, when one so noble, and he your king, had perished ; rather were ye bound to search it out. And now, since 'tis I who hold the powers which once he held,260 who possess his bed and the wife who bare seed to him ; and since, had his hope of issue not been frustrate, children born of one mother would have made ties betwixt him and me—but, as it was, fate swooped upon his head; by reason of these things will I uphold this cause, even as the cause of mine own sire, and will leave nought untried in seeking to find him whose hand shed that blood, for the honour of the son of Labdacus and of Polydorus and elder Cadmus and Agenor who was of old.
And for those who obey me not, I pray that the gods send them270 neither harvest of the earth nor fruit of the womb, but that they be wasted by their lot that now is, or by one yet more dire. But for all you, the loyal folk of Cadmus to whom these things seem good, may Justice, our ally, and all the gods be with you graciously for ever.
Ch. As thou hast put me on my oath, on my oath, O king, I will speak. I am not the slayer, nor can I point to him who slew. As for the question, it was for Phoebus, who sent it, to tell us this thing—who can have wrought the deed.
Oe. Justly said; but no man on the earth280 can force the gods to what they will not.
Ch. I would fain say what seems to me next best after this.
Oe. If there is yet a third course, spare not to show it.
Ch. I know that our lord Teiresias is the seer most like to our lord Phoebus; from whom, O king, a searcher of these things might learn them most clearly.
Oe. Not even this have I left out of my cares. On the hint of Creon, I have twice sent a man to bring him; and this long while I marvel why he is not here.
Ch. Indeed (his skill apart) the rumours are but faint and old.290
Oe. What rumours are they? I look to every story.
Ch. Certain wayfarers were said to have killed him.
Oe. I, too, have heard it, but none sees him who saw it.
Ch. Nay, if he knows what fear is, he will not stay when he hears thy curses, so dire as they are.
Oe. When a man shrinks not from a deed, neither is he scared by a word.
Ch. But there is one to convict him. For here they bring at last the godlike prophet, in whom alone of men doth live the truth.
Enter Teiresias, led by a Boy.
Oe. Teiresias, whose soul grasps all things,300 the lore that may be told and the unspeakable, the secrets of heaven and the low things of earth,—thou feelest, though thou canst not see, what a plague doth haunt our State,—from which, great prophet, we find in thee our protector and only saviour. Now, Phoebus—if indeed thou knowest it not from the messengers—sent answer to our question that the only riddance from this pest which could come was if we should learn aright the slayers of Laïus, and slay them, or send them into exile from our land.310 Do thou, then, grudge neither voice of birds nor any other way of seer-lore that thou hast, but rescue thyself and the State, rescue me, rescue all that is defiled by the dead. For we are in thy hand; and man's noblest task is to help others by his best means and powers.
Teiresias.
Alas, how dreadful to have wisdom where it profits not the wise! Aye, I knew this well, but let it slip out of mind; else would I never have come here.
Oe. What now? How sad thou hast come in!
Te. Let me go home;320 most easily wilt thou bear thine own burden to the end, and I mine, if thou wilt consent.
Oe. Thy words are strange, nor kindly to this State which nurtured thee, when thou withholdest this response.
Te. Nay, I see that thou, on thy part, openest not thy lips in season: therefore I speak not, that neither may I have thy mishap.
Oe. For the love of the gods, turn not away, if thou hast knowledge: all we suppliants implore thee on our knees.
Te. Aye, for ye are all without knowledge; but never will I reveal my griefs—that I say not thine.
Oe. How sayest thou?330 Thou knowest the secret, and wilt not tell it, but art minded to betray us and to destroy the State?
Te. I will pain neither myself nor thee. Why vainly ask these things? Thou wilt not learn them from me.
Oe. What, basest of the base,—for thou wouldest anger a very stone,—wilt thou never speak out? Can nothing touch thee? Wilt thou never make an end?
Te. Thou blamest my temper, but seest not that to which thou thyself art wedded: no, thou findest fault with me.
Oe. And who would not be angry to hear the