Sophocles' OEDIPUS THE KING Complete

Translated by F. Storr. From the Loeb Library Edition, Originally published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and William Heinemann Ltd, London. First published in 1912.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

99 Pages

Page 92

Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why
Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never
Had shown to men the secret of my birth.
O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home,
Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called)
How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul
The canker that lay festering in the bud!
Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit.
Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen,
Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways,
Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt,
My father's; do ye call to mind perchance
Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work
I wrought thereafter when I came to Thebes?
O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth,
And, having borne me, sowed again my seed,
Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children,
Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood,
All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun,
Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet.
O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere
Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me
Down to the depths of ocean out of sight.
Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch;
Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear
The load of guilt that none but I can share.
[Enter Creon.]

Previous Page / First / Next Page of Oedipus the King

Sophocles Home Page ||| Elpenor's Free Greek Lessons
Aeschylus ||| Euripides

Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/sophocles/oedipus-king.asp?pg=92