Four Tragedies and Octavia (20 page)

OEDIPUS
: Fear makes me tremble; to what end does fate

Now point? Conflicting thoughts divide my heart.

When good and evil lie so close together,

The doubting mind must fear the truth it seeks.…

    Brother of my wife, if you have help for us

In our afflictions, speak without delay.

CREON
: Dark and uncertain is the oracle.

OEDIPUS
: Uncertain help is none, to those in peril.

CREON
: It is the custom of the Delphic god

To wrap his secrets up in dark enigmas.

OEDIPUS
: Say what you heard; however dark it be,

Oedipus is the man for solving riddles.

CREON
: The god's instruction is that we avenge

The murdered king; let banishment atone

For Laius's death; not until that is done

Will day once more ride brightly in the sky

Or the world's air be clean and safe to breathe.

OEDIPUS
: Who was he, then? Who killed the noble king?

Does Phoebus name him? Tell us, and he shall pay.

CREON
: God grant it may not be a sin to tell

What dreadful things I have both seen and heard.

My blood runs cold; I am still numb with horror.…

Humbly I entered Phoebus' holy shrine;

And as I raised my hands in the due rite

Of supplication to the deity,

The twin peaks of Parnassus, white with snow,

Gave out an angry roar. The laurel grove

Rustled its leaves, and swayed above my head;

The sacred spring Castalia ceased to flow.

Apollo's priestess shook her flying hair,

Entranced in the possession of the god;

Before she had approached the cave, loud sounds

Had rent the air above us, and a voice,

Louder than any human voice, thus spoke:

    ‘Kind stars shall shine again on Cadmus's city

    When he that is her guest, the fugitive,

    Is seen no more upon the banks of Dirce;

    King's murderer is he, known to Apollo

    From the hour of his birth. Thy glory, murderer,

    Shall not be long; with thee thou shalt bring war,

    And war shalt leave to thy posterity,

    In sin returning to thy mother's womb.'

OEDIPUS
: I am ready to obey the god's command

And do what should already have been done

For the departed king's remains; who knows

What treacherous hands might not have dared to touch

This holy sceptre? Who, if not a king,

Should guard a king? Dead men get no respect

From those who feared them in their lives.

CREON
:                                                              Worse fears

Made us forget our duty to the dead.

OEDIPUS
: What fear could keep you from your pious duties?

CREON
: Fear of the Sphinx and her dread voice of doom.

OEDIPUS
: Now for this crime atonement shall be made

As heaven commands. We pray to every god

That looks with favour upon royalty:

Thou, giver of laws to the high heavens, and Thou,

Great glory of the shining universe,

Thou ruler of the twelve signs in their courses,

Whose swiftly moving chariot measures out

The long procession of the centuries;

Thou, sister Phoebe, following by night

Thy brother's footsteps; Thou, lord of the winds,

Driving thy sea-green steeds across the deep;

Thou, governor of the house of darkness – hear us!

Grant that the man whose hand slew Laius

May find no rest, no home, no friendly hearth,

No hospitable land to shield his exile;

Marriage unclean and misbegotten sons

Darken his days; may he with his own hand

Shed his own father's blood; may he commit –

The worst that can be wished for him – the crimes

That I have fled from. He shall find no pardon;

I swear it by the throne to which, a stranger,

I have but now succeeded, and by that

Which I have left behind me; by the gods

With whom I dwelt; by Neptune's parted seas

That lightly wash the two coasts of my country.

Be Thou my witness too, at whose command

The priestess speaks the oracles of Cirrha:
¹

As I for my own father make this prayer,

That peace be with him in his lengthening years,

That he may reign secure on his high throne

Until his life's last day; that Merope

May ever be his wife and his alone;

So do I swear that no reprieve of mine

Shall ever save the culprit from my hands.

But do you know where the foul deed was done?

How was he slain? Was it in open fight

Or by some treacherous plot?

CREON
:                                       While on his way

Towards the groves of the Castalian shrine,

He rode along a thickly wooded path

Near to the place at which the road divides

Into three ways across the plain. The first

Runs into Phocis,
¹
land beloved by Bacchus,

From which Parnassus rises from the fields

Into a gentle slope, until it soars

Sky-high with double peak. The second road
²

Leads to the land of Sisyphus that lies

Between two seas, and on to Olenus.

The third winds through a pass by straggling pools

To ford the cold Ilissos.
³
At this point,

Fearing no danger in a time of peace,

The king was ambushed by a band of thieves

Who did the deed, and left no witness to it.…

    Here, opportunely, comes Tiresias,

Moved by the message of the oracle

To make what haste his aged feet can manage.

His daughter Manto guides the blind old man.…

OEDIPUS
: Servant of gods, Apollo's deputy,

Expound this oracle, and name the man

Whose punishment the avenging powers demand.

TIRESIAS
: You must not think it strange, most noble king,

If I am slow to speak, or ask for time.

More things are true than a blind man can know.

But where my country, or where Phoebus, calls me,

There I will follow. Had I youth and strength,

I would receive the power of the god

In my own person; we must find a way

To probe Fate's secrets. Let a snow-white bull

And heifer not yet broken to the yoke

Be brought before the altars. You, my child,

Guide to your sightless father, must report

The indications of the sacrifice

Which will reveal the future to our eyes.

    [
The sacrifice is supposed to proceed
]

MANTO
: A perfect victim stands before the altar.

TIRESIAS
: Invoke the gods to witness, in due form;

Pour oriental incense on the altar.

MANTO
: I have heaped incense on the sacred fire.

TIRESIAS
: How is the flame? Does it consume the banquet?

MANTO
: It blazed up quickly and as quickly died.

TIRESIAS
: Did it stand clear and bright, a single tongue

Rising until its crest dissolved in air?

Or does it curl and waver to one side

Drifting into a scattered cloud of smoke?

MANTO
: It was no single kind of flame, but varied,

As when a rainbow, shot with many colours,

Spans with its painted arch a tract of sky

To warn us of the rain. It would be hard

To say what colour is or is not there;

First with a touch of blue, mottled with gold,

Then red as blood; then dying into blackness.

But now I see the flame fighting again,

Dividing into two; one sacrifice

Becomes two warring fires. O horrible!

The wine-libation turning into blood.…

Dense clouds of smoke enveloping the king,

Settling around his face… the light of day

Lost in black fog. Father, what does it mean?

TIRESIAS
: What can I say, so many troubled thoughts

Mazing my mind? I know not which to tell.

Evil is here, but deeply hidden yet.

When gods are angry, they are wont to show it

By no uncertain signs. What can we think

Of something which they wish to show and yet

Wish not to show? When they disguise their anger?

Something is here that shames the gods. Make haste,

Bring up the victims; let the salted meal

Be thrown upon their necks. How do they bear

The touch of hands, the sprinkling of the meal?

MANTO
: The bull has raised its head, and when they placed it

Facing the east, it seemed to fear the daylight,

And shied at the sun's rays.

TIRESIAS
:                                There – did they fall,

Each at the first stroke, to the ground?

MANTO
:                                                    The heifer

Breasted the coming stroke; the bull was wounded

Twice, and is staggering this way and that,

Weakened, and loth to lose its struggling life.

TIRESIAS
: Does the blood spurt strongly from a little wound,

Or well up slowly from the deep-cut flesh?

MANTO
: The first is bleeding freely where the wound

Is open at the breast; the other shows

Thin smears of blood around the injured parts.

As if receding from the wounds themselves,

Dark blood is pouring from the eyes and mouth.

TIRESIAS
: Such evil portents in the sacrifice

Are greatly to be feared. Tell me what signs

You see in the entrails.

MANTO
:                          Father, what is this?

Instead of gently quivering as they should,

They make my whole hand shake; there is fresh blood

Proceeding from the veins. The heart is shrunken,

Withered, and hardly to be seen; the veins

Are livid; part of the lungs is missing,

The liver putrid, oozing with black gall.

And here – always an omen boding ill

For monarchy – two heads of swollen flesh

In equal masses rise, each mass cut off

And covered with a fine transparent membrane,

As if refusing to conceal its secret.

On the ill-omened side the flesh is thick

And firm, with seven veins, whose backward course

Is stopped by an obstruction in their way.

The natural order of the parts is changed,

The organs all awry and out of place.

On the right side there is no breathing lung

Alive with blood, no heart upon the left;

I find no folds of fat gently enclosing

The inner organs; womb and genitals

Are twisted and deformed. And what is this –

This hard protuberance in the belly? Monstrous!

A foetus in a virgin heifer's womb,

And out of place – a swelling in the body

Where none should be. It moves its limbs and whimpers

Twitching convulsively its feeble frame.

The flesh is blackened with the livid gore.…

And now the grossly mutilated beasts

Are trying to move; a gaping trunk rears up

As if to attack the servers with its horns.…

The entrails seem to run out of my hands.

That sound you hear is not the bellowing

Of cattle, not the cry of frightened beasts;

It is the fire that roars upon the altars,

The hearth itself that quakes.

OEDIPUS
:                                    Now, prophet, tell

The meaning of the signs that have appeared

In this most ominous sacrifice; your words

Will have no terror for my ears.

In his worst hour a man can be most calm.

TIRESIAS
: You may in time wish to call back again

This evil hour from which you seek escape.

OEDIPUS
: Tell me the thing the gods would have me know;

Tell me upon whose hands the king's blood lies.

TIRESIAS
: Neither the birds which soar into the sky,

Nor any entrails plucked from living flesh,

Can now reveal that name. Another way

Remains for us to try. The king himself

Must be evoked from everlasting night;

He must be summoned up from Erebus

To name his slayer. Earth must be unlocked,

The unforgiving ruler of the dead

Must hear our prayers, the people of the Styx

Must be fetched hither. You must name a man

To whom this sacred task can be entrusted;

That you, holding the office of a king,

Should look upon the dead, our law forbids.

OEDIPUS
: Creon, this task is yours; you are the next,

After myself, to whom our country turns.

TIRESIAS
: Now, while we go to unlock the prison-gates

Of the infernal Styx, let all the people sing

Their hymns of praise to Bacchus.

Women, shake loose your hair; let the dangling ivy bind

Your brows; let the wand of Bacchus wave in your dancing hands.