1 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus Introduced and Translated by ...

I did, and I will tell you all that I remember,
and what the poor woman suffered. 1240
She was beside herself
and rushed inside right to her bridal bed.
She ripped at her hair with both her hands.
She called on the long dead Laius,
remembering the lovemaking of long ago
which resulted in his death at the hands of a child,
who was cursed because of him.
She wailed over the bed for her double misery:
that she had given birth to a husband from a husband,
and children from a child. 1250
I don’t know the details of her death,
because Oedipus broke into the room, screaming,
and I couldn’t see clearly as he moved around.
He wandered about asking us for a sword,
and where he could find his wife, no wife,
but that field that bore a double harvest
of himself and his children.
Some god guided him,
not us men who were standing near.
He shouted furiously and burst against the double doors, 1260
twisting the bolts from their sockets,
and he lurched into the room.
We saw his wife hanging there, from a noose of knotted rope.
When he saw her, he let out a terrible howl,
and slashed through the rope.
When she lay on the ground,
what followed then was horrible.
Oedipus took from her dress
the long golden pins that held it together;
he pierced his eyes and screamed that they 1270
would not see what he suffered,
or the terrible things that he had done.
What ought not be seen
would be covered in darkness for all time,
and his eyes would not recognize
even those whom he longed to see.
Chanting, he repeated things like this,
and struck his eyes again and again.
His bleeding eyeballs wet his cheeks
and the bloody rain did not let up.
A dark storm of clotted blood dripped down like hail.
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