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

OEDIPUS
Stop telling me what to do, 1370
or that what was done was not done for the best.
When I come to Hades, if I were able to see,
I don’t know how I could look on my father, or my mother,
against whom I have committed unforgivable sins.
Would I want to see my children,
knowing how they were conceived
Never with these eyes!
Nor would I want to see the city,
the towers, or the holy statues of the gods!
I, the noblest man in Thebes, to my misery cursed myself, 1380
telling everyone to drive out the man
whom the gods showed to be a sinner,
he who was discovered to be of Laius’ race.
How could I look on my city,
after I announced my own crime and punishment
Never! If I could have halted the stream of my hearing,
I would have welcomed it:
to lock up this suffering body
in a prison with no sight or sound.
It is sweet to live in thoughts alone, far from evil. 1390
Cithaeron, why did you save me
Why couldn’t you have killed me straight off,
so I would never have revealed to men my origin
Polybus and Corinth, called home of my fathers,
how fair you made seem the foulness underneath,
and so you raised me.
But I am foulness itself, born from those who were foul.
Three roads, and a hidden valley, a small cluster of trees,
and that narrow path where three roads meet:
you drank my blood and the blood of my father 1400
that I myself shed.
Do you still remember what I did
when I was on my way here
Marriage, marriage, you made me,
and you made more from the same seed:
you brought to light fathers who were brothers,
children of incest,
brides who were both wives and
mothers to their husbands –
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