Euripides' PHOENISSAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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Creon: Cease now your lamentations; 'tis time we bethought us of their
burial. Hear what I have to say, Oedipus. Eteocles, thy son, left
me to rule this land, by assigning it as a marriage portion to Haemon
with the hand of thy daughter Antigone. Wherefore I will no longer
permit thee to dwell therein, for Teiresias plainly declared that
the city would never prosper so long as thou wert in the land. So
begone! And this I say not to flout thee, nor because I bear thee
any grudge, but from fear that some calamity will come upon the realm
by reason of those fiends that dog thy steps.

Oedipus: O destiny! to what a life of pain and sorrow didst thou bear
me beyond all men that ever were, e'en from the very first; yea for
when I was yet unborn, or ever I had left my mother's womb and seen
the light, Apollo foretold to Laius that I should become my father's
murderer; woe is me! So, as soon as I was born, my father tried to
end again the hapless life he had given, deeming me his foe, for it
was fated he should die at my hand; so he sent me still unweaned to
make a pitiful meal for beasts, but I escaped from that. Ah! would
that Cithaeron had sunk into hell's yawning abyss, in that it slew
me not! Instead thereof Fate made me a slave in the service of Polybus;
and I, poor wretch, after slaying my own father came to wed my mother
to her sorrow, and begat sons that were my brothers, whom also I have
destroyed, by bequeathing unto them the legacy of curses I received
from Laius. For nature did not make me so void of understanding, that
I should have devised these horrors against my own eyes and my children's
life without the intervention of some god. Let that pass. What am
I, poor wretch, to do? Who now will be my guide and tend the blind
man's step? Shall she, that is dead? Were she alive, I know right
well she would. My pair of gallant sons, then? But they are gone from
me. Am I still so young myself that I can find a livelihood? Whence
could I? O Creon, why seek thus to slay me utterly? For so thou wilt,
if thou banish me from the land. Yet will I never twine my arms about
thy knees and betray cowardice, for I will not belie my former gallant
soul, no! not for all my evil case.

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