I then am after this manner the ally both of the deity and the mortal who is dead. But I imprecate on the perpetrator, whether he have escaped detection being some single person, or with more, that, like a villain as he is, he may wear slowly out an unhappy existence. But on myself I call down, should he be an inmate in these my halls with my privacy, the very penalties which I have just now invoked on these. But on you I strictly impose the performance of all this, both on my own behalf, and of the god, and of this our land, thus without its fruits and without its god brought to decay. For not even if the matter had not been taken up by the god, ought you in reason to leave it thus unatoned, when the best of men, and your monarch, had perished, but thoroughly to sift it but now, since it is I who possess the authority which he held before, who possess too his bed, and the same wife to raise up seed; and since a common offspring to his in common would have been of her born, had not issue unhappily failed him, whereas now fate has fallen violently on his head; for these causes I will thus do battle for him, even as it were for mine own father; and will resort to all means in seeking to take the author of his murder to the son of Labdacus, and of Polydorus, and of earlier Cadmus, and of the ancient Agenor: and for those who fail to perform these orders, I pray the gods to allow to spring neither seed-crop to them from their land, no, nor children from their wives; but that they may be wasted away by their present doom, and by one yet more hateful than this. But to you the other Cadmæans, as many as these designs are acceptable to, may both the friendly power, Justice, and all the gods, weal, be present evermore. CH. Even as thou hast involved me in a curse, thus, O king, will I speak: for neither was I his slayer, nor have I power to disclose that slayer. But this same question was the part of Phoebus who gave the message to have declared, namely, who on earth has done the deed. ED. Thou hast justly spoken. But to compel gods to that which they shall not have pleased to do, could no man alive have power. CH. By permission, I would suggest the second step after this which occurs to my thought. ED. Nay, even if there be a third, see thou omit not to give it utterance. CH. I know that king* Tiresias most especially has insight into the same things with king Apollo, from whom one en * The expression avas refers here to the functions of king, priest, and prophet, which were united from the earliest times, and which neither the Athenians nor Romans, when they abolished the regal power, dared nominally to separate, but still retained their titular ßaciλsus and rex, quiring of these matters, O king, might derive the clearest knowledge of them. ED. But not even this have I managed as a slothful work, for I have despatched, at Creon's word, two to fetch him; and long since he moves my wonder by his non-attendance. CH. Well, certainly the other stories, however, are absurd, and out of date. ED. To what purpose these same? for I scrutinize every report. CH. He was said to have fallen by some wayfarers. ED. I, too, have heard so; but the witness of this no one has in his eye. CH. But surely, if he possesses one particle of fear, at least he will not endure hearing such curses as these of thine. ED. Him who can have no horror of the deed, neither will a word overawe. CH. Yet is there who shall expose him, for those yonder are slow conducting hither the heavenly seer; in whom alone of men is the truth innate. ED. Tiresias, thou who dost contemplate all things, both those which may be taught, and those which are unspeakable, and those which are of heaven, and those that tread our earth; with what a disease our city is familiar, even though thou seest not, thou must still be sensible: whereof we discover thee, O king, the only protector and deliverer. For Phœbus, although thou art not informed of it by the messengers, has sent word in return to us who sent to ask, that release from this our present sickly state alone could come, if, having rightly discovered, we should put to death those who put to death Laïus, or send them into banishment from the land. Do thou, therefore, on thy part, grudging us neither response from augury, nor if thou hast other way of divination whatever, redeem thyself and the state, redeem me, redeem the whole pollution of the dead.* For in thy hands we are; but for a man to do benefit from such means as he may have and can use, is of labours the most glorious. TIRESIAS. Woe, woe, how fearful a thing is wisdom, where it cannot pay its profits to the wise. Alas! for this I having well known completely lost, else had I not come hither. ED. Nay, what is this? how dispirited art thou come to us! TIR. Dismiss me to my home, for most easily wilt thou endure thy doom and I mine, shouldst thou be prevailed on by me. ED. Thou hast said what is neither lawful nor affectionate * That is, "all that the death of Laius has polluted." to this thy country which nursed thee, in depriving her of this divulgement. TIR. Why, I observe that neither does thy speech proceed from thee seasonably; I do it, therefore, that I may not suffer the same evil on my part. CH. Do not, in the name of the gods, if aware of this, be averse [to speak], since we all here, prostrate as suppliants, kneel to thee. * no, TIR. Because ye are all infatuated: but I never; be it that I may not, by telling mine own, unfold thy miseries. ED. What sayest thou? though privy to it, wilt thou not give it utterance, but thinkest thou to betray us, and plunge the city in ruin? TIR. I will torture neither myself nor thee. Wherefore dost thou fruitlessly probe these matters? for never mightest thou extract them from me. ED. What, villain! veriest of villains! for thou on thy part wouldst enrage the temper even of a stone; wilt thou never declare it at all, but show thyself thus unsoftened and unsatisfying? TIR. Thou hast complained of my ill humour, but thine own that dwells with thee hast thou not discerned;† yet blamest thou me. ED. I do; for who would not be incensed at hearing such words as those, in which thou now settest at nought this city? TIR. Why, they will come to pass, even though I suppress them in silence. ED. Oughtest not thou, then, to inform me of at least that which will come to pass? TIR. I can tell thee no farther; whereupon, if thou wilt, be exasperate with such whatever rage is most ferocious. ED. Aye, on my soul, and I will at least pass over nothing, *"But I "This is translated after the punctuation of Hermann's edition. In his addenda, however, Elmsley considers Erfurdt to have correctly interpreted the passage, the second un to redound, and the order to be, ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ μήποτε ἐκφήνω (id est, οὔποτε ἐκφανῶ, τὰ σὰ κακά, ὡς ἂν εἴπω τὰ ἐμὰ μαντεύματα. “ Never imagine that I will bring to light thy misfortunes, in order that I may utter my prophecies." Hermann considers that Eustathius is right in attributing to these words an allusion to Jocasta, and says, that the expression oμov vaíovoar is otherwise useless; which, however, it would not be, since it contains the very reason which gives Tiresias's remonstrance so much force. The ambiguity, if any ought to be, is well preserved in these lines: Thou hast reprov'd my warmth, yet little know'st so enraged am I, of what I am apprised of. For, know, thou art suspected by me both to have helped engender the deed, and to have done it, in all but killing him with thine hands; nay, had thou possessed sight, even this deed its very self had I asserted to be thine alone. TIR. Is it even so?—I charge thee to abide by the proclamation, even that which thou hast promulged, and from this day forth to speak word neither to these here, nor to me; for that thou art the unhallowed defiler of this land. ED. Hast thou thus shamelessly given vent to these words of thine, and canst thou possibly expect that thou shalt acquit thyself of this? TIR. I stand acquitted, for I cherish truth in its strength. ED. At whose hand schooled? for surely not from thy art. TIR. At thine; for thou hast provoked me reluctant to speak. ED. What manner of speech? speak again, that I may the rather apprehend. TIR. Understood'st thou not before, or temptest thou my words? ED. No, not at least to have termed it intelligible; but say again. TIR. I say thou art the murderer of the man, whose murderer thou seekest. ŒED. But in no wise with impunity shalt thou twice at least utter calumnies. TIR. Shall I tell thee, then one other thing also, that thou mayest be the more angered? ED. As much at least as thou inclinest, since it will be said in vain. TIR. I affirm thee to be unconsciously holding the most shameful intercourse with thy dearest friends, and not to see the depth of misery in which thou art. ED. And dost think thou shalt always say these things even exultingly? TIR. Yes, if at least there be (as there is) any might in truth. ED. Nay, there is, save to thee; but to thee there is not this, since thou art blind both in thine ears and thy mind and thine eyes. TIR. But thou at any rate art wretched in reproaching me with this, wherewith is there not one of these who will not speedily reproach thee. ED. Thou art fostered by night alone, so that thou couldst never do either me or any other, whoever he be, that looks on the light, a mischief. TIR. For it is not fated thou shouldst fall, at least by me, since Apollo is sufficient, whose care it is to accomplish alĺ this. ED. Are these the inventions of Creon, or thine own? TIR. Nay, Creon is no bane to thee, but thyself to thyself. ED. O wealth, and sovereignty, and art surpassing art in this life of constant emulation, how great is the jealousy stored up among you! if at least for the sake of this my dominion, which the city reposed in my hands, a free gift and not solicited, from this Creon the loyal, my former friend, secretly supplanting me is longing to eject me, having suborned a sorcerer such as this, a vamper up of plots, a wily mountebank, a wretch that hath eyes only for his gains, but as to his art was born blind. For if not, come tell me, wherein art thou a true seer? How didst thou not, when the monster of wild song* was here, pronounce some spell of deliverance to these our citizens? And yet her riddle at least was not for the chance-comer to expound, but required divination, which thou plainly exposedst thyself as not possessing either from birds or known from any one of the gods; but I, when I was come, the nothing-knowing Edipus, put her down, having mastered it by judgment, and not having learnt it from birds: I, whom forsooth thou must try to depose, expecting that thou shalt stand next in place near the Creontean throne. To thy cost methinks both thou and he that contrived all this will go exorcising pollutions: nay, hadst thou not borne an old man's seeming, to thy cost hadst thou known what manner of things they be thou purposest. CH. To our conjecture, both this man's words and thine, O Edipus, appear to have been uttered in passion. But there is want not of such as they, but how we shall best expedite the oracles of the god, to consider this. * ἡ ῥαψῳδὸς κύων. A puzzling title to translate; but the Sphinx was all a puzzle, and would have made a great figure in these days of Egyptian statues and hieroglyphics, particularly as her acted charades were better than her spoken, at least they nonplussed the poor Thebans more, being of that ancient kind which he who receives aright "had need from head to foot well understand." For the translation, if any one have so much of Euripides, or rather Diogenes, in him as to prefer "enigmatical bitch," he may find in the poem of Christabelle one of the same breed, and most "enigmatical." vv. 2 et seq. † On the expression To Aaßdakép raidí Brunck has a long note from Eustathius, producing two examples from Homer of these adjectives in ecos. in both of which there seem a certain solemnity and state intended to be expressed, which indeed are more palpable in these instances from Sophocles: τα Λαβδάκου τε παιδὶ would not have had the same force. Brunck renders "damno tuo cognosceres, quam male sentias." This is not satisfactory, the force of the particle èp being entirely lost, unless it be thought implied by "sentias." Since Edipus appears confident of the nature of Tiresias' intentions, may we translate "thou hadst known as the sufferer just what thou knowest as the designer," and consider it a threat of banishment; or does ola èp mean qualia cunque? Elmsley prints them together, olazep; Hermann separately. |