Chorus O dread fate for men to see, O most dreadful of all that I have set my eyes on! Unhappy one, what madness has come upon you? Who is the unearthly foe who, with a leap of more than mortal range has made your ill-starred life his prey? Alas, alas, you hapless man! I cannot even look on you, though there is much I desire to ask, much I desire to learn, much that draws my wistful gaze: with such a shuddering do you fill me!
Oedipus Woe is me! Alas, alas, wretched that I am! Where, where am I carried in my misery? How is my voice swept abroad on the wings of the air? Oh, my fate, how far you have sprung!
Chorus To a dread place, dire in men’s ears, dire in their sight.
Oedipus Oh horror of darkness that enfolds me, unspeakable visitant, resistless, sped by a wind too favorable! Oh, me! and once again, Oh, me! How my soul is pierced by the stab of these goads and by the memory of sorrows!
Chorus No wonder that amidst these woes you mourn and bear a double pain.
Oedipus Ah, friend, you still are steadfast in your care for me, and still have patience to tend to the blind man! Ah, me! Your presence is not hidden from me—no, blind though I am, nevertheless I know your voice full well.
Chorus Man of dread deeds, how could you quench your vision in this way? What divinity urged you on?
Oedipus It was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought these troubles to pass, these terrible, terrible troubles. But the hand that struck my eyes was none other than my own, wretched that I am! Why should I see, when sight showed me nothing sweet?
Chorus These things were just as you say.
Oedipus What, my friends, can I behold anymore, what can I love, what greeting can touch my ear with joy? Hurry, friends, lead me from the land, lead me from here, the utterly lost, the thrice-accursed, the mortal most hateful to the gods!
Chorus Wretched alike for your fortune and for your understanding of it, would that I had never known you!
Oedipus Perish the man, whoever he was, who freed me in the past years from the cruel shackle on my feet—a thankless deed! Had I died then, I would not have been so sore a grief to my friends and to my own soul.
Chorus I too would have had it thus.
Oedipus In this way I would not have come to shed my father’s blood, or been known among men as the husband of the woman from whom I was born. Now I am forsaken by the gods, son of a defiled mother, successor to the bed of the man who gave me my own wretched being: if there is a woe surpassing all woes, it has become Oedipus’ lot.
Chorus
I cannot agree that you have counseled well: you would have been better dead than living and blind.
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