Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus 151–215: Parodos: the Chorus of Theban elders pray against the plague

O sweetly-speaking message of Zeus, in what spirit have you come to glorious Thebes from golden Pytho? I am on the rack, terror shakes my soul, O Delian healer to whom wild cries rise, in holy fear of you, wondering what debt you will extract from me, perhaps unknown before, perhaps renewed with the revolving years. Tell me, immortal Voice, child of golden Hope.

First I call on you, daughter of Zeus, immortal Athena, and on your sister, Artemis, guardian of our earth, who sits on her glorious throne above the circle of our market-place, and on far-shooting Apollo: oh shine forth for me, my three-fold help against death! If ever before you drove a fiery pest from our borders to stop ruin rushing upon our city, come now also!

Alas, countless are the sorrows I bear. A plague is on all our people, and thought can find no weapon for defense. The fruits of the glorious earth do not grow; by no birth of offspring do women surmount the pangs in which they shriek. You can see life after life speed away, like a bird on the wing, swifter than irresistible fire, to the shore of the western god.

With such deaths, past numbering, the city perishes. Unpitied, her children lie on the ground, spreading pestilence, with no one to mourn them. Meanwhile young wives and grey-haired mothers raise a wail at the steps of the altars, some here, some there, and groan in supplication for their terrible woes. The prayers to the Healer ring clear, and with them the voice of lamentation. For which things, golden daughter of Zeus, send us the bright face of comfort.

Grant that the fierce god of death, who now without the bronze of shields, though among cries like those of battle, wraps me in the flames of his onset, may turn his back in speedy flight from our land, borne by a favorable wind to the great chamber of Amphitrite, or to the Thracian waves, those waters where none find haven. For if night leaves anything undone in the working of destruction, day follows to accomplish it. You who wield the powers of fiery lightning, Zeus our father, slay him beneath your thunder-bolt.

Lycean Lord, would that the shafts from your bent bow’s string of woven gold might go forth in their might, our champions in the face of the foe, and the flashing fires of Artemis too, with which she darts through the Lycian hills. I call him whose locks are bound with gold, who is named with the name of this land, ruddy Bacchus to whom Bacchants cry, to draw near with the blaze of his shining torch, our ally against the god unhonored among the gods.