The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone

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The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone Page 7

by Sophocles


  O light! O holy Salamis, hearth

  of my fathers, and great Athens too 1030

  whose people grew up with mine,

  and the springs and rivers, the very

  plains of Troy, good-bye to all

  who have nursed me in this life.

  This is the last word Aias has

  for you. The rest I will speak

  only to the dead in Hades.

  AIAS falls on his sword. His body is screened by the bushes. CHORUS in two parties—“hurried and disorderly” (Garvie, 209)—stumble in from opposite directions.

  SEMI-CHORUS 1

  Take pains, get pain,

  pain piled on.

  Where haven’t I looked? 1040

  Where have I?

  Still no sign anywhere.

  Listen! What’s that?

  SEMI-CHORUS 2

  Your shipmates!

  SEMI-CHORUS 1

  What’s the word?

  SEMI-CHORUS 2

  We’ve covered the west.

  SEMI-CHORUS 1

  And . . . ?

  SEMI-CHORUS 2

  Nothing. Hard going.

  SEMI-CHORUS 1

  Nothing on the road from where the sun comes, either.

  CHORUS

  (severally)

  If only some fisherman 1050

  out fishing day and night,

  or nymph from Olympus or some

  stream rushing toward the Bosphoros

  could shout to us they’ve seen

  somewhere

  a man of ferocious heart wandering through!

  It’s hard making my way

  aimless,

  no wind at my back,

  to catch a glimpse of that fast fading man. 1060

  Off: short, sharp scream.

  CHORUS

  From the wood! Who screamed?

  Off: drawn-out howl.

  Disclosure of TEKMESSA, rising from behind the bushes that hide the body of AIAS. Two parties of the CHORUS converge.

  CHORUS

  (severally)

  Tekmessa!

  His spear-gotten bride . . .

  dissolved in her own cries.

  TEKMESSA

  Now nothing . . . left! I’m lost! My friends . . .

  CHORUS

  What?

  TEKMESSA

  Here. Aias. Fresh slaughter.

  His sword buried in his body.

  CHORUS

  (severally)

  Nooo! We’ll never get home!

  Lord you’ve killed us too, 1070

  your own comrades! And you,

  poor woman.

  TEKMESSA

  AIAI! his very name, Aias, cries out of us!

  LEADER

  Who had a hand in this?

  TEKMESSA

  Himself alone. He planted the sword

  he fell on. The sword stands witness.

  CHORUS

  (severally)

  And I saw nothing!

  Blind, dumb, and you by your own hand

  in your own blood

  with no friends to watch over you! 1080

  Where now is Aias

  relentless as the grief sounding his name?

  TEKMESSA covers the corpse with a robe.

  TEKMESSA

  Don’t look! I’ll wrap him

  in my robe. Nothing must show.

  None who loved him could bear seeing

  the blood gasping up through his nostrils,

  darkening from the wound

  his own hand opened.

  Now what will I do?

  Who’ll lift you up? Where’s Teukros? 1090

  If he would just come, give

  composure to his brother’s corpse!

  O Aias, to have from so high

  come to this! Even your enemies

  must to their sorrow feel it.

  LEADER

  It had to be, had to,

  you were so thick-hearted

  you had to push your fate to the bitter end.

  All night long,

  all day, you’d be groaning, 1100

  raging at the sons of Atreus

  with inextinguishable murder in your heart.

  Yes, the day

  Achilles’ arms became a contest prize

  for the best warrior,

  that day began this misery.

  TEKMESSA groans.

  LEADER

  Grief this deep stops the heart.

  TEKMESSA, howling.

  LEADER

  I don’t

  wonder you cry out over and over,

  you’ve lost so much. 1110

  TEKMESSA

  You imagine my life. I live it.

  LEADER

  Yes.

  TEKMESSA

  Ah child, our new overseers will put

  the collar of slaves on us.

  CHORUS

  Shsh! It’s unspeakable

  how brutal the sons of Atreus

  will be to you in your grief.

  Pray the gods stop them!

  TEKMESSA

  Yet the gods had a hand in this.

  LEADER

  The gods’ burden will break us. 1120

  TEKMESSA

  Athena, dread daughter of Zeus,

  she concocted this. She’ll do

  anything for her Odysseus.

  CHORUS

  Sure in the darkness of his heart

  that long-calculating man

  has to be thrilled!

  He mocks this mad frenzy,

  he laughs, and with him

  the sons of Atreus have a good laugh too.

  TEKMESSA

  Then let them laugh! Joy in his sorrows. 1130

  They didn’t miss him alive? Maybe they will

  when in the thick of it they find he’s gone!

  Men with no sense don’t know what good

  they have . . . till they’ve thrown it away.

  His death leaves more pain to me

  than joy to them. His own joy is

  he got what he wanted. And met his own death

  on his own terms. What’s for them

  to celebrate? His death is between him

  and the gods—and not, no way, for them. 1140

  Let Odysseus mouth off. What was Aias

  is gone. And has left me wretched.

  VOICE OF TEUKROS

  o god o god o aias o god

  LEADER

  Quiet!

  I think I hear Teukros, shouting something

  awful striking the heart of this disaster.

  TEUKROS appears.

  TEUKROS

  Brother Aias, dear familiar face,

  what I hear, is it true?

  LEADER

  He’s dead, Teukros. Know that for a fact.

  TEUKROS

  This falls on me! 1150

  LEADER

  That’s it, for sure.

  TEUKROS

  The rashness of it!

  LEADER

  Yes. Let it all out.

  TEUKROS

  So sudden a doom . . .

  LEADER

  Sudden, yes.

  TEUKROS

  But his son!

  Where will I find him in this Troy?

  LEADER

  Alone. In the tent.

  TEUKROS

  Get him. NOW!

  before our enemies bag him like 1160

  a lion cub whose mother finds it gone.

  Go! Hurry! Help him! Others too!

  Men can’t help crowing over

  the dead—once they are dead.

  TEKMESSA hurries off.

  LEADER

  While he lived, Teukros, that’s exactly what

  he commanded: that you watch over his son.

  And you do.

  TEUKROS

  A worse sight I have not seen

  in all my life—the road here

  became the worst I ever walked 1170

  when I learned, Aias, it wa
s

  your death I was on the trail of.

  Word of it raced through the Greek army

  like a message from the gods. It got to me

  before I could get to you. Hearing it I

  moaned low my wretchedness. But here

  now the sight of this unnerves me

  aiai!

  (to sailor)

  You. Uncover. Let’s see the worst.

  The sailor does so, behind the screen of bushes.

  It’s awful to see in the flesh 1180

  courage this brutal. What fields of grief

  your death seeds for me! Where

  will I go now? Who will welcome me

  who couldn’t help you through this?

  Naturally our father Telamon

  will be all smiles when I come home

  without you—that same man who,

  after getting good news, is no less

  sour than before. He’ll curse me out

  as the bastard of a captive girl, war spoil, 1190

  a coward who let you down. Or charge that

  calculating to get your privilege and power

  I betrayed you. Overbearing, foul-tempered,

  aimlessly mean old man! He’ll say all that

  and banish me. His words will brand me

  a slave. That will be my welcome home.

  Now enemies are everywhere, same as

  in Troy. This your death has left me.

  Now what? How can I lift you off

  the acrid glint of the swordpoint 1200

  that took your breath away? You see

  how even in death your enemy, Hektor,

  took you down?

  (to sailors)

  Look how fate

  bound these two together! With the war belt

  Aias gave him, Hektor was gripped

  against the chariot rails and dragged,

  mangled, till his life gave out. In turn,

  Aias got this gift from Hektor

  and fell on it. 1210

  Wasn’t this sword forged

  by the Furies? And that war belt by Hades,

  the savage craftsman who fashions death

  for everyone? As I see it, these things

  and all such always are ways the gods

  set men up. Anyone who sees this otherwise,

  think what you like. This thought is mine.

  LEADER

  Don’t drag this out. Think how you’ll bury

  your brother—and what will you say now

  that your enemy’s coming up. There! 1220

  He’s the type that could mock us our loss.

  TEUKROS

  From the army? Who?

  CHORUS

  The Menelaos we came all this way to help.

  TEUKROS

  O yes. This close

  there’s no doubt who he is.

  MENELAOS arrives with guards and a herald.

  MENELAOS

  Hey, you! Don’t lift that corpse don’t

  even touch it! That’s an order.

  TEUKROS

  A tall order. Why waste your breath on it?

  MENELAOS

  Because I say so. Our commander says so too.

  TEUKROS

  Then maybe you’d care to tell us 1230

  on what grounds you order this?

  MENELAOS

  We brought him here thinking

  he’d be a friend, an ally of the Greeks.

  He turned out to be a worse enemy

  than any Trojan. With his spear he

  plotted to murder us all in the night.

  If a god hadn’t stopped him, it would be

  our doom now to die his shameful death,

  exposed to all, while he’d still be alive.

  Yet the god drove his mad rage aside 1240

  against cattle and sheep. Not a man alive

  has the power, now, to bury him in a grave.

  We’ll haul the carcass out onto damp

  yellow sands somewhere, for seabirds

  to feed on. So don’t puff yourself up

  threatening us. We couldn’t in life

  keep him in line, but like it or not, in death

  we will. He will go wherever our hands

  take him, and leave him, seeing as in life

  he never listened to a word I said. 1250

  When a common person defies his betters

  it shows he’s no good. What city can thrive

  where there’s no fear of the law? How keep

  discreet order in an army camp without

  shutting it up in fear and respect? Even

  a man grown gigantic, he should watch it!

  One little slip, he could go down. No,

  the man who lives in fear and shame

  is safe. But in a city of no respect, just

  insolence and willfulness, though it 1260

  enjoy awhile a following wind, one day

  it will go under. Fear is in order.

  Why dream we can do what we want

  without paying for it? One such turn

  deserves another. This man flared up, all

  hot-tempered and cocky. Now it’s

  my turn for high-and-mighty thoughts.

  I warn you: bury that man, you may

  bury yourself with him.

  LEADER

  You’ve set down right-minded precepts, 1270

  Menelaos. Don’t overreach yourself

  outraging the dead.

  TEUKROS

  My friends, it’s no surprise that a nobody

  of common stock offends, in his own way,

  when a supposed noble can talk such trash.

  Again now. You say you brought him here

  as an ally. He didn’t sail here on his own?

  His own master? What justifies your claim

  to command him and his men? You rule

  the Spartans, not us. You’ve no more grounds 1280

  to claim power over him than he over you.

  You yourself came under orders; you’re not

  the commander of these forces. So how is it

  you command Aias?

  Lord it over those

  you’re lord over. Give them a tongue-lashing

  with your big talk. I’ll bury Aias the proper way

  no matter what you or that other general say.

  Your mouth doesn’t scare me. Aias didn’t, like

  those poor bastards in the ranks, come here 1290

  to get you your wife back. He came

  because of an oath he’d taken. Not for you.

  He wouldn’t go to war for the shell of a man.

  Next time you come here bring more heralds,

  bring the commander in chief! Make

  all the racket you want. As long as you are

  what you are, I wouldn’t bother to notice.

  LEADER

  Again insulting words! On top of all this?

  I don’t like it. Even if they are called for.

  MENELAOS

  The archer, far from blood dust, thinks he’s something. 1300

  TEUKROS

  I’m very good at what I do.

  MENELAOS

  How you’d brag . . . had you a shield.

  TEUKROS

  Barehanded I’d match you in all your armor.

  MENELAOS

  Your courage is all in your mouth.

  TEUKROS

  A righteous cause is my courage.

  MENELAOS

  What? It’s right to defend my killer?

  TEUKROS

  Your killer!? You’re dead? And still alive?

  MENELAOS

  A god saved me. But he wanted me dead.

  TEUKROS

  If the gods saved you, why disrespect them?

  MENELAOS

  How do I disrespect the gods? 1310

  TEUKROS

  By forbidding the burial of the dead.

  MENELAOS

  This was our enemy. It�
��s right to forbid him rest.

  TEUKROS

  Did Aias ever really confront you as an enemy?

  MENELAOS

  We hated one another. You know that.

  TEUKROS

  Sure. He knew you rigged the vote against him.

  MENELAOS

  The judges made that ruling. Not me.

  TEUKROS

  You’d put a straight face on any crooked scheme.

  MENELAOS

  Talk like that could get someone hurt.

  TEUKROS

  Not us more than you.

  MENELAOS

  One last time. He will not be buried. 1320

  TEUKROS

  I’m telling you. He will.

  MENELAOS

  I saw, once, a real blowhard make

  his crew sail into a spell of bad weather.

  When the storm broke, you wouldn’t have heard

  a peep out of him, scrunched under his robe,

  not daring to breathe a word with the crew

  running round stepping all over him. So

  you. One little cloudburst may set off

  a monster storm that will drown you out.

  TEUKROS

  Me too. I once saw a fool so full 1330

  of himself, he made fun of others’ misery.

  It happened a man like me, the way I feel

  it could be me, said something like

  “Man, don’t disrespect the dead. You do,

  you will pay for it.” To his face said it,

  the face of the fool standing before me now,

  Menelaos. How’s that for talking double-talk?

  MENELAOS

  I’m leaving. It would be shameful if anyone knew

  I, with so much power, stooped to quibble with you.

  TEUKROS

  Then get! Shame is in standing still 1340

  blasted by hot air from a fool.

  MENELAOS and Attendants leave.

  LEADER

  A big fight for sure. And soon.

  Move, Teukros! Find a hollowed-out spot,

  some moldy darkness men will hold

  famous forever as his tomb.

  TEKMESSA reappears with EURYSAKES in hand.

  TEUKROS

  Just in time, his wife and son are here

  to perform the burial rites.

  You, boy, come here.

  Stand by the father who gave you your life.

  Press your hand on him, clutching locks of hair: 1350

  mine, your mother’s, your own.

 

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