Delphi Complete Works of Sophocles

by Sophocles

(Ant. 1)

  Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind,

  Thou carest for the blind.

  I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes,

  Thy voice I recognize.

  CHORUS

  O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar

  Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?

  OEDIPUS

  (Str. 2)

  Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was

  That brought these ills to pass;

  But the right hand that dealt the blow

  Was mine, none other. How,

  How, could I longer see when sight

  Brought no delight?

  CHORUS

  Alas! ’tis as thou sayest.

  OEDIPUS

  Say, friends, can any look or voice

  Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice?

  Haste, friends, no fond delay,

  Take the twice cursed away

  Far from all ken,

  The man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.

  CHORUS

  O thy despair well suits thy desperate case.

  Would I had never looked upon thy face!

  OEDIPUS

  (Ant. 2)

  My curse on him whoe’er unrived

  The waif’s fell fetters and my life revived!

  He meant me well, yet had he left me there,

  He had saved my friends and me a world of care.

  CHORUS

  I too had wished it so.

  OEDIPUS

  Then had I never come to shed

  My father’s blood nor climbed my mother’s bed;

  The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled,

  Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child.

  Was ever man before afflicted thus,

  Like Oedipus.

  CHORUS

  I cannot say that thou hast counseled well,

  For thou wert better dead than living blind.

  OEDIPUS

  What’s done was well done. Thou canst never shake

  My firm belief. A truce to argument.

  For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes

  I could have met my father in the shades,

  Or my poor mother, since against the twain

  I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone.

  Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys

  A parent’s eyes. What, born as mine were born?

  No, such a sight could never bring me joy;

  Nor this fair city with its battlements,

  Its temples and the statues of its gods,

  Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all,

  Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes,

  By my own sentence am cut off, condemned

  By my own proclamation ‘gainst the wretch,

  The miscreant by heaven itself declared

  Unclean — and of the race of Laius.

  Thus branded as a felon by myself,

  How had I dared to look you in the face?

  Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs

  Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make

  A dungeon of this miserable frame,

  Cut off from sight and hearing; for ’tis bliss

  to bide in regions sorrow cannot reach.

  Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why

  Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never

  Had shown to men the secret of my birth.

  O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home,

  Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called)

  How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul

  The canker that lay festering in the bud!

  Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit.

  Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen,

  Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways,

  Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt,

  My father’s; do ye call to mind perchance

  Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work

  I wrought thereafter when I came to Thebes?

  O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth,

  And, having borne me, sowed again my seed,

  Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children,

  Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood,

  All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun,

  Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet.

  O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere

  Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me

  Down to the depths of ocean out of sight.

  Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch;

  Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear

  The load of guilt that none but I can share.

  [Enter CREON.]

  CREON

  Lo, here is Creon, the one man to grant

  Thy prayer by action or advice, for he

  Is left the State’s sole guardian in thy stead.

  OEDIPUS

  Ah me! what words to accost him can I find?

  What cause has he to trust me? In the past

  I have bee proved his rancorous enemy.

  CREON

  Not in derision, Oedipus, I come

  Nor to upbraid thee with thy past misdeeds.

  (To BYSTANDERS)

  But shame upon you! if ye feel no sense

  Of human decencies, at least revere

  The Sun whose light beholds and nurtures all.

  Leave not thus nakedly for all to gaze at

  A horror neither earth nor rain from heaven

  Nor light will suffer. Lead him straight within,

  For it is seemly that a kinsman’s woes

  Be heard by kin and seen by kin alone.

  OEDIPUS

  O listen, since thy presence comes to me

  A shock of glad surprise — so noble thou,

  And I so vile — O grant me one small boon.

  I ask it not on my behalf, but thine.

  CREON

  And what the favor thou wouldst crave of me?

  OEDIPUS

  Forth from thy borders thrust me with all speed;

  Set me within some vasty desert where

  No mortal voice shall greet me any more.

  CREON

  This had I done already, but I deemed

  It first behooved me to consult the god.

  OEDIPUS

  His will was set forth fully — to destroy

  The parricide, the scoundrel; and I am he.

  CREON

  Yea, so he spake, but in our present plight

  ‘Twere better to consult the god anew.

  OEDIPUS

  Dare ye inquire concerning such a wretch?

  CREON

  Yea, for thyself wouldst credit now his word.

  OEDIPUS

  Aye, and on thee in all humility

  I lay this charge: let her who lies within

  Receive such burial as thou shalt ordain;

  Such rites ’tis thine, as brother, to perform.

  But for myself, O never let my Thebes,

  The city of my sires, be doomed to bear

  The burden of my presence while I live.

  No, let me be a dweller on the hills,

  On yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine,

  My tomb predestined for me by my sire

  And mother, while they lived, that I may die

  Slain as they sought to slay me, when alive.

  This much I know full surely, nor disease

  Shall end my days, nor any common chance;

  For I had ne’er been snatched from death, unless

  I was predestined to some awful doom.

  So be it. I reck not how Fate deals with me

  But my unhappy children — for my sons

  Be not concerned, O Creon, they are men,

  And for themselves, where’er they be, can fend.

  But for my daughters twain, poor innocent maids,

  Who ever sat beside m
e at the board

  Sharing my viands, drinking of my cup,

  For them, I pray thee, care, and, if thou willst,

  O might I feel their touch and make my moan.

  Hear me, O prince, my noble-hearted prince!

  Could I but blindly touch them with my hands

  I’d think they still were mine, as when I saw.

  [ANTIGONE and ISMENE are led in.]

  What say I? can it be my pretty ones

  Whose sobs I hear? Has Creon pitied me

  And sent me my two darlings? Can this be?

  CREON

  ’Tis true; ’twas I procured thee this delight,

  Knowing the joy they were to thee of old.

  OEDIPUS

  God speed thee! and as meed for bringing them

  May Providence deal with thee kindlier

  Than it has dealt with me! O children mine,

  Where are ye? Let me clasp you with these hands,

  A brother’s hands, a father’s; hands that made

  Lack-luster sockets of his once bright eyes;

  Hands of a man who blindly, recklessly,

  Became your sire by her from whom he sprang.

  Though I cannot behold you, I must weep

  In thinking of the evil days to come,

  The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you.

  Where’er ye go to feast or festival,

  No merrymaking will it prove for you,

  But oft abashed in tears ye will return.

  And when ye come to marriageable years,

  Where’s the bold wooers who will jeopardize

  To take unto himself such disrepute

  As to my children’s children still must cling,

  For what of infamy is lacking here?

  “Their father slew his father, sowed the seed

  Where he himself was gendered, and begat

  These maidens at the source wherefrom he sprang.”

  Such are the gibes that men will cast at you.

  Who then will wed you? None, I ween, but ye

  Must pine, poor maids, in single barrenness.

  O Prince, Menoeceus’ son, to thee, I turn,

  With the it rests to father them, for we

  Their natural parents, both of us, are lost.

  O leave them not to wander poor, unwed,

  Thy kin, nor let them share my low estate.

  O pity them so young, and but for thee

  All destitute. Thy hand upon it, Prince.

  To you, my children I had much to say,

  Were ye but ripe to hear. Let this suffice:

  Pray ye may find some home and live content,

  And may your lot prove happier than your sire’s.

  CREON

  Thou hast had enough of weeping; pass within.

  OEDIPUS

  I must obey,

  Though ’tis grievous.

  CREON

  Weep not, everything must have its day.

  OEDIPUS

  Well I go, but on conditions.

  CREON

  What thy terms for going, say.

  OEDIPUS

  Send me from the land an exile.

  CREON

  Ask this of the gods, not me.

  OEDIPUS

  But I am the gods’ abhorrence.

  CREON

  Then they soon will grant thy plea.

  OEDIPUS

  Lead me hence, then, I am willing.

  CREON

  Come, but let thy children go.

  OEDIPUS

  Rob me not of these my children!

  CREON

  Crave not mastery in all,

  For the mastery that raised thee was thy bane and wrought thy fall.

  CHORUS

  Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great,

  He who knew the Sphinx’s riddle and was mightiest in our state.

  Who of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes?

  Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!

  Therefore wait to see life’s ending ere thou count one mortal blest;

  Wait till free from pain and sorrow he has gained his final rest.

  PHILOCTETES

  Translated by Lewis Campbell

  First performed at the Festival of Dionysus in 409 BC, where it won first prize, this tragedy takes place during the Trojan War, describing the attempt by Neoptolemus and Odysseus to bring the wounded Philoctetes with them to Troy.

  According to the myth, when Heracles was near his death, he wished to be burned on a funeral pyre while still alive. No one but Philoctetes would light the fire and in return for this favour Heracles gave him his bow. When Philoctetes left with the others to participate in the Trojan War, he was bitten on the foot by a snake when walking on Chryse, a sacred ground. The bite left him in constant agony, emitting a horrible smell. For this reason he was left by Odysseus on the desert island Lemnos. Ten years passed and the Greeks captured the Trojan seer Helenus, son of Priam. He foretold that they would need Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles in order to win the war. Odysseus sailed back to Lemnos with Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, in order to convince Philoctetes to join them. The task would not be easy, as Philoctetes bitterly hates Odysseus and the Greeks for leaving him behind.

  Sophocles’ Philoctetes begins with their arrival on the island. Odysseus explains to Neoptolemus that he must perform a shameful action in order to garner future glory - to take Philoctetes by tricking him with a false story while Odysseus hides. Neoptolemus is portrayed as an honourable boy and so it takes some persuading in order for him to play this part. In order to gain Philoctetes’ trust, Neoptolemus dupes Philoctetes into thinking he hates Odysseus as well. Neoptolemus does this by telling Philoctetes that Odysseus has his father Achilles’ armour. He tells Philoctetes that this armour was his right by birth and Odysseus would not give it up to him. After gaining Philoctetes’ trust and offering him a voyage home, Neoptolemus is allowed to look at the bow of Heracles.

  Neoptolemus holds the bow while Philoctetes is going into an unbearable fit of pain in his foot. Feeling ashamed, Neoptolemus debates giving it back to him. Odysseus appears and a series of arguments ensue. Eventually Neoptolemus’ conscience gains the upper hand, and he returns the bow. After many threats made on both sides, Odysseus flees. Neoptolemus then tries to talk Philoctetes into coming to Troy by his own free will, but Philoctetes will not agree. In the end Neoptolemus consents to take Philoctetes back to Greece, even though that means that he will be exposed to the anger of the army. This appears to be the conclusion of the play; however, as they are leaving, the god Heracles appears above them and tells Philoctetes that if he goes to Troy then he will be cured and the Greeks will win. Philoctetes willingly obeys him.

  ‘Philoctetes on Lemnos’ by Jean Germain Drouais, 1788

  CONTENTS

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ARGUMENT

  PHILOCTETES

  A bust of Sophocles from the Roman period

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ODYSSEUS.

  NEOPTOLEMUS.

  CHORUS of Mariners.

  PHILOCTETES.

  Messenger, disguised as a Merchantman.

  HERACLES, appearing from the sky.

  SCENE. A desert shore of the Island of Lemnos.

  ARGUMENT

  It was fated that Troy should be taken by Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, assisted by the bow of Heracles in the hands of Philoctetes.

  Now Philoctetes had been rejected by the army because of a trouble in his foot, which made his presence with them insufferable; and had been cast away by Odysseus on the island of Lemnos.

  But when the decree of fate was revealed by prophecy, Odysseus undertook to bring Philoctetes back, and took with him Neoptolemus, whose ambition could only be gratified through the return of Philoctetes with the bow.

  Philoctetes was resolutely set against returning, and at the opening of the drama Neoptolemus is persuaded by
Odysseus to take him with guile.

  But when Philoctetes appears, the youth’s ingenuous nature is so wrought upon through pity and remorse, that his sympathy and native truthfulness at length overcome his ambition.

  When the inward sacrifice is complete, Heracles appears from heaven, and by a few words changes the mind of Philoctetes, so that all ends well.

  PHILOCTETES

  ODYSSEUS. NEOPTOLEMUS.

  ODYSSEUS. This coast of sea-girt Lemnos, where we stand,

  Is uninhabited, untrodden of men.

  And here, O noble son of noblest sire,

  Achilles-born Neoptolemus, I erewhile, —

  Ordered by those who had command, — cast forth

  Trachinian Philoctetes, Poeas’ son,

  His foot dark-dripping with a rankling wound;

  When with wild cries, that frighted holy rest,

  Filling the camp, he troubled every rite,

  That none might handle sacrifice, or pour

  Wine-offering, but his noise disturbed our peace.

  But why these words? No moment this for talk,

  Lest he discern my coming, and I lose

  The scheme, wherewith I think to catch him soon.

  Now most behoves thy service, to explore

  This headland for a cave with double mouth,

  Whose twofold aperture, on wintry days,

  Gives choice of sunshine, and in summer noons

  The breeze wafts slumber through the airy cell.

  Then, something lower down, upon the left,

  Unless ’tis dried, thine eye may note a spring.

  Go near now silently, and make me know

  If still he persevere, and hold this spot,

  Or have roamed elsewhere, that informed of this

  I may proceed with what remains to say,

  And we may act in concert.

  NEOPTOLEMUS. Lord Odysseus,

  Thy foremost errand will not task me far.

  Methinks I see the cave whereof thou speakest.

  OD. Where? let me see it. Above there, or below?

  [29-64]

  NEO. Yonder, above. And yet I hear no tread.

  [NEOPTOLEMUS climbs up to the cave

  OD. Look if he be not lodged in slumber there.

  NEO. I find no inmate, but an empty room.

  OD. What? no provision for a dwelling-place?

  NEO. A bed of leaves for some one harbouring here.

  OD. Nought else beneath the roof? Is all forlorn?

  NEO. A cup of wood, some untaught craftsman’s skill,

  And, close at hand, these embers of a fire.

  OD. That store is his. I read the token clear.