Teiresias. You ’ll stir me up to tell my soul’s dread secret.
Creon. Unlock your bosom—only not for gain.
Teiresias. No gain for you in what I ’ll say, methinks.
Creon. In me you shall not traffic for your profit.
Teiresias. (solemnly). And you shall not live through the time marked out
By many rapid courses of the sun,
Before you will have rendered up a corpse
In one of thine own blood, in recompense
For corpse, since children of the world above
You thrust to Hades’ realm below, and lodged
A living soul dishonored in the grave,
And keep a man, belonging to the gods
Beneath, still lying in the world above,
A corpse unburied and unsanctified,
Bereft of all the honors due the dead.
Nor you, nor e’en the gods in Heaven, can
Lay claim to him, since he belongs to none
Except the nether gods, whom you offend.
For this the fiends of Hades and of Heaven,
Destroying and avenging Furies, lie
In wait for you, that you may now be caught,
Entangled likewise in the net of ruin.
Think you my speech is prompted by a bribe?
Consider well. A time will come, and soon,
When shrieks of men and women’s wailings loud
Shall in your house resound,—nay more, the realms
Are roused against you in tumultuous hate
Whose mangled sons wild beasts of prey and dogs
Have consecrated, or some wingéd bird
That soared aloft and bore pollution back
To hearths at home, from corpses in the field.
Such shafts unerring for your heart have I
Discharged in anger—for I feel the smart
Of your provoking words—and you will feel
The pang of every barb the archer sends.
Boy, lead me home, and leave him here to vent
His rage on younger men, that he may learn
Henceforth a tongue more temperate to nourish,
A better mind within his breast to cherish.
