Within its deadly hold. There will I loose
This stubborn soul, and give to mortal dust
Whatever lives in me. Where is the sea?
Come, lead me where some beetling crag juts out, 115
Or where Ismenus rolls his savage waves;
Or thither would I go and end my life,
Where once upon a jutting rock abode
The hybrid Sphinx and wove her crafty speech. 120
Direct me thither, set thy father there.
Let not that dreadful seat be empty long,
But place me there, a greater monster still.
There will I sit and of my fate propose
A riddle dark which no man will resolve.
Come listen, ye, who plow the Theban fields;
Whoever worships in the sacred grove 125
Of Cadmus, for the deadly serpent famed,
Where hallowed Dirce lies; whoever drinks
Eurotas' stream; ye who in Sparta dwell,
Illustrious for its heavenly brothers twain;
And ye who reap Boeotia's fertile fields,
The plains of Elis and Parnassus' slopes: 130
What riddle like to this could she propose,
That curse of Thebes, who wove destructive words
In puzzling measures? What so dark as this?
He was his grandsire's son-in-law, and yet
His father's rival; brother of his sons, 135
And father of his brothers; at one birth
The granddame bore unto her husband sons,
And grandson's to herself. Who can unwind
A tangle such as this? E'en I myself,
Who bore the spoils of triumph o'er the Sphinx,
Stand mute before the riddle of my fate.
| · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
[Has a speech of Antigone dropped out at this point, or does Oedipus
hark back to a previous thought after a dramatic pause?]
But why waste further words? Why dost thou try 140
To soften my determined heart with prayers?
My will is fixed to pour this spirit forth
Which now for long has struggled sore with death,
