[...]
MNESILOCHUS. It is not wonderful, O women, that you who are so abused should be exceedingly exasperated at Euripides, nor yet that your bile should boil over; for I myself hate that man, if I be not mad,—so may I be blessed in my children! But nevertheless we must grant the privilege of speaking amongst each other; for we are by ourselves, and there is no blabbing of our conversation. Why thus do we accuse him, and are vexed, if, being cognizant of two or three misdeeds of ours, he has said them of us who perpetrate innumerable? For I myself, in the first place,—not to speak of any one else,—am conscious with myself of many shameful acts: at all events of that most shameful one, when I was a bride of three days, and my husband was sleeping beside me. Now I had a friend, who had debauched me when I was seven years of age. He, through love of me, came and began scratching at the door; and then I immediately understood it; and then I was for going down secretly, but my husband asked me, “Whither are you going down?” “Whither?—A colic and pain, husband, possesses me in my stomach; therefore I am going to the necessary.” “Go then!” said he. And then he began pounding juniper berries, anise, and sage. But after I had poured some water on the hinge, I went out to my paramour; and then I conversed with him beside the statue of Apollo, holding by the bay-tree. These, you see, Euripides never yet at any time spoke of. Nor does he mention how we give ourselves up to our slaves and to muleteers, if we have not any other. Nor how, when we junket ever so much during the night, we chew up garlic in the morning, in order that the husband having smelt it when he comes in from the wall, may not suspect us of doing any thing bad. These things, you see, he has never at any time spoken of. And if he does abuse a Phaedra, what is this to us? Neither has he ever mentioned that, how that well-known woman, while showing her husband at day-break how beautiful her upper garment is, sent out her paramour hidden in it—that he has never yet mentioned. And I know another woman, who for ten days said she was in labour, till she purchased a little child; while her husband went about purchasing drugs to procure a quick delivery. But the child an old woman brought in a pot with its mouth stopped with honeycomb, that it might not squall. Then, when she that carried it nodded, the wife immediately cried out, “Go away, husband, go away, for methinks I shall be immediately delivered.” For the child kicked against the bottom of the pot. And he ran off delighted, while she drew out the stoppage from the mouth of the child, and it cried out. And then the abominable old woman who brought the child, runs smiling to the husband, and says, “A lion has been born to you, a lion! your very image, both in all other respects whatever, and its nose is like yours, being crooked like an acorn-cup.” Do we not practise these wicked acts? Yea, by Diana, do we! And then are we angry at Euripides, “who have suffered nothing greater than we have committed?”
CHORUS. This certainly is wonderful, where the creature was found, and what land reared this so audacious woman. For I did not think the villanous woman would even ever have dared thus shamelessly to say this publicly amongst us. But now every thing may take place. I commend the old proverb, “For we must look about under every stone, lest an orator bite us.” But indeed there existeth not any thing more wicked for all purposes than women shameless by nature,—unless perhaps it be women.
The women continue to be shocked by Mnesilochus’ utterings. News arrives that Euripides has sent an in-law of his in women’s guise to eavesdrop on them. The women decide to hunt him out. Their suspicions are raised when Mnesilochus gives an inaccurate account of the previous year’s festival.
FIFTH WOMAN. Strip him; for he says nothing that is right.
MNESILOCHUS. And will you then strip the mother of nine children?
CLISTHENES. Unloose your girdle quickly, you shameless creature!
FIFTH WOMAN. How very stout and strong she appears! and, by Jove, too, she has no breasts, as we have.
MNESILOCHUS. For I am barren, and have never been pregnant.
FIFTH WOMAN. Now; but you were the mother of nine children a while ago.
CLISTHENES. Stand upright! Whither are you thrusting down your hand?
FIFTH WOMAN. See there, it peeped out! and very fresh-coloured it is, you rogue.
CLISTHENES. Why, where is it?
FIFTH WOMAN. It’s gone again to the front. [CLISTHENES goes in front of MNESILOCHUS.]
CLISTHENES. It is not here.
FIFTH WOMAN. Nay, but it has come hither again.
CLISTHENES. You’ve a kind of an isthmus, fellow; you’re worse than the Corinthians.
FIFTH WOMAN. Oh the abominable fellow! On this account then he reviled us in defence of Euripides.
Mnesilochus is punished by being fastened to a board so that an archer can shoot arrows at him.
[Enter EURIPIDES as an old procuress, accompanied
by a dancing-girl and a boy with a flute.]
EURIPIDES. Women, if you are willing to make peace with me for the future, it is now in your power; I make you these proposals of peace on the understanding that you are to be in no wise abused by me at all henceforth.
CHORUS. On account of what matter do you bring forward this proposal?
EURIPIDES. This man in the plank is my father-in-law. If therefore I recover him, you shall never be abused at all. But if you do not comply, I will accuse you to your husbands when they come home from the army of those things which you do secretly.
With a little help Euripides eventually sets Mnesilochus free.
OEDIPUS LEARNS THE TRUTH
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles
Translated by W. B. Yeats, 1928
Sophocles (497/6–406/5 BC) was the third in the triumvirate of great Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus and Euripides being the other two. Oedipus Rex was the second of his surviving ‘Theban Plays’ to be written (after Antigone, see Story 25), but chronologically the first in the sequence of events portrayed. A terrible plague has swept across Thebes. A prophecy suggests that respite will come only when the Thebans have avenged the murder of their previous king, Laius. Oedipus (literally ‘swollen foot’), who married Laius’ widow Jocasta and had four children by her, seeks to discover who was responsible and punish him. Oedipus is incredulous when the blind prophet Teiresias reveals to him that he, Oedipus, is the blind one, since the murderer he is seeking is none other than himself. This extract from Sophocles’ play, which features a Chorus of elders, describes Oedipus’ terrible moment of realisation. It opens with Jocasta speaking.
[…] An oracle came to Laius once,
I will not say from Phoebus, but from his ministers,
that he was doomed to die by the hand of his own
child sprung from him and me. When his child was
but three days old, Laius bound its feet together and
had it thrown by sure hands upon a trackless moun-
tain; and when Laius was murdered at the place
where three highways meet, it was, or so at least the
rumour says, by foreign robbers. So Apollo did not
bring it about that the child should kill its father,
nor did Laius die in the dreadful way he feared by
his child’s hand. Yet that was how the message of
the seers mapped out the future. Pay no attention
to such things. What the God would show he will
need no help to show it, but bring it to light himself.
OEDIPUS. What restlessness of soul, lady, has come upon
me since I heard you speak, what a tumult of the
mind!
JOCASTA. What is this new anxiety? What has startled
you?
OEDIPUS. You said that Laius was killed where three
highways meet.
OEDIPUS. And where is the place?
JOCASTA. In Phocis where the road divides branching off
to Delphi and to Daulia.
OEDIPUS. And when did it happen? How many years
ago?
JOCASTA. Ne
ws was published in this town just before
you came into power.
OEDIPUS. O Zeus! What have you planned to do unto
me?
JOCASTA. He was tall; the silver had just come into his
hair; and in shape not greatly unlike to you.
OEDIPUS. Unhappy that I am! It seems that I have laid
a dreadful curse upon myself, and did not know it.
JOCASTA. What do you say? I tremble when I look on
you, my King.
OEDIPUS. And I have a misgiving that the seer can see
indeed. But I will know it all more clearly, if you
tell me one thing more.
JOCASTA. Indeed, though I tremble I will answer what-
ever you ask.
OEDIPUS. Had he but a small troop with him; or did he
travel like a great man with many followers?
JOCASTA. There were but five in all—one of them a
herald; and there was one carriage with Laius in it.
OEDIPUS. Alas! It is now clear indeed. Who was it brought
the news, lady?
JOCASTA. A servant—the one survivor.
OEDIPUS. Is he by chance in the house now?
JOCASTA. No; for when he found you reigning instead
of Laius he besought me, his hand clasped in mine,
to send him to the fields among the cattle that he
might be far from the sight of this town; and I sent
him. He was a worthy man for a slave and might
have asked a bigger thing.
OEDIPUS. I would have him return to us without delay.
JOCASTA. Oedipus, it is easy. But why do you ask this?
OEDIPUS. I fear that I have said too much, and therefore
I would question him.
JOCASTA. He shall come, but I too have a right to know
what lies so heavy upon your heart, my King.
OEDIPUS. Yes: and it shall not be kept from you now
that my fear has grown so heavy. Nobody is more
to me than you, nobody has the same right to learn
my good or evil luck. My father was Polybus of
Corinth, my mother the Dorian Merope, and I was
held the foremost man in all that town until a thing
happened—a thing to startle a man, though not to
make him angry as it made me. We were sitting at
the table, and a man who had drunk too much cried
out that I was not my father’s son—and I, though
angry, restrained my anger for that day; but the
next day went to my father and my mother and
questioned them. They were indignant at the taunt
and that comforted me—and yet the man’s words
rankled, for they had spread a rumour through the
town. Without consulting my father or my mother
I went to Delphi, but Phoebus told me nothing of
the thing for which I came, but much of other things
—things of sorrow and of terror: that I should live
in incest with my mother, and beget a brood that
men would shudder to took upon; that I should be
my father’s murderer. Hearing those words I fled
out of Corinth, and from that day have but known
where it lies when I have found its direction by the
stars. I sought where I might escape those infamous
things—the doom that was laid upon me. I came in
my flight to that very spot where you tell me this
king perished. Now, lady, I will tell you the truth.
When I had come close up to those three roads, I
came upon a herald, and a man like him you have
described seated in a carriage. The man who held
the reins and the old man himself would not give
me room, but thought to force me from the path,
and I struck the driver in my anger. The old man,
seeing what I had done, waited till I was passing
him and then struck me upon the head. I paid him
back in full, for I knocked him out of the carriage
with a blow of my stick. He rolled on his back, and
after that I killed them all. If this stranger were
indeed Laius, is there a more miserable man in the
world than the man before you? Is there a man more
hated of Heaven? No stranger, no citizen, may re-
ceive him into his house, not a soul may speak to
him, and no mouth but my own mouth has laid this
curse upon me. Am I not wretched? May I be swept
from this world before I have endured this doom!
A Messenger comes to tell Oedipus that Polybus, his father – or at least, the man he thought was his father – has died. His conversation with Oedipus is revelatory.
OEDIPUS. I am afraid lest Phoebus has spoken true.
MESSENGER. You are afraid of being made guilty through
Merope?
OEDIPUS. That is my constant fear.
MESSENGER. A vain fear.
OEDIPUS. How so, if I was born of that father and
mother?
MESSENGER. Because they were nothing to you in blood.
OEDIPUS. What do you say. Was Polybus not my father?
MESSENGER. No more or less than myself.
OEDIPUS. How can my father be no more to me than
you who are nothing to me?
MESSENGER. He did not beget you any more than I.
OEDIPUS. No? Then why did he call me his son?
MESSENGER. He took you as a gift from these hands of
mine.
OEDIPUS. How could he love so dearly what came from
another’s hands?
MESSENGER. He had been childless.
OEDIPUS. If I am not your son, where did you get me?
MESSENGER. In a wooded valley of Cithaeron.
OEDIPUS. What brought you wandering there?
MESSENGER. I was in charge of mountain sheep.
OEDIPUS. A shepherd—a wandering, hired man.
MESSENGER. A hired man who came just in time.
OEDIPUS. Just in time—had it come to that?
MESSENGER. Have not the cords left their marks upon
your ankles?
OEDIPUS. Yes, that is an old trouble.
MESSENGER. I took your feet out of the spancel.
OEDIPUS. I have had those marks from the cradle.
MESSENGER. They have given you the name you bear.
OEDIPUS. Tell me, for God’s sake, was that deed my
mother’s or my father’s?
MESSENGER. I do not know—he who gave you to me
knows more of that than I.
OEDIPUS. What? You had me from another? You did
not chance on me yourself?
MESSENGER. No. Another shepherd gave you to me.
OEDIPUS. Who was he? Can you tell me who he was?
MESSENGER. I think that he was said to be of Laius’ house-
hold.
OEDIPUS. The king who ruled this country long ago?
MESSENGER. The same—the man was herdsman in his
service.
OEDIPUS. Is he alive, that I might speak with him?
MESSENGER. You people of this country should know that.
OEDIPUS. Is there any one here present who knows the
herd he speaks of? Any one who has seen him in the
town pastures? The hour has come when all must be
made clear.
CHORUS. I think he is the very herd you sent for but
now; Jocasta can tell you better than I.
JOCASTA. Why ask about that man? Why think about
him? Why waste a thought on what this man has
said? What he has said is of no account.
OEDIPUS. What, with a clue like that in my hands and
fail to find out my
birth?
JOCASTA. For God’s sake, if you set any value upon your
life, give up this search—my misery is enough.
OEDIPUS. Though I be proved the son of a slave, yes,
even of three generations of slaves, you cannot be
made base-born.
JOCASTA. Yet, hear me, I implore you. Give up this
search.
OEDIPUS. I will not hear of anything but searching the