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Oedipus Rex
translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald from The Oedipus Cycle
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Scene I |
Teiresias: How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be When theres no help in truth! | Topic: |
Scene II | Creon: You do wrong When you take good men for bad, bad men for good. A true friend thrown asidewhy, life itself Is not more precious! In time you will know this well: For time, and time alone, will show the just man, Though scoundrels are discovered in a day. | |
Ode II |
Chorus: [Strophe 2 Haughtiness and the high hand of disdain Tempt and outrage Gods holy law; And any mortal who dares hold No immortal Power in awe Will be caught up in a net of pain: The price for which his levity is sold. Let each man take due earnings, then, And keep his hands from holy things, And from blasphemy stand apart Else the crackling blast of heaven Blows on his head, and on his desperate heart; Though fools will honor impious men, In their cities no tragic poet sings. [Antistrophe 2 Shall we lose faith in Delphis obscurities, We who have heard the worlds core Discredited, and the sacred wood Of Zeus at Elis praised no more? The deeds and the strange prophecies Must make a pattern yet to be understood. Zeus, if indeed you are lord of all, Throned in light over night and day, Mirror this in your endless mind: Our masters call the oracle Words on the wind, and the Delphic vision blind! Their hearts no longer know Apollo, And reverence for the gods has died away. | Topic: |
Scene III |
Iocaste: Why should anyone in this world be afraid, Since Fate rules us and nothing can be foreseen? A man should live only for the present day. | Topic: |
Éxodos | Chorus: Let every man in mankinds frailty Consider his last day; and let none Presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain. | |
text checked (see note) Jan 2005 |
Oedipus at Colonus
translated by Robert Fitzgerald from The Oedipus Cycle
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Scene III |
Oedipus: Most gentle son of Aegeus! The immortal Gods alone have neither age nor death! All other things almighty Time disquiets. Earth wastes away; the body wastes away; Faith dies; distrust is born. And imperceptibly the spirit changes Between a man and his friend, or between two cities. For some men soon, for others in later time, Their pleasure sickens; or love comes again. | Topic: |
Theseus: [...] Angry men are liberal with threats And bluster generally. When the mind. Is master of itself, threats are no matter. | ||
Scene IV | Oedipus: [...] Suppose that when you begged for something desperately A man should neither grant it you nor give Sympathy even; but later when you were glutted With all your hearts desire, should give it then, When charity was no charity at all? Would you not think the kindness somewhat hollow? That is the sort of kindness you offer me: Generous in words, but in reality evil. | |
Oedipus: An agile wit! I know no honest man Able to speak so well under all conditions! | Topic: | |
text checked (see note) Jan 2005 |
Antigone
translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald from The Oedipus Cycle
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Prologue |
Antigone: You may do as you like, Since apparently the laws of the gods mean nothing to you. Ismene: They mean a great deal to me; but I have no strength To break laws that were made for the public good. Antigone: That must be your excuse, I suppose. But as for me, I will bury the brother I love. | Topic: |
Ismene: But can you do it? I say that you cannot. Antigone: Very well: when my strength gives out, I shall do no more. Ismene: Impossible things should not be tried at all. | ||
Scene II |
Creon: And yet you dared defy the law. Antigone: I dared. It was not Gods proclamation. That final Justice That rules the world below makes no such laws. Your edict, King, was strong, But all your strength is weakness itself against The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were, and shall be, Operative for ever, beyond man utterly. I knew I must die, even without your decree: I am only mortal. And if I must die Now, before it is my time to die, Surely this is no hardship: can anyone Living, as I live, with evil all about me, Think Death less than a friend? | Topic: |
Scene III |
Haimon: [...] I beg you, do not be unchangeable: Do not believe that you alone can be right. The man who thinks that, The man who maintains that only he has the power To reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty. It is not reason never to yield to reason! | |
Creon: My voice is the one voice giving orders in this City! Haimon: It is no City if it takes orders from one voice. Creon: The State is the King! Haimon: Yes, if the State is a desert. | Topic: | |
Scene V |
Teiresias: [...] Think: all men make mistakes, But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, And repairs the evil. The only crime is pride. | |
Éxodos | Messenger: Dearest Lady, I will tell you plainly all that I have seen. I shall not try to comfort you: what is the use, Since comfort could lie only in what is not true? | |
Creon: [...] I have neither life nor substance. Lead me in. Choragos: You are right, if there can be right in so much wrong. The briefest way is best in a world of sorrow. Creon: Let it come, Let death come quickly, and be kind to me. I would not ever see the sun again. Choragos: All that will come when it will; but we, meanwhile, Have much to do. Leave the future to itself. Creon: All my heart was in that prayer! Choragos: Then do not pray any more: the sky is deaf. | ||
Creon: [...] Whatever my hands have touched has come to nothing. Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust. Choragos: There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, And proud men in old age learn to be wise. | Topic: | |
text checked (see note) Jan 2005 |