Many, my children, are the tears I've wept,Īnd threaded many a maze of weary thought. Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams. The quest that brings you hither and your need. OEDIPUS Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too If men to man and guards to guard them tail.

This land, as now thou reignest, better sure O let it not decline! If thou wouldst rule Thy happy star ascendant brought us luck, Our country's savior thou art justly hailed: Look to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore Upraise, O chief of men, upraise our State!

Tried counselors, methinks, are aptest found Some succor, whether by a voice from heaven Prompting from us or been by others schooled To the fell songstress? Nor hadst thou received Therefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit, Of Pluto is full fed with groans and tears. Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head,įoundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.Ī blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,Īrmed with his blazing torch the God of Plague Meanwhile, the common folk, with wreathed boughsīoth shrines of Pallas congregate, or whereįor, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State, Of Zeus, and these the flower of our youth. Thy palace altars-fledglings hardly winged,Īnd greybeards bowed with years, priests, as am Thou seest how both extremes of age besiege PRIEST Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king, Of ill that moves you or a boon ye crave? What means this reek of incense everywhere,Ĭhildren, it were not meet that I should learnĮxplain your mood and purport. Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands

OEDIPUS My children, latest born to Cadmus old, Suppliants of all ages are seated round the altar at the palace doors, at their head a PRIEST OF ZEUS.

Sophocles oedipus rex