Oedipus
[380]
O wealth, and empire, and skill surpassing skill in life's keen rivalries, how great is the envy in your keeping, if for the sake of this office which the city has entrusted to me, a gift unsought,
[385]
Creon the trustworthy, Creon, my old friend, has crept upon me by stealth, yearning to overthrow me, and has suborned such a scheming juggler as this, a tricky quack, who has eyes only for profit, but is blind in his art!
[390]
Come, tell me, where have you proved yourself a seer? Why, when the watchful dog who wove dark song was here, did you say nothing to free the people? Yet the riddle, at least, was not for the first comer to read: there was need of a seer's help,
[395]
and you were discovered not to have this art, either from birds, or known from some god. But rather I, Oedipus the ignorant, stopped her, having attained the answer through my wit alone, untaught by birds. It is I whom you are trying to oust, assuming that
[400]
you will have great influence in Creon's court. But I think that you and the one who plotted these things will rue your zeal to purge the land: if you did not seem to be an old man, you would have learned to your cost how haughty you are.
Chorus
To our way of thinking, these words, both his and yours, Oedipus,
[405]
have been said in anger. We have no need of this, but rather we must seek how we shall best discharge the mandates of the god.
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Sophocles. The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1887.
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