Creon
It is not because I thought this city void of men, son of Aegeus, or of counsel, as you say,
[940]
that I have done this deed; but because I judged that its people could never be so zealous for my relatives as to support them against my will. And I knew that this people would not receive a parricide and a polluted man,
[945]
a man whose unholy marriage—a marriage with children—had been found out. Such wisdom, I knew, was immemorial on the Areopagus, which does not allow such wanderers to dwell within this city. Trusting in that, I sought to take this prize.
[950]
And I would not have done so, had he not been calling down bitter curses on me and on my race. As I was wronged in this way, I judged that I had a right to this requital. For anger knows no old age, until death comes;
[955]
the dead alone feel no galling pain. In response to this, you will do what pleases you; for, though my case is just, the lack of aid makes me weak. Yet in the face of your actions, despite my age, I will endeavor to pay you back.
This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
Table of Contents:
Sophocles. The Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1889.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.