章节正文
Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.
Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot,
What pangs of agonizing memory?
CHORUS
No marvel if in such a plight thou feel'st
The double weight of past and present woes.
OEDIPUS
(Ant. 1)
Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind,
Thou carest for the blind.
I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes,
Thy voice I recognize.
CHORUS
O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar
Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?
OEDIPUS
(Str. 2)
Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was
That brought these ills to pass;
But the right hand that dealt the blow
Was mine, none other. How,
How, could I longer see when sight
Brought no delight?
CHORUS
Alas! 'tis as thou sayest.
OEDIPUS
Say, friends, can any look or voice
Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice?
Haste, friends, no fond delay,
Take the twice cursed away
Far from all ken,
The man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.
CHORUS
O thy despair well suits thy desperate case.
Would I had never looked upon thy face!
OEDIPUS
(Ant. 2)
My curse on him whoe'er unrived
The waif's fell fetters and my life revived!
He meant me well, yet had he left me there,
He had saved my friends and me a world of care.
CHORUS
I too had wished it so.
OEDIPUS
Then had I never come to shed
My father's blood nor climbed my mother's bed;
The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled,
Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child.
Was ever man before afflicted thus,
Like Oedipus.
CHORUS
I cannot say that thou hast counseled well,
For thou wert better dead than living blind.
OEDIPUS
What's done was well done. Thou canst never shake
My firm belief. A truce to argument.
For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes
I could have met my father in the shades,
Or my poor mother, since against the twain
I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone.
Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys
A parent's eyes. What, born as mine were born?
No, such a sight could never bring me joy;
Nor this fair city with its battlements,
Its temples and the statues of its gods,
Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all,
Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes,
By my own sentence am cut off, condemned
By my own proclamation 'gainst the wretch,
The miscreant by heaven itself declared
Unclean--and of the race of Laius.
Thus branded as a felon by myself,
How had I dared to look you in the face?
Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs
Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make
A dungeon of this miserable frame,
Cut off from sight and hearing; for 'tis bliss
to bide in regions sorrow cannot reach.
Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why
Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never
Had shown to men the secret of my birth.
O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home,
Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called)
How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul
The canker that lay festering in the bud!
Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit.
Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen,
Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways,
Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt,
My father's; do ye call to mind perchance
Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work
I wroughtthereafter when I came to Thebes?
O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth,
And, having borne me, sowed again my seed,
Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children,
Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood,
All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun,
Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet.
O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere
Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me
Down to the depths of ocean out of sight.
Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch;
Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear
The load of guilt that none but I can share.
[Enter CREON.]
CREON
Lo, here is Creon, the one man to grant
Thy prayer by action or advice, for he
Is left the State's sole guardian in thy stead.
OEDIPUS
Ah me! what words to accost him can I find?
What cause has he to trust me? In the past
I have bee proved his rancorous enemy.
CREON
Not in derision, Oedipus, I come
Nor to upbraid thee with thy past misdeeds.
(To BYSTANDERS)
But shame upon you! if ye feel no sense
Of human decencies, at least revere
The Sun whose light beholds and nurtures all.
Leave not thus nakedly for all to gaze at
A horror neither earth nor rain from heaven
Nor light will suffer. Lead him straight within,
For it is seemly that a kinsman's woes
Be heard by kin and seen by kin alone.
OEDIPUS
O listen, since thy presence comes to me
A shock of glad surprise--so noble thou,
And I so vile--O grant me one small boon.
I ask it not on my behalf, but thine.
CREON
And what the favor thou wouldst crave of me?
OEDIPUS
Forth from thy borders thrust me with all speed;
Set me within some vasty desert where
No mortal voice shall greet me any more.
CREON
This had I done already, but I deemed
It first behooved me to consult the god.
OEDIPUS
His will was set forth fully--to destroy
The parricide, the scoundrel; and I am he.
CREON
Yea, so he spake, but in our present plight
'Twere better to consult the god anew.
OEDIPUS
Dare ye inquire concerning such a wretch?
CREON
Yea, for thyself wouldst credit now his word.
OEDIPUS
Aye, and on thee in all humility
I lay this charge: let her who lies within
Receive such burial as thou shalt ordain;
Such rites 'tis thine, as brother, to perform.
But for myself, O never let my Thebes,
The city of my sires, be doomed to bear
The burden of my presence while I live.
No, let me be a dweller on the hills,
On yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine,
My tomb predestined for me by my sire
And mother, while they lived, that I may die
Slain as they sought to slay me, when alive.
This much I know full surely, nor disease
Shall end my days, nor any common chance;
For I had ne'er been snatched from death, unless
I was predestined to some awful doom.
So be it. I reck not how Fate deals with me
But my unhappy children--for my sons
Be not concerned, O Creon, they are men,
And for themselves, where'er they be, can fend.
But for my daughters twain, poor innocent maids,
Who ever sat beside me at the board
Sharing my viands, drinking of my cup,
For them, I pray thee, care, and, if thou willst,
O might I feel their touch and make my moan.
Hear me, O prince, my noble-hearted prince!
Could I but blindly touch them with my hands
I'd think they still were mine, as when I saw.
[ANTIGONE and ISMENE are led in.]
What say I? can it be my pretty ones
Whose sobs I hear? Has Creon pitied me
And sent me my two darlings? Can this be?
CREON
'Tis true; 'twas I procured thee this delight,
Knowing the joy they were to thee of old.
OEDIPUS
God speed thee! and as meed for bringing them
May Providence deal with thee kindlier
Than it has dealt with me! O children mine,
Where are ye? Let me clasp you with these hands,
A brother's hands, a father's; hands that made
Lack-luster sockets of his once bright eyes;
Hands of a man who blindly, recklessly,
Became your sire by her from whom he sprang.
Though I cannot behold you, I must weep
In thinking of the evil days to come,
The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you.
Where'er ye go to feast or festival,
No merrymaking will it prove for you,
But oft abashed in tears ye will return.
And when ye come to marriageable years,
Ah me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot,
What pangs of agonizing memory?
CHORUS
No marvel if in such a plight thou feel'st
The double weight of past and present woes.
OEDIPUS
(Ant. 1)
Ah friend, still loyal, constant still and kind,
Thou carest for the blind.
I know thee near, and though bereft of eyes,
Thy voice I recognize.
CHORUS
O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar
Thy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?
OEDIPUS
(Str. 2)
Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was
That brought these ills to pass;
But the right hand that dealt the blow
Was mine, none other. How,
How, could I longer see when sight
Brought no delight?
CHORUS
Alas! 'tis as thou sayest.
OEDIPUS
Say, friends, can any look or voice
Or touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice?
Haste, friends, no fond delay,
Take the twice cursed away
Far from all ken,
The man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.
CHORUS
O thy despair well suits thy desperate case.
Would I had never looked upon thy face!
OEDIPUS
(Ant. 2)
My curse on him whoe'er unrived
The waif's fell fetters and my life revived!
He meant me well, yet had he left me there,
He had saved my friends and me a world of care.
CHORUS
I too had wished it so.
OEDIPUS
Then had I never come to shed
My father's blood nor climbed my mother's bed;
The monstrous offspring of a womb defiled,
Co-mate of him who gendered me, and child.
Was ever man before afflicted thus,
Like Oedipus.
CHORUS
I cannot say that thou hast counseled well,
For thou wert better dead than living blind.
OEDIPUS
What's done was well done. Thou canst never shake
My firm belief. A truce to argument.
For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes
I could have met my father in the shades,
Or my poor mother, since against the twain
I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone.
Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys
A parent's eyes. What, born as mine were born?
No, such a sight could never bring me joy;
Nor this fair city with its battlements,
Its temples and the statues of its gods,
Sights from which I, now wretchedst of all,
Once ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes,
By my own sentence am cut off, condemned
By my own proclamation 'gainst the wretch,
The miscreant by heaven itself declared
Unclean--and of the race of Laius.
Thus branded as a felon by myself,
How had I dared to look you in the face?
Nay, had I known a way to choke the springs
Of hearing, I had never shrunk to make
A dungeon of this miserable frame,
Cut off from sight and hearing; for 'tis bliss
to bide in regions sorrow cannot reach.
Why didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why
Didst thou not take and slay me? Then I never
Had shown to men the secret of my birth.
O Polybus, O Corinth, O my home,
Home of my ancestors (so wast thou called)
How fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul
The canker that lay festering in the bud!
Now is the blight revealed of root and fruit.
Ye triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen,
Coppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways,
Ye drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt,
My father's; do ye call to mind perchance
Those deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work
I wroughtthereafter when I came to Thebes?
O fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth,
And, having borne me, sowed again my seed,
Mingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children,
Brides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood,
All horrors that are wrought beneath the sun,
Horrors so foul to name them were unmeet.
O, I adjure you, hide me anywhere
Far from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me
Down to the depths of ocean out of sight.
Come hither, deign to touch an abject wretch;
Draw near and fear not; I myself must bear
The load of guilt that none but I can share.
[Enter CREON.]
CREON
Lo, here is Creon, the one man to grant
Thy prayer by action or advice, for he
Is left the State's sole guardian in thy stead.
OEDIPUS
Ah me! what words to accost him can I find?
What cause has he to trust me? In the past
I have bee proved his rancorous enemy.
CREON
Not in derision, Oedipus, I come
Nor to upbraid thee with thy past misdeeds.
(To BYSTANDERS)
But shame upon you! if ye feel no sense
Of human decencies, at least revere
The Sun whose light beholds and nurtures all.
Leave not thus nakedly for all to gaze at
A horror neither earth nor rain from heaven
Nor light will suffer. Lead him straight within,
For it is seemly that a kinsman's woes
Be heard by kin and seen by kin alone.
OEDIPUS
O listen, since thy presence comes to me
A shock of glad surprise--so noble thou,
And I so vile--O grant me one small boon.
I ask it not on my behalf, but thine.
CREON
And what the favor thou wouldst crave of me?
OEDIPUS
Forth from thy borders thrust me with all speed;
Set me within some vasty desert where
No mortal voice shall greet me any more.
CREON
This had I done already, but I deemed
It first behooved me to consult the god.
OEDIPUS
His will was set forth fully--to destroy
The parricide, the scoundrel; and I am he.
CREON
Yea, so he spake, but in our present plight
'Twere better to consult the god anew.
OEDIPUS
Dare ye inquire concerning such a wretch?
CREON
Yea, for thyself wouldst credit now his word.
OEDIPUS
Aye, and on thee in all humility
I lay this charge: let her who lies within
Receive such burial as thou shalt ordain;
Such rites 'tis thine, as brother, to perform.
But for myself, O never let my Thebes,
The city of my sires, be doomed to bear
The burden of my presence while I live.
No, let me be a dweller on the hills,
On yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine,
My tomb predestined for me by my sire
And mother, while they lived, that I may die
Slain as they sought to slay me, when alive.
This much I know full surely, nor disease
Shall end my days, nor any common chance;
For I had ne'er been snatched from death, unless
I was predestined to some awful doom.
So be it. I reck not how Fate deals with me
But my unhappy children--for my sons
Be not concerned, O Creon, they are men,
And for themselves, where'er they be, can fend.
But for my daughters twain, poor innocent maids,
Who ever sat beside me at the board
Sharing my viands, drinking of my cup,
For them, I pray thee, care, and, if thou willst,
O might I feel their touch and make my moan.
Hear me, O prince, my noble-hearted prince!
Could I but blindly touch them with my hands
I'd think they still were mine, as when I saw.
[ANTIGONE and ISMENE are led in.]
What say I? can it be my pretty ones
Whose sobs I hear? Has Creon pitied me
And sent me my two darlings? Can this be?
CREON
'Tis true; 'twas I procured thee this delight,
Knowing the joy they were to thee of old.
OEDIPUS
God speed thee! and as meed for bringing them
May Providence deal with thee kindlier
Than it has dealt with me! O children mine,
Where are ye? Let me clasp you with these hands,
A brother's hands, a father's; hands that made
Lack-luster sockets of his once bright eyes;
Hands of a man who blindly, recklessly,
Became your sire by her from whom he sprang.
Though I cannot behold you, I must weep
In thinking of the evil days to come,
The slights and wrongs that men will put upon you.
Where'er ye go to feast or festival,
No merrymaking will it prove for you,
But oft abashed in tears ye will return.
And when ye come to marriageable years,
- marvel [´mɑ:vəl]
n.令人惊异的事；奇迹 (初中英语单词) - constant [´kɔnstənt] a.坚定的；坚贞的 (初中英语单词)
- couldst [kudst] can的第二人称单数 (初中英语单词)
- vision [´viʒən] n.视觉；想象力；幻影 (初中英语单词)
- apollo [ə´pɔləu] n.阿波罗 (初中英语单词)
- henceforth [´hens´fɔ:θ] ad.今后；从今以后 (初中英语单词)
- despair [di´speə] vi.&n.绝望 (初中英语单词)
- desperate [´despərit] a.拼死的；绝望的 (初中英语单词)
- belief [bi´li:f] n.相信；信仰，信条 (初中英语单词)
- sentence [´sentəns] n.判决 vt.宣判；处刑 (初中英语单词)
- miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- hither [´hiðə] ad.到此处 (初中英语单词)
- horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- consult [kən´sʌlt] v.商量；磋商；请教 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
- innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
- prince [´prins] n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词)
- plight [plait] n.境况；困境；苦境 (高中英语单词)
- monstrous [´mɔnstrəs] a.怪异的；庞大的 (高中英语单词)
- foremost [´fɔ:məust] a.最重要的；最先的 (高中英语单词)
- hearing [´hiəriŋ] n.听力；听证会；审讯 (高中英语单词)
- dungeon [´dʌndʒən] n.地牢，土牢 (高中英语单词)
- thereafter [ðeə´rɑ:ftə] adv.此后，其后 (高中英语单词)
- guardian [´gɑ:diən] n.监护人；保护人 (高中英语单词)
- behalf [bi´hɑ:f] n.利益 (高中英语单词)
- mortal [´mɔ:tl] a.致命的 n.凡人 (高中英语单词)
- concerning [kən´sə:niŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- accursed [ə´kə:sid] a.被诅咒的；可憎的 (英语四级单词)
- gallows [´gæləuz] n.绞刑架 (英语四级单词)
- proclamation [,prɔklə´meiʃən] n.宣布；公告；声明 (英语四级单词)
- blight [blait] n.打击 vt.摧残 (英语四级单词)
- dweller [´dwelə] n.居住者；居民 (英语四级单词)
- blindly [blaindli] ad.盲目地；没头脑地 (英语四级单词)
- providence [´prɔvidəns] n.天意，天命，上帝 (英语四级单词)
- bereft [bi´reft] bereave的过去分词 (英语六级单词)
- canker [´kæŋkə] n.癌肿病；毒害 (英语六级单词)
- triple [´tripəl] a.三倍的v.增加到三倍 (英语六级单词)
- abject [´æbdʒekt] a.卑鄙的；可怜的 (英语六级单词)
- derision [di´riʒən] n.嘲笑，嘲弄 (英语六级单词)
- scoundrel [´skaundrəl] n.&a.无赖(的) (英语六级单词)
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