Oedipus the King by Sophocles, Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles Read Free Book Online Page B

yourself. Find out
720 whether I brought back the oracle's exact words.
Then if you find I plotted with that omen-reader,
seize me and kill menot on your authority
alone, but on mine too, for I'd vote my own death.
But don't convict me because of a wild thought
you can't prove, which only you believe.
And there's no justice in your reckless confusion
of evil men with good ones, traitors with friends.
To reject a true friend is like suicide
it costs us a life loved as we love our own.
730 Time will instruct you in these truths, for time
alone is the sure test of a just man,
but you can know a bad man in one day.
LEADER That's sound advice, King,
for someone anxious not to fall.
Too quick a mind can stumble.
OEDIPUS When a conspirator moves
abruptly and in secret against me,
I must out-plot him and strike first.
If I pause and do nothing
740 he'll win his purpose
while I'm losing mine.
KREON What is your purpose? My banishment?
OEDIPUS No. It's your death I want.
KREON If you will begin by defining ''envy" . . .
OEDIPUS You talk as though you refuse to believe me.
KREON How can I if you won't use reason?
OEDIPUS I reason in my own interest.
KREON You ought to reason in mine as well.
OEDIPUS In a traitor's interest?
750 KREON What if you're wrong?

     

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OEDIPUS I must still rule.
KREON Not if it's selfish rule.
OEDIPUS Did you hear him, Thebes!
KREON Thebes isn't just your city. It's mine as well!
LEADER My Lords, stop this. Here's Jocasta
leaving the palaceat the right time
to calm you both. She'll see that this feud ends.
(Enter Jocasta from the palace.)
JOCASTA Wretched men. Why are you out here
recklessly yelling at each other?
760 Aren't you ashamed? With Thebes sick and dying
you two fight out some personal grievance?
You go inside, Oedipus. Kreon, go home.
Don't make us all miserable over nothing.
KREON Sister, it's worse than that. Oedipus your husband
threatens either to drive me
from my own country, or have me killed.
OEDIPUS That's right. I've caught him plotting against my life.
And his technique is lying prophecy.
KREON I ask the gods to sicken and destroy me
770 if I did any of the things you charge me with.
JOCASTA Believe what he says, Oedipus.
Accept that oath he just made to the gods.
Do it for my sake too, and for these men.
LEADER Give in to him, Lord, we beg you.
Do what your mind and instinct tell you.
OEDIPUS What do you want me to do?
LEADER Believe him. This man was never a fool,
now he's given himself the force of a great oath.
OEDIPUS Do you realize what you're asking?
780 LEADER I do.
OEDIPUS Then say it to me outright.
LEADER Groundless rumor shouldn't be used by you
to dishonor a friend who swears his innocence.
OEDIPUS Is it clear to you all
that you ask my exile or my death?

     

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LEADER No! We ask neither. By the god
outshining all others, the Sun
may I die the worst of deaths, die it
godless and friendless, if I want those things.
790 This dying land grinds pain into my soul
grinds it the more if the bitterness
you two stir up adds to our misery.
OEDIPUS Then let him go, though it means my death,
or my exile from here in disgrace.
What moves my pity are your words,
not his. My hate goes with him.
KREON You are as bitter when you yield
as you are savage in your rage.
But natures like your own
800 punish themselves the most
which is the way it should be.
OEDIPUS Leave me alone. Go.
KREON I'll go. You can see nothing now.
But these men see that I'm right.
(Kreon goes off.)
LEADER Lady, what keeps you from taking your man in?
JOCASTA I will, when someone tells me what happened here.
LEADER Loose talk made one man's suspicion flare up,
which stung the other's sense of justice.
JOCASTA Both sides were at fault?
810 LEADER Both sides.
JOCASTA What was at issue?
LEADER Don't ask that. Our land needs no more trouble.
No more trouble! Stop it now where it stands.
OEDIPUS I know you mean well when you try to calm me,
but do you realize what it does to me?
LEADER King, I have