Oedipus.

Thine, thou born knave!

Creon.

Yes. … What, it thou art blind in everything?

Oedipus.

The King must be obeyed.

Creon.

Not if the King

Does evil.

Oedipus.

To your King! Ho, Thebes, mine own!

Creon.

Thebes is my country, not the King’s alone.6

[Oedipus has drawn his sword; the Chorus show signs of breaking into two parties to fight for Oedipus or for Creon, when the door opens and Jocasta appears on the steps.

Leader.

Stay, Princes, stay! See, on the Castle stair

The Queen Jocasta standeth. Show to her

Your strife. She will assuage it as is well.

Jocasta.

Vain men, what would ye with this angry swell

Of words heart-blinded? Is there in your eyes

No pity, thus, when all our city lies

Bleeding, to ply your privy hates? … Alack,

My lord, come in!—Thou, Creon, get thee back

To thine own house. And stir not to such stress

Of peril griefs that are but nothingness.

Creon.

Sister, it is the pleasure of thy lord,

Our King, to do me deadly wrong. His word

Is passed on me: ’tis banishment or death.

Oedipus.

I found him … I deny not what he saith,

My Queen … with craft and malice practising

Against my life.

Creon.

Ye Gods, if such a thing

Hath once been in my thoughts, may I no more

See any health on earth, but, festered o’er

With curses, die!—Have done. There is mine oath.

Jocasta.

In God’s name, Oedipus, believe him, both

For my sake, and for these whose hearts are all

Thine own, and for my brother’s oath withal.

Leader.

[Strophe.

Yield; consent; think! My Lord, I conjure thee!

Oedipus.

What would ye have me do?

Leader.

Reject not one who never failed his troth

Of old and now is strong in his great oath.

Oedipus.

Dost know what this prayer means?

Leader.

Yea, verily!

Oedipus.

Say then the meaning true.

Leader.

I would not have thee cast to infamy

Of guilt, where none is proved,

One who hath sworn and whom thou once hast loved.

Oedipus.

’Tis that ye seek? For me, then … understand

Well … ye seek death or exile from the land.

Leader.

No, by the God of Gods, the all-seeing Sun!

May he desert me here, and every friend

With him, to death and utterest malison,

If e’er my heart could dream of such an end!

But it bleedeth, it bleedeth sore,

In a land half slain,

If we join to the griefs of yore

Griefs of you twain.