Quotes From Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex

[Scene: outside, in front of the palace of Oedipus. There is also a shrine to Apollo at which are seated many suppliants. Oedipus enters the stage from the palace.]

OEDIPUS:

My children, new-sprung race of old Cadmus, why do you sit at my shrines, wearing garlands of the suppliants’ olive? All around the city is filled with the smell of incense, all around filled with the sound of hymns and groans.(5)

These things I did not think it right to learn from messengers, and so I have come here myself, who am called Oedipus and known to all.

But you, old man, tell me, since it is fitting for you to speak on their behalf, why you(10) sit out here, afraid of something or wanting it?

So I would be willing to help you in any way, for he would be hardhearted

PRIEST:

Oedipus, you who rule my land, you see(15) how many of us sit here at your altars; some do not yet have the strength to fly far; others are heavy with age. I am the priest of Zeus, and these were chosen from the young men.

There is another group wreathed as suppliants(20) sitting in the marketplace and another at the double-gated temple of Athena and at the smoke-filled oracle of Ismenus.

For the city, as you yourself can see, is badly shaken already and from the waves(25) can no longer lift her head above this bloody tossing; there is death in the fruitful buds from the earth and in the pasturing herds, and even in the childless births of women.

Falling upon us, the fire-bringing god,(30) most hateful disease, drives the city, and by him the house of Cadmus is drained, and dark Hades grows rich with groans and wails.

Now, I do not hold you equal to the gods, nor do these children who sit at your hearth,(35) but we judge you the first of men