to do. I prohibit any one of this land, of which I wield the powers and royalties, from either receiving or accosting, from making a communicant with himself of either vows or sacrifices to the gods, and from apportioning the lavers of holy water to this wretch, whoever he is but I will that all thrust him from their homes, for that this is the defilement upon us, as the Pythian oracle of the divinity has just now revealed to me. I then am after this manner the ally both of the deity and the mortal who is dead. But I imprecate on the perpetrator, whether he have escaped detection being some single person, or with more, that, like a villain as he is, he may wear slowly out an unhappy existence. But on myself I call down, should he be an inmate in these my halls with my privacy, the very penalties which I have just now invoked on these. But on you I strictly impose the performance of all this, both on my own behalf, and of the god, and of this our land, thus without its fruits and without its god brought to decay. For not even if the matter had not been taken up by the god, ought you in reason to leave it thus unatoned, when the best of men, and your monarch, had perished, but thoroughly to sift it: but now, since it is I who possess the authority which he held before, who possess too his bed, and the same wife to raise up seed; and since a common offspring to his in common would have been of her born, had not issue unhappily failed him, whereas now fate has fallen violently on his head; for these causes I will thus do battle for him, even as it were for mine own father; and will resort to all means in seeking to take the author of his murder to the son of Labdacus, and of Polydorus, and of earlier Cadmus, and of the ancient Agenor: and for those who fail to perform these orders, I pray the gods to allow to spring neither seed-crop to them from their land, no, nor children from their wives; but that they may be wasted away by their present doom, and by one yet more hateful than this. But to you the other Cadmæans, as many as these designs are acceptable to, may both the friendly power, Justice, and all the gods' weal, be present evermore. CH. Even as thou hast involved me in a curse, thus, O king, will I speak: for neither was I his slayer, nor have I power to disclose that slayer. But this same question was the part of Phoebus who gave the message to have declared, namely, who on earth has done the deed. ED. Thou hast justly spoken. But to compel gods to that which they shall not have pleased to do, could no man alive have power. CH. By permission, I would suggest the second step after this which occurs to my thought. ED. Nay, even if there be a third, see thou omit not to give it utterance. CH. I know that king" Tiresias most especially has insight into the same things with king Apollo, from whom one enquiring of these matters, O king, might derive the clearest knowledge of them. ED. But not even this have I managed as a slothful "The expression avag refers here to the functions of king, priest, and prophet, which were united from the earliest times, and which neither the Athenians nor Romans, when they abolished the regal power, dared nominally to separate, but still retained their titular ẞaoiλɛvg and rex. work, for I have despatched, at Creon's word, two to fetch him; and long since he moves my wonder by his non-attendance. CH. Well, certainly the other stories, however, are absurd, and out of date. ED. To what purpose these same? for I scrutinize every report. CH. He was said to have fallen by some wayfarers. ŒED. I, too, have heard so; but the witness of this no one has in his eye. CH. But surely, if he possesses one particle of fear, at least he will not endure hearing such curses as these of thine. CED. Him who can have no horror of the deed, neither will a word overawe. CH. Yet is there who shall expose him, for those yonder are slow conducting hither the heavenly seer; in whom alone of men is the truth innate. ED. Tiresias, thou who dost contemplate all things, both those which may be taught, and those which are unspeakable, and those which are of heaven, and those that tread our earth; with what a disease our city is familiar, even though thou seest not, thou must still be sensible whereof we discover thee, O king, the only protector and deliverer. For Phoebus, although thou art not informed of it by the messengers, has sent word in return to us who sent to ask, that release from this our present sickly state alone could come, if, having rightly discovered, we should put to death those who put to death Laius, or send them into banishment from the land. Do thou, therefore, on thy part, grudging us neither response from augury, nor if thou hast other way of divination whatever, redeem thyself and the state, redeem me, redeem the whole pollution of the dead. For in thy hands we are; but for a man to do benefit from such means as he may have and can use, is of labours the most glorious. TIRESIAS. Woe, woe, how fearful a thing is wisdom, where it cannot pay its profits to the wise. Alas! for this I having well known completely lost, else had I not come hither. CED. Nay, what is this? how dispirited art thou come to us! TIR. Dismiss me to my home, for most easily wilt thou endure thy doom and I mine, shouldst thou be prevailed on by me. CED. Thou hast said what is neither lawful nor affectionate to this thy country which nursed thee, in depriving her of this divulgement. TIR. Why, I observe that neither does thy speech proceed from thee seasonably; I do it, therefore, that I may not suffer the same evil on my part. CH. Do not, in the name of the gods, if aware of this, be averse [to speak], since we all here, prostrate as suppliants, kneel to thee. TIR. Because ye are all infatuated: but I-—3, no, * That is, "all that the death of Laïus has polluted." y" But I—.” This is translated after the punctuation of Hermann's edition. In his addenda, however, Elmsley considers Erfurdt to have correctly interpreted the passage, the second un to redound, and the order to be, ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ μήποτε ἐκφήνω (id est, οὔποτε ἐκφανῶ, τὰ σὰ κακά, ὡς ἄν never; be it that I may not, by telling mine own, unfold thy miseries. ED. What sayest thou? though privy to it, wilt thou not give it utterance, but thinkest thou to betray us, and plunge the city in ruin? TIR. I will torture neither myself nor thee. Wherefore dost thou fruitlessly probe these matters? for never mightest thou extract them from me. ED. What, villain! veriest of villains! for thou on thy part wouldst enrage the temper even of a stone; wilt thou never declare it at all, but show thyself thus unsoftened and unsatisfying? TIR. Thou hast complained of my ill humour, but thine own that dwells with thee hast thou not discerned'; yet blamest thou me. CED. I do; for who would not be incensed at hearing such words as those, in which thou now settest at nought this city? TIR. Why, they will come to pass, even though I suppress them in silence. ED. Oughtest not thou, then, to inform me of at least that which will come to pass. εἴπω τὰ ἐμὰ μαντεύματα. "Never imagine that I will bring to light thy misfortunes, in order that I may utter my prophecies." ⚫ Hermann considers that Eustathius is right in attributing to these words an allusion to Jocasta, and says, that the expression oμõv vaíovoav is otherwise useless; which, however, it would not be, since it contains the very reason which gives Tiresias's remonstrance so much force. The ambiguity, if any ought to be, is well preserved in these lines: Thou hast reprov'd my warmth, yet little know'st What dwells in thine own bosom, though on me Dale's Trans. vol. i, 32. |