Eksodos
Creon
And what do you wish so eagerly to get from me?
1435
Oedipus
Cast me out of this land with all speed, to a place where no mortal shall be found to greet me.
Creon
This I could have done, to be sure, except I craved first to learn from the god all my duty.
Oedipus
But his pronouncement has been set forth in full—to let me perish, the parricide, unholy one that I am.
1440
Creon
Thus it was said. But since we have come to such a pass, it is better to learn clearly what should be done.
Oedipus
Will you, then, seek a response on behalf of such a wretch as I?
Creon
Yes, for even you yourself will now surely put faith in the god.
1445
Oedipus
Yes. And on you I lay this charge, to you I make this entreaty: give to the woman within such burial as you wish—you will properly render the last rites to your own. But never let this city of my father be condemned
to have me dwelling within, as long as I live. No, allow me to live in the hills, where Cithaeron, famed as mine, sits, which my mother and father, while they lived, fixed as my appointed tomb, so that I may die according to the decree of those who sought to slay me.
1450
And yet I know this much, that neither sickness nor anything else can destroy me; for I would never have been snatched from death, except in order to suffer some strange doom.
But let my fate go where it will. Regarding my children, Creon, I beg you to take no care of my sons:
1455
they are men, so that they will never lack the means to live wherever they should be. My two girls, poor hapless ones—who never knew my table spread separately, or lacked their father’s presence, but always had a share of all that
1460
reached my hands—I implore you to take care of them. And, if you can, allow me to touch them with my hands, and to indulge my grief. Grant it, prince, grant it, noble heart. Ah, if I could but once touch them with my hands, I would think that I had them
1465
just as when I had sight.
1470
What is this? Oh, gods, can it be my loved ones that I hear sobbing, can Creon have taken pity on me and sent my children, my darlings?
Creon
You are. I have brought this about, for I knew the joy which you have long had from them—the joy you now have.
Oedipus
Bless you, and for this errand may the god prove a kinder guardian to you than he has to me.
My children, where are you? Come, here, here to the hands of the one whose mother was your own, the hands that have made your father’s once bright eyes to be such orbs as these—his, who seeing nothing, knowing nothing,
1480
became your father by her from whom he was born! For you also do I weep, though I cannot see you, when I think of the bitter life that men will make you live in days to come. To what company of the citizens will you go, to what festival,
1485
from which you will not return home in tears, not sharing in the holiday? But when you reach a ripe age for marriage, who shall he be, who shall be the man, my daughters, to risk taking upon himself the reproaches
1490
