Stasimon 1
[Episode]
Some god with evil intent is destroying the race of Oedipus.
Jocasta
So it began, my childbearing was unholy, and in an evil hour I married your father and you were born. But why repeat these horrors? What the gods send we have to bear. I am afraid to ask you what I would, for fear of stinging your heart; yet I long to.
380
Polyneices
No, question me, leave out nothing; for your will, mother, is my pleasure too.
385
Jocasta
Well then, first I ask you what I long to have answered. What is it, to be deprived of one’s country? Is it a great evil?
Polyneices
The greatest; harder to bear than tell.
Jocasta
What is it like? What annoys the exile?
390
Polyneices
One thing most of all; he cannot speak his mind.
Jocasta
This is a slave’s lot you speak of, not to say what one thinks.
Polyneices
The follies of the rulers must be borne.
Jocasta
That too is painful, to join in the folly of fools.
Polyneices
Yet to gain our ends we must serve against our nature.
395
Jocasta
Hope, they say, is the exile’s food.
Polyneices
Yes, hope that looks so fair; but always in the future.
Jocasta
But doesn’t time expose its emptiness?
Polyneices
It has a certain winsome charm in misfortune.
Jocasta
Where did you get your living, before your marriage found it for you?
400
Polyneices
Sometimes I would have enough for the day, and sometimes not.
Jocasta
Didn’t your father’s friends and guests assist you?
Polyneices
Seek to be prosperous; friends are nothing in misfortune.
Jocasta
Didn’t your noble breeding lead you to the heights?
