Stasimon 5
[Choral 1]
Alas, generations of mortals, how mere a shadow I count your life! Where, where is the mortal who
Chorus
attains a happiness which is more than apparent and doomed to fall away to nothing? Your fate warns me—yours, unhappy Oedipus—to call no
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earthly creature blessed.
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For he, O Zeus, shot his shaft with peerless skill, and won the prize of an all-prosperous fortune, having slain the maiden with crooked talons, who sang darkly.
He arose for our land like a tower against death. And from that time, Oedipus, you have been called our king, and have been honored supremely, holding power in great Thebes.
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[Choral 2]
But now whose story is more grievous in men’s ears?
Chorus
Who is a more wretched slave to fierce plagues and troubles, with all his life reversed? Alas, renowned Oedipus! The same bounteous harbor was sufficient for you, both as child and as father, to make your nuptial couch in. Oh, how can the soil
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in which your father sowed, unhappy man, have endured you in silence for so long?
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Time the all-seeing has found you out, against your will: he judges the monstrous marriage in which
parent and child have long been one. Alas, child of Laius, would that I had never seen you. I wail as one who pours a dirge from his lips.
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It was you who gave me new life, to speak directly, and through you darkness has fallen upon my eyes.
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