Translation
Of the First Chorus
IN THE
ŒDIPUS TYRRANNUS OF SOPHOCLES.
Written at Fourteen.
STROPHE.
Oh! sweet-tongued oracle of Phœbus, say,
To aid th’ illustrious Thebans’ ancient shore,
Dost thou from golden Delphos bend thy way,
Where thousand altars daily incense pour?
God, we invoke thee by thy three-fold name,
Rack’d with suspence, and palpitating fear,
Whate’er thou now, or henceforth shalt proclaim,
We list in silence, and with reverence hear.
Child of Hope, immortal Fame,
Deign the dark decree to prove;10
Thy pow’r omnipotent we claim,
Pallas! progeny of Jove!
Antistrophe
To thee, we raise our suppliant hands,
Diana, queen of forests cold,
To where the stately forum stands,
Seated on thy throne of gold.
God of the distant-wounding bow,
Apollo, hear, avert our wo.
If e’er before ye gave us aid,
When burthen’d with the monster-maid,20
Averters of Misfortune’s band,
Oh! now assist our suff’ring land.
Alas! to you, we suppliant call,
And, crush’d with ills unnumber’d, fall,
Whilst all our people pine away with grief,
And vain each plan to bring the wish’d relief;
Our corn is wasted in the barren earth,
Our women sink beneath th’ untimely birth;
Corpse upon corpse promiscuously expire,
Flocking to gloomy Pluto’s dreary reign,30
As birds, who, swifter than th’ unwearied fire,
Fall in vast numbers o’er the azure main.
Unnumber’d deaths, alas! exhaust our land—
Unhonour’d corpses load the burning strand.
Mothers and wives, thy sacred altars round,
Emit one sad, one darkly-mournful sound;
Perpetual Pæans lengthen on the gale,
And dismal sighs and mournful groans prevail.
Oh! haste then, golden Pallas, heav’nly maid,
Deign, in all thy might to aid,40
And cause to fly this dreadful god,
Who smites us with his baleful rod;
And, sword and buckler laid aside,
Destroys us with o’erwhelming tide;
Drive him, banish’d, from our home,
Where th’ unbounded ocean’s foam—
Or where th’ Ægean waters roar
Around the barb’rous Thracian’s shore.
What night has spar’d awhile!—the day
Has unrelenting swept away.50
Oh, potent Jove! thy thunders bare,
Oh, bid thy lightnings pierce the air,
And wrap beneath the blazing storm,
The murd’rous fury’s raging form.
Oh, King of Lycia! now thy darts employ,
Beneath thy arms this god destroy.
Those weapons, oh, Diana? pour,
With which thou hunt’st the Lycian boar.
And thou, who lov’st the nymphs to lead,
With golden mitre round thy head,60
Guardian God of Theban shore,
Purple Bacchus, we implore,
Oh, rear thy blazing brand on high,
Against this monster of the sky,
And banish, madd’ning with the pain,
The god, most hated of the heav’nly train.