Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OEDIPUS REX [TYRANNUS][OR, OEDIPUS THE KING]: IN TIME OF PESTILENCE, by SOPHOCLES Poet's Biography First Line: Glad message of the voice of zeus Last Line: Blazing for us, strike at the god cursed among gods, and save! Subject(s): Epidemics | ||||||||
CHORUS I Glad Message of the voice of Zeus, From golden Pytho travelling to splendid Thebes, what burden bringest thou? Eager, am I, afraid, heart-shaken with fear of thee -- (Healer, Apollo of Delos, God of the Cry, give ear!) Shaken with reverent fear. Is it some new task to be done? Or is it some ancient debt thou wilt sweep in the fulness of time to the payment? Tell me thy secret, Oracle deathless, Daughter of golden Hope! First call we on the child of Zeus, Deathless Athene; then on her that guards our land, her Sister, Artemis, Lady of Good Report, whose throne is our market place; Aye, and Apollo! I cry thee, Shooter of Arrows, hear! Three that are strong to deliver, appear! Great fighters of Death, Now, if in ancient times, when calamity threatened, ye came to help us, Sweeping afar the flame of affliction, -- strike, as of old, to-day! II Alas! Alas! Beyond all reckoning My myriad sorrows! All my people sick to death, yet in my mind No shaft of wit, no weapon to fight the death. The fruits of the mighty mother Earth increase not. Women from their tempest of cries and travail-pangs Struggle in vain . . . no birth-joy followeth. As a bird on the wing, to the west, to the coast of the sunset god Look! 'tis the soul of the dead that flies to the dark, nay, soul upon soul, Rushing, rushing, swifter and stronger in flight than the race of implacable fire, Myriads, alas, beyond all reckoning, -- A city dying! None has pity. On the ground they lie, unwept, Spreading contagious death; and among them wives That wail, but not for them, aye, and grey mothers Flocking the altar with cries, now here, now there, Shrilling their scream of prayer . . . for their own lives. And a shout goeth up to the Healer; and, cleaving the air like fire, Flashes the Paean, above those voices that wail in a piping tune. Rescue! Rescue! Golden One! Send us the light of thy rescuing, Daughter of Zeus! III Turn to flight that savage War-God, warring not with shield and spear, But with fire he burneth when his battlecry is loud, Turn him back and drive him with a rushing into flight, Far away, to exile, far, far away from Thebes, To the great sea-palace of Amphitrite, Perchance to the waves of the Thracian sea and his own barbaric shore. He spareth us not. Is there aught that the night has left? Lo! Day cometh up to destroy. King and Lord, O Zeus, of the lightning fires, Father of all! Thine is the Might. Take up the bolt and slay! Phoebus, King Lycean, I would see thee string thy golden bow, Raining on the monster for our succour and defence Shafts unconquered. I would see the flashing of the fires From the torch of Artemis, that blazeth on the hills When she scours her mountains of Lycia. And another I call, the Golden-Crowned, and his name is a name of Thebes; He is ruddy with wine, and his cry is the triumph cry, And his train are the Maenades; -- Come, great Bacchus, come! With a splendour of light, Blazing for us, strike at the god cursed among gods, and save! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...REVELRY OF THE DYING by BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING THE BLUE-FLY by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES DARKNESS WAS OVERTRACED ON EVERY FACE by EMILY JANE BRONTE STATE OF THE UNION: 20. AN EPIDEMIC WITHOUT A NAME by JOHN PEPPER CLARK BLUE-FLY by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES TO THE EDITORS FROM MAIRI MACINTYRE'S MOTHER, MARY ROSE MACINTYRE by DEENA LINETT FOR CHILDREN KILLED IN A SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC by RYOSA OEDIPUS AT COLONUS: OLD AGE by SOPHOCLES |
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