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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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OEDIPUS Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power O'er me or any man who sees the sun. TEIRESIAS No, for thy weird is not to fall by me. I leave to Apollo what concerns the god. OEDIPUS Is this a plot of CREON, or thine own? TEIRESIAS Not CREON, thou thyself art thine own bane. OEDIPUS O wealth and empiry and skill by skill Outwitted in the battlefield of life, What spite and envy follow in your train! See, for this crown the State conferred on me. A gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown The trusty CREON, my familiar friend, Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned This mountebank, this juggling charlatan, This tricksy beggar-PRIEST, for gain alone Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind. Say, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself A prophet? When the riddling Sphinx was here Why hadst thou no deliverance for this folk? And yet the riddle was not to be solved By guess-work but required the prophet's art; Wherein thou wast found lacking; neither birds Nor sign from heaven helped thee, but _I_ came, The simple OEDIPUS; _I_ stopped her mouth By mother wit, untaught of auguries. This is the man whom thou wouldst undermine, In hope to reign with CREON in my stead. Methinks that thou and thine abettor soon Will rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out. Thank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn What chastisement such arrogance deserves. CHORUS To us it seems that both the seer and thou, O OEDIPUS, have spoken angry words. This is no time to wrangle but consult |
