[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] children children science of the ancient cadmium line what is the meaning of this thronging round my feet this holding out of olive boughs all reeved in wool the city droops with elegiac sound and hymns with poles of insects hang i come to see it with my eyes no messengers yes i who men call oedipus the great speak elder you are senior here say what this pleading means what frightens you what you beseech king edibus the sovereign of my land you see here young and old clustered round the shrine fledgling some is saying flight and some much weighted down as i by age the presbyter of zeus and stripping some ambassadors of youth yes see the storm that batters down this city's plow in waves of blood the crops diseased disease among the herds the ineffectual womb rotting with its fruit a fever demon wastes the town and decimates with fire stalking hated through the emptied house where cadmus lived while poverty-stricken night grows fat on groans and allergies in hades realms so you most respected king we plead with you to find for us a cure you must not let your rain go down as one when men were resurrected once and once relapsed mend the city make us safe you had good omens once you did your work be equal to your statute now if king of men as king you are then be it of a kingdom manned and not a desert your news poor earnest children is not new to me i know it well you all are sick yet sick not one so sick as i your pain is single each to each it does not breed mine is treble anguish crying out for the city for myself for you it was no man of sleep you woke ah no but one in bitter tears and one perplexed in thought found wandering who clutched the only remedy that came to send the son of menorcus creon my own neocaster's brother to the place apollo haunts of pythia to learn what act or covenant of mine could still redeem the state i count the days his time is up he does not come he should be here but when he comes the instant he arrives whatsoever he shall tell me from the god that i must follow to the end for i am damned royal brother what news what mandate son of manicus from the mouth of the god favorable i'd even say our wounds apollo's bidding done will issue into blessings which means you leave me half and hope half buried in despair will you hear it publicly i'm ready shall we go inside speak out to all it's much more those than mine on my own than my own soul very well then here is what the god has said the prince apollo openly enjoins on us to sever from the body politic a monstrous growth that battens there stop feeding that which festers by what treatment are applied by banishment or death for death the city frets with someone's blood who is the unhappy man not named liar sir the man who was king in days before you ruled man i never saw a murdered man and now clearly is required the just blood of his assassins but where on this earth are they where does one begin to search the long-lost traces of forgotten crime yeah says the god seek and you shall find only that escapes which never was pursued [Music] [Music] [Music] hmm where did lias meet his violent death he planned a pilgrimage he said and so left home never to return again he went alone no companions no witnesses who could furnish a report dead all dead but one who fled in panic and he tongue tied save on a single point one point tell it clues breed clues and we must snatch at straws this man insists that highwaymen attacked the king not one but many and they cut him down hi women no highwayman would be so bold unless someone here tempted him with bribes so we thought but with liars gone we were sunk in miseries and no one stirred his death went unavenged what miseries could ever let you leave unsolved the death and downfall of a king sir it was the siren sphinx of riddles who sang us from the shadowed past to what was sorely present then i'll go back and drag that shadow past to light again a search which you and i together will pursue my designs could not be suited more to avenge my god and country at one stroke ah not from any far-flung friend but by myself and for myself i'll break this play but who knows tomorrow the self-say murderer may turn his bloody hands on me the cause of liars therefore is my own so rise up children hurry go summon all thieves i am residue with apollo's help we shall not fail but will all blessedly emery what god-golden voice from the gold-studded shrine of the python comes to our glorious thebes my spirit is tremulous wracked with its eagerness help he love delos i'm fainting with fear of what fate you will fashion me now or turn in the turning of time speak to me oracle child everlastingly sprung from hope so goldenly come [Music] i call on you first god's daughter immortal athena then on your sister earth's guardian artemis ringground with praises and throne in our square and far shooting phoebus you three that are champions swift to deliver appear for if ever the fire of disaster reeled on the city you beat its affliction away then come make yourselves ready to play soul after soul like fire beats beats upward soaring to the god of the setting sun shriveled soil and shrinking wounds in childbirth shrieking a decimated city dying and deadly the dead all lying uncried for but crying matrons and mothers growing at every altar praying till the chiming sorrow of dirges is splintered by shouts of the peon rescue oh golden daughter of zeus with your smile muffle the wildfire mars warring with copper hot fever twirl him back homeward and headlong plunge him down from our shores for o what knight has spared us he does at break of day sun golden champion apollo let us sing the song of your arrows shot from the bow of the sun while artemis blazing with torches crosses the lycian mountains and you oh thieban bacchus wine blush and we're praying and listen what you pray for you can have if you'll hear my plan i plan to stop the plague i speak of course a stranger to the story and stranger to the crime helpless therefore to track it down unless you give me clues but since i am your latest citizen speaking among citizens i dare to challenge all you thebans with the following does any man among you know who killed elias son of labdakus son of such a one i now command to tell me everything to tell me everything if self-incrimination keeps him silent let him be assured he need fear nothing worse than banishment and is any man aware the murder was committed by someone from another land better not be shy to say what silence still if anyone is out to shield a guilty friend or is it guilty self [Music] he would best listen to the penalties i plan that man whoever that man be i this country's reigning king cut off from every fellowship of speech and contact sacrifice and sacrament even ritual touch of water in this realm thrust out from every home he'll be the very picture of that pestilence god's oracle at pithia has just revealed to me yes such an ally nothing less am i of both religion and the murdered man as to the killer [Music] who has slipped away he won or many men i now call down a life to fit a life dragged out in degradation and even if i myself should prove myself to harbor him at home and on myself i call down all the curses i have just involved for the god apollo for this land so fruitless now and so cast off by heaven for even without the gods express command how could you find it in you to neglect a monarch's death and not pursue this ending to the best of man whose very scepter i hold in my hands as king his marriage bad my bed of seed our children i shall not rest till i have traced the hand that slew the son of labdakus the son of polydorus heir to cadmus in the line of ancient and those who disobey i'll ask the gods to curse let them waste and burn away as in this present plague the rest of you my loyal men of thieves who think with me may justice and the whole of heaven help sire the oath you offer me i gladly take i swear i am not the killer nor can i tell you who the killer is apollo posed the problem let apollo point the culprit out most such but who can force the hand of heaven the next best thing if i may say next best third best said anything there lives a man who with the king's eye sees the secrets of a king tiresias of apollo he is our source our chance of learning sire no do not think that i've been idle there twice i have sent for him at creon's building i cannot understand what keeps himself we can dismiss those haunting rumors now rumors i must hear them all how he met his death through traveling vagabonds yes i've heard that too we have no witnesses and he'd be a brazen man indeed unnerved by all your menaces your words will not stay one who murder never could and yet there is a man who could reveal the criminal [Applause] come great mystic tyreses intuitive didactic master of the finite and the infinite you cannot see it you must surely feel the overwhelming weight of all this city's walls you are our last refuge prophet and our help the god apollo has sent an answer to us saying no deliverance from the plague unless you seek and find the liest killers and punish such with death or banishment now sir do not begrudge the smallest hint your skill from birds or any other omen can elicit save yourself the city and save me save us from this whole corruption of the dead we're in your hands anguish to be wise when wisdom is a loss i'll send me home take up your load it's no loyal answer refuse to speak we ask you all of us do not deny us what you know all ignorant no i refuse to link my wisdom with a downfall such as yours what you know and will not say you'd rather sacrifice us all and let the city rot i'd rather save us both from pain you miserable old man you'd fire a stone to fury still refuse your flinty heart set in hopeless stubbornness your flinty heart you could see what lurks in yours hear that but man alive i asked would stand such insults to our sovereignty and state it will all out in time out in time then why not say it now i've said enough your hand boy you you planned this thing and i suspect you of the very murder even and if you had your eyes i'd say that you yourself had done the deed would you so and i shall charge you to abide with that same curse you hurl at me you dare to think you're safe the truth has made me strong what truth you force it out of me that you and your most dearly loved are wrapped together in a hideous sin you either pursue yourself murder the man whose murderer you seek you can't hurt me you knight hatch thing not me or any man who lives in light i'm not the one fake cast for your fall apollo is enough creon was it you or he who thought of that creon i am not creon's mermaid i serve the god of hollow so this is what he wants creon the loyal creon so long my friend stealing up to overthrow and snatch some morning sorcerers this hawking conjurer a genius born blind with eyes for gang yes you tell me when you ever played the prophet straight or why when the sea dogs thinks of riddle sang you never spoke a thing to break the spell but i the oedipus who stumbled here could snuff her out with human wit not taking cues from birds and i'm the one you want to topple down to give yourself a place by creon's throne uh do not be surprised if exorcism turns and exercises you and him for were you not as doting as you seem i'd lash you with the lessons of your fraud forgive us oedipus but this is anger he spoke in anger too and both beside the point what we want to know is how to carry out the god's designs blind he maxes me for that what keeps you here go go to your damnation blind you see and still are blind appallingly blind to your origins blind to a union in your house you do not guess what hate is dormant here or buried with your dear ones dead or our mothers in the father's curse shall scourge you with its double thongs and whip you staggering from the land first ask from whence you came and then call down abuses and everything that i and creon say no man alive shall see his life so ground away i never thought to listen to such rented folly the parents you were born from thought be wise parents wait who were my parents this single day shall furnish you a birthday and a death i tell you this the man you seek for for the murder of king liars that man i say is here a stranger it was thought a stranger soon you shall see him openly displayed as he been born and shattered by the honor blind instead of a seeing he once was rich banished to distant lands with a stick oh yes detected in his very heart of home his children's father and their brother son and husband of his mother dead rival to his father and assassin ponder this and go inside and when you think you've caught me in a lie then come and tell me i'm not fit the prophecy show me the man the speaking stone from delphi damned whose hands incarnating achieved the master stroke of master murdering faster than horses that beat on the wind he must fly the sun of zeus comparisoned in light and fire is on his heel apollo to the hunt will run the man to earth through savage woods and stony caverns a lone wounded bull he limps lost and alone the seer's divining i cannot ascent i cannot deny deserted by words i hover on hopes all blind for today and blind for tomorrow zeus and apollo are wise and discern the conditions of man but oh among men where is there proof that a prophet can know more than me wisdom can surpass wisdom in a man but nevertheless i'll not be quick to judge before the proof for once the winged and female sphinx challenged him and found him sage and a friend of the city so never in my mind at least shall he be guilty of crime [Music] good citizens i hardly here shocked into your presence by a monstrous charge laid on me by oedipus the king if he thinks in all this turmoil of our times that any word or act of mine was ever done in malice done to harm i'd rather end my life than live so wronged well this is not a trifling calendar but full catastrophe to find myself called traitor traitor to my town to you and to my friends we are convinced the taunt was made in anger not coolly uttered by a minded calm it was uttered then said that i have got the seer to tell a tale of lies it was sir we cannot fathom why but said with steady eyes steady mind this onslaught made against my name i do not know what my master does i do not see but you again you dare come back have the face to put your foot inside my door you the murderer self-proved the self-condemnant future of my throne in heaven's name what cowardice or lunacy did you detect in me to give you courage for it did you think that i would never spot such treachery all that when i did i'd not be one to fight what madman's game is this to go at hunting thrones without a following of friends when thrones are only one with much support or bores let me speak to and when you've heard me judge well you're too good at talking and i'm too slow at hearing words so full of poisonous intent that's precisely what i would dispute your innocence i take it precisely what i will not hear you're very much mistaken sir if you think this stubbornness is needful and you sir have made a great mistake to think that hurting relatives can do no harm how have i hurt you did you or did you not urge me to send for that reverend midnight seer i did and still i think that i did right tell me how long is it since elias elias what [Music] disappeared die old calendars long past would tell us that and was this profit in his practice then he was and just as wise just as honest did he at any time then speak of me no at least never in my here and you did nothing to investigate the death of life a full inquiry and nothing learned why did the all-seeing seer not tell his story then that i cannot answer for and shall not venture in opinion i cannot answer that i do not know you could answer very well at least upon one point what point is that if i know i shall declare it just this the prophet fixed on me the death of liars precisely at your prompting what prompted him only you can tell now i should like to ask some questions too and you can do the answering ask away you will not find a murderer well then are you married to my sister i am why should i deny it and reign equally with her over all the realm yes i do my best to carry out her wishes and of this unit do i make an equal third exactly which is why you make so false a friend no try to reason it as i must reason it first ask yourself who would choose the troubles of a crowd with no repose and peace when he could have that self-same power without i would not covet kingship for itself when i can be a king by other means who would who knows what wisdom is all my ambitions now are satisfied through you without anxiety but once a king all hedged in by constraints i'm not so simple as to grasp the symbols of sovereignty and power when i can have the sweet reality without to enjoy the fact untrammeled by the image surely is pure game now smiled upon by all why should i let this go this ease and reach for cares test me go to delphi ask if i have brought back lies for prophecies and do not stop but if you find me plotting with a fortune teller take me kill me full indicted on a double not a single count not yours alone but mine no justice brands the good and justifies the bad drive friendship out i say and you drive out life itself one sweetest friend time will teach you well the honest man needs time the sinner but a single day to bear his crime he speaks well sir the circumspect should care swift thinking never makes sure thoughts think he must step in to parry where swift treachery steps into plot must i hold my peace until his perfect plans are more than match for mine then what is it you want my banishment punishments yes that though i would rather see you dead so adamant so full of disbelief only a fool could put his trust in you and you think you are wise wise for myself at least then why not for me as well what for a born traitor what if you are wrong wrong perhaps but raining still it's raining full your caster the queen my own forces my city too you must compose your others sirs you most misguided man shame on your shouting at each other how can you wrangle over private wrongs with thieves our city in her agony come back home sir you and creon you into your house stop turning petty grievances into public scandal grievances my sister edipus your husband means to do me devilish harm with choice of dooms exile from my father's land or death yes my wife i've got him plotting against my very person may the gods curse me if i be guilty in the smallest part of what you charge in the god's name listen it was listen he's made an oath to heaven for me and for us all believe a king believe be willing to be wise what you'd have me yield you've never told your lies before he's swollen do you know for what you plead explain do not impeach a friend or lead him to distress yes how you hate even in your yielding the passion spent remorse will follow madam why delay to lead him out i stay to know hot and hasty words suspicion and dismay from both from both what words sire i've said it more than once how insensate we'd be what crass and total fools to abdicate from you who set this foundring ship this suffering realm back on her course and now again can take the helm in the god's name peter puss inform me to what in the world has worked you to this rage it's crayon he has played me false what's the charge tell me clearly what's the quarrel he makes me murderer of lies his own invention or on evidence ah the fox he sends along a mouthing seer and keeps his own lips safe and pure oh then all together put behind those cares and be persuaded and consoled there is no art of foreseeing known to men i have my proof yes once long ago there came to lie us from let us not suppose apollo personally but from his ministers an oracle which said that fate would make him eat his end through a son the son of his and mine well there was a murder yes but done by marauding vagabonds they say where three highways meet and then the sun not three days old is left by lios so there apollo fails to make the sun his father's murderer and fails to make the father liar sick with dread murdered by his son all foreseen by fate and seers of course and all to be forgotten if the god would have the future told then let the god himself divine my queen each word that strikes my ear struck at peace what pale memory passes now liars was killed i thought i caught the words where three highways meet so they said that is how the story goes the accident where did it happen peterland called focus at a place where the road from delphi meets the road from the holy the time [Music] how many years ago a little before you came to power here the news was made public in the town i was used what play thing will you make what night may a thought has structured do not ask not yet liars tell me his age his height was he in the prime of life tore the first soft bloom of silver in his hair in form not far removed from yours who was just showing lost what my king i'm afraid [Music] i'll trade the eyeless sear the scenes but wait one thing more yes it frightens me but ask i try to tell did he set out in simple state or with a bodyguard as king five men and all and one herald [Music] a single chariot for the king it's all too clear but who brought back this report to you the servant the only man who got away is he in this house by chance for when he got back and saw you reigning in dead liars's place he begged me pressed my hand to send him to the country far from sight of thieves where he could lead a shepherd's life and so i sent him [Music] but could we have him here without delay certainly but what should make you ask there may be things my wife that i have said best left unsaid which makes me want him here he shall be here but tell me oedipus may i not also know what frightens you oh you shall for i have passed into such territory so fear such threatenings of date i welcome you my truest friend my father was corinthian olympus my mother dorian called me i was the city's foremost man to a certain incident befell curious incident once a drunkard in his cups cried out that i was not my father's son and all that day i fretted hardly able to contain my hurt but on the next i went immediately to ask my mother and my father and yet this thing had hatched a scruple in my mind so deep it made me steal away from home to delphi to the oracle and there apollo never hinting at what i came to hear sent me home again with ears ringing with some other things he uttered prophecies of horrible disgusting things how mating with my mother then to be my very father's murderer [Music] oh i fled from there as i reached this triple parting of the way a herald and a man like you described in a cult-drawn chariot came the leading groom the old man urging him tried to force me off the road the groom jostled me and i enraged blended him a blow which when the old man sees wait till i'm oppressed then from his chariot cracks a double-pointed goat pool down upon my head [Music] be more than paid for that for in a of mine and filled him with a stick and rolled him now his chariot stands i killed him [Music] oh lives is this unknown man there's no one in the world so doomed as i no one born i can't go home or i will make my mother wife my father did my lord wait until you hear the witness speak and hope yes all my help upon a herdsmen o purity of deed and sweet intent enshrine me in your grace pride banqueting on vanities mistaken and mistimed men of state i have a new design with these garlands and with incense in my hands to call it all the shrines for rampant fancies in a legion raid the mind of oedipus [Music] i address myself to you apollo [Music] that you may work some way to make us clean [Music] can you tell me please good sir is this the palace of king oedipus this is his palace sir and he's within this lady is his wife and mother of his children heaven bless her always and bless hers [Music] the perfect wife blessed perfectly with him and you sir too be blessed for your remark but are you here to ask us news forgive to give it happy news of your house and husband happy news from where from corinth what's bittersweet ready so they hope to mount the throne household the old man polybus still reigns no more for death has sealed him in his grave what is oedipus father dead yes dead it's true and my life is dead quick go off and tell your master this he's dead just listen to this man and fill your ears who is this what has he come to say a man from corinth come to say your father is no more old polybus is dead what's that explain yourself good sir to give you first things first he's gone be quite assured he's dead by treason or disease a little touch will tip the old to sleep he died a natural death poor old man well now i am done with delving into pythian oracles which foretold that i should kill my father well he's dead and may he rest in peace with all those prophecies worth nothing as i told you even though you told me yes but i was sick with fear were it not my mother's still alive she is so all your comfort cannot quieten me i fear a woman a woman sir whoever could she be merope old man who lived with polyps what's in her that she could frighten you there's been a warning a warning sent from heaven can you be told or must it not be heard no apollo once declared that i should come to couple with my mother and with these hands of mine spill out the lifeblood of my father is this the fear that drove you out of corinth yes old man not to be my father's murderer why do i wait i can unlock the worries of a king oh if you could i'd heap you with rewards well you've fled from home because of this yes the fear apollo may be proven right polybus and you were worlds apart worlds apart he was my father was he not no more no less than i i'll tell you this no more no less than you and nothing then he never gave you life no more than i and whatever made him call me son you were a gift he took you from my arms could he love me so and i not his he had no children of his own to love on those hills i used to tend my flocks a wandering shepherd then yes and on that day your savior too my son but did you find me in great misery or pain the ankles of your feet should tell you that ancient hurt why remind me of it i loosed your feet both riveted together my mother's doing or my father's for the god's sake say i do not know the man who gave you me could tell you that not found by me but handed over by another shepherd what shepherd would you know him still he was known as one of lyo's men but could i see him is he still alive your own people here can tell you best does any man hear present know this herdsman he is talking of either seen him in the fields or hear about i think he means that herdsmen sigh you asked to see before yo castor here is surest judge of that matter do you know this man we sent for once before is he the one he means who what matters who he means my ask it's not worth knowing now forget it all get it all i i can't i can't stop now father god see don't go on for your own knife sake and i've been tortured long enough if you persuade it please do not proceed persuaded from the truth i must go on that i am pleading for your happiness the secrets of my birth the clues all in my hand may the gods help you eat a person hide from you who you are goodbye my poor deluded lost and damned there's nothing else that i can call you now oedipus the queen has left in muted grief [Music] a silence comes before a storm then let it burst oh i am prove it porn of nothing let me find that nothing out oh i'm a child of challenge lives lives [Music] look i'd say although i'd never met the man there's the herdsmen we've been searching for yes [Music] [Applause] first question then to you corinthian see the man you mean come here sir look into my eyes tell me straight were you one of lias men your son you've run across this man before did you never meet him not to remember sir i couldn't rightly say let me jog his memory and when at last the winter came we both drove off our flocks i to my sheep cuts he back to lyow's fault am i right or am i wrong hi you're right can you recall a baby boy you gave me once what are you getting at what are these questions for take a look my friend be standing there your baby boy great master please refuse to answer this man's question about the boy the child that he's been speaking of did you give it him or not i did i didn't i wish i'd died that day you'll die today unless you speak the truth don't ask me anymore i have to ask again you'll die then from elias's house that's what it's from they say it was his own but the queen herself could probably explain she she gave it to you not being a holy warning what kind of warning that he would kill his parents in heaven's name what made you pass him on to that old man only pity sir oh nice [Music] [Music] oh the generations of man his life is vanity and nothingness [Music] [Music] yeah hmm [Music] ah cry cry oh crazy you my friend still friend and by my side he takes your place as sole custodian of the state ah children antigone is meanie where are you harry [Music] oh you are no longer master now oh [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] you