Quotes from Oedipus Rex

Quotations follow the Robert Fagles translation (Penguin Classics, 1982) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   You are the curse, the corruption of the land.

2. 3

   I must hear. I will know the truth.

3. 4

   Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the destined final day, we must call no one happy who is of mortal race, until he hath crossed life's border, free from pain.

4. 5

   I say that thou art the slayer of the man whose slayer thou seekest.

5. 6

   And thou hast sight, yet seest not in what misery thou art, nor where thou dwellest, nor with whom.

6. 7

   Oh, oh! All brought to pass—all true! Thou light, may I now look my last on thee—I who have been found accursed in birth, accursed in wedlock, accursed in the shedding of blood!

7. 8

   And he shall be found at once brother and father of the children with whom he consorts; son and husband of the woman who bore him; heir to his father's bed, shedder of his father's blood.

8. 9

   My children, latest-born to Cadmus who was of old, why are ye set before me thus with wreathed branches of suppliants?

9. 10

   This day shall show thy birth and shall bring thy ruin.

10. 11

    Break forth what will! Be my race never so lowly, I must crave to learn it.

11. 12

    I came, I, Oedipus the ignorant, and made her mute, when I had seized the answer by my wit, untaught of birds.

12. 13

    Insolence breeds the tyrant; Insolence, once vainly surfeited on wealth that is not meet nor good for it, when it hath scaled the topmost ramparts, is hurled to a dire doom.

13. 14

    Nay, what should mortal fear, for whom the decrees of Fortune are supreme, and who hath clear foresight of nothing? 'Tis best to live at random, as one may.

14. 15

    Night, endless night hath thee in her keeping, so that thou canst never hurt me, or any man who sees the sun.

15. 16

    I, who hold myself son of Fortune that gives good, will not be dishonoured.

16. 17

    O sweetly-speaking message of Zeus, in what spirit hast thou come from golden Pytho unto glorious Thebes?

17. 18

    Therefore, in doing right to Laïus, I serve myself.

18. 19

    Crave not to be master in all things: for the mastery which thou didst win hath not followed thee through life.