Oedipus At Colonus Quotes

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

Unwanted favours gain no gratitude.

Not to be born at all Is best, far best that can befall, Next best, when born, with least delay To trace the backward way. For when youth passes with its giddy train, Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils, Pain, pain forever pain; And none escapes life's coils. Envy, sedition, strife, Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.

All men make mistakes.

Of all vile things current on earth, none is so vile as money.

To speak much is one thing; to speak to the point another!

I agree with Proust in this, he says, that books create their own silences in ways that friends rarely do. And the silence that grows palpable when one has finished a canto of Dante, he says, is quite different from the silence that grows palpable when one has reached the end of Oedipus at Colonus. The most terrible thing that has happened to people today, he says, is that they have grown frightened of silence. Instead of seeking it as a friend and as a source of renewal they now try in every way they can to shut it out... the fear of silence is the fear of loneliness, he says, and the fear of loneliness is the fear of silence. People fear silence, he says, because they have lost the ability to trust the world to bring about renewal. Silence for them means only the recognition that they have been abandoned... How can people find the strength to be happy if they are so terrified of silence?

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!

If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this—the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage—such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality—to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are “raw files.” But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero’s personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him.

We long to have again the vanished past, in spite of all its pain.

The good leader repeats the good news, keeps the worst to himself.

Enough words! The criminals are escaping, we the victims, we stand still.

A man's anger can never age and fade away, not until he dies. The dead alone feel no pain.

And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool.

The weak can defeat the strong in a case as just as mine.

One soul is enough, I know, to pay the debt for thousands, if one will go to the gods in all good faith.

Best of children, sisters arm-in-arm, we must bear what the gods give us to bear-- don't fire up your hearts with so much grief. No reason to blame the pass you've come to now.

Sentry: King, may I speak? Creon: Your very voice distresses me. Sentry: Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience? Creon: By God, he wants to analyze me now! Sentry: It is not what I say, but what has been done, that hurts you. Creon: You talk too much.

What foolishness it is to desire more life, after one has tasted A bit of it and seen the world; for each day, after each endless day, Piles up ever more misery into a mound. As for pleasures: once we Have passed youth they vanish away, never again to be seen. Death is the end of all. Never to be born is the best thing. To have seen the daylight And be swept instantly back into dark oblivion comes second.

It's little I ask, and get still less, but quite enough for me.

Show me a man who longs to live a day beyond his time who turns his back on a decent length of life, I'll show the world a man who clings to folly.

By God, I'll have more booty in a moment.

Even in these straits our life is not as pitiful as you'd think, so long as we find joy in every hour.

And if to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool.

You'll never find a man on Earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.

The dead alone feel no pain.

It's not through words but actions that I want to set the luster on my life.

To a terrible place which men’s ears             may not hear of, nor their eyes see it.

I could not turn away from anyone Like you, a stranger, or refuse to help him. I know well, being mortal, that my claim Upon the future is no more than yours.

Thy life is safe while any god saves mine.

Inviolable, untrod; goddesses, Dread brood of Earth and Darkness, here abide.

Commit cruelty on a person long enough and the mind begins to go.

...Time, sweeping through its rounds, gives birth to infinite nights and days...

It is not in words that I should wish my life to be distinguished, but rather in things done.

كلمة واحدة تجعل المصاعب تختفي، هذه الكلمة هي الحب.

What you cannot enforce, do not command!

Your edict, King, was strong, But all your strength is weakness itself against The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were, and shall be, Operative for ever, beyond man utterly. I knew I must die, even without your decree: I am only mortal. And if I must die Now, before it is my time to die, Surely this is no hardship: can anyone Living, as I live, with evil all about me, Think Death less than a friend?

They see you and me: they know my pain's a fact, my revenge is empty breath.

Death the deliverer freeth all at last.

The dead alone can feel no touch of spite.

In his den the monster keep, Giver of eternal sleep.

رغم أن الآلهة ترى كل شئ، فإنها قد تتأخر في إنزال العقاب بمن يحيدون عن الطريق القويم ويخطئون.

أقدار الآلهة لا راد لها.

Men are of little worth. Their brief lives last a single day. They cannot hold elusive pleasure fast; It melts away. All laurels wither; all illusions fade; Hopes have been phantoms, shade on air-built shade, since time began.

Though he has watched a decent age pass by, A man will sometimes still desire the world. I swear I see no wisdom in that man. The endless hours pile up a drift of pain More unrelieved each day; and as for pleasure, When he is sunken in excessive age, You will not see his pleasure anywhere. - Choral Poem between Scenes V & VI, Oedipus at Colonus

Reason is God's crowning gift to man, and you are right To warn me against losing mine. I cannot say— I hope that I shall never want to say!— that you Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men Who can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful. You are not in a position to know everything That people say or do, or what they feel: Your temper terrifies them—everyone Will tell you only what you like to hear.

Alas for the seed of man.

Thou seek'st to part us, wrapping in soft words Hard thoughts.

Compassion limits even the power of God.

Good news. I tell you even the hardest things to bear, if they should turn out well, all would be well.

What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy.

I only ask to live, with pure faith keeping In word and deed that Law which leaps the sky, Made of no mortal mould, undimmed, unsleeping Whose living godhead does not age or die.

العديد من المدن تنزع إلى العدوان على جيرانها رغم أن هؤلاء الجيران يحسنون السلوك.

إن الأصوات قد ترتفع بتهديدات فارغة أثناء الغضب دون جدوى، ولكنها سرعان ما تختفي عندما تهدأ العقول ويتحكم المرء في غضبه.

لا تأمر من لا سلطة لك عليه.

إن الغضب لا يعرف الشيخوخة، ولا يختفي الغضب إلا مع الموت، فالموتى فحسب هم الذين لا يشعرون بالغضب.

المكاسب التي يتم الحصول عليها بطرق حقيرة سرعان ما تزول.

Blind, lost in the night, endless night that nursed you!

just thinking of all your days to come, the bitterness, the life that rough mankind will thrust upon you.

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong!

And remember that the captor is now the captive; the hunter is in the snare. What was won by stealth will not be kept.

But nothing else escapes all-ruinous time. Earth's might decays, the might of men decays, Honor grows cold, dishonor flourishes, There is no constancy 'twixt friend and friend, Or city and city; be it soon or late, Sweet turns to bitter, hate once more to love.

In a just cause, the weak overcome the strong”.

The Greeks, who gave us history, philosophy and political science, never managed to solve the problems posed by their political disunity;

Reserved for the priest of Dionysus

So, when I am nothing—then am I a man?

A man’s anger can never age and fade away, not until he dies. The dead alone feel no pain.

Look through all humanity: you’ll never find a man on earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.

Never honor the gods in one breath and take the gods for fools the next.

But surely they will shroud my corpse with Theban dust?

Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

I stumbled on you, down the woody Hanks of Mount Cithaeron.

O god— all come true, all burst to light! O light—now let me look my last on you!

O the generations of men92 the dying generations—adding the total of all your lives I find they come to nothing

How, how could the furrows your father plowed bear you, your agony, harrowing on in silence O so long?

Oh how she wept, mourning the marriage-bed where she let loose that double brood—monsters— husband by her husband, children by her child.

What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy.

Blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich, he will grope his way toward a foreign soil, a stick tapping before him step by step.

Acceptance—that is the great lesson suffering teaches, suffering and the long years . . .

Acceptance—that is the great lesson suffering teaches,

And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let’s just say I’ve been accused of folly by a fool.

[they] reason’d high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost. (Paradise Lost 2.658

Sophocles had his full share of such rewards, for we have evidence that he won the first prize at the Dionysia eighteen times, and it is recorded that he never won the third prize.

I’ve never known an honest man who can plead so well for any plea whatever.

Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

Who could behold his greatness without envy?

I tell you the truth, you gave me life my breath leapt up in you and now you bring down night upon my eyes.

I tell you neither the waters of the Danube nor the Nile can wash this palace clean.

No, I can’t repeat it, it’s unholy.

Now he’ll tear himself from his native earth, not linger, curse the house with his own curse.

O the terror— the suffering, for all the world to see, the worst terror that ever met my eyes. What madness swept over you?

CHORUS: What canst thou plead? OEDIPUS: A plea of justice. CHORUS: How? OEDIPUS: I slew who else would me have slain; I slew without intent, A wretch, but innocent In the law's eye, I stand, without a stain.

Though he has watched a decent age pass by, A man will sometimes still desire the world. I swear I see no wisdom in that man. The endless hours pile up a drift of pain More unrelieved each day: and as for pleasure, When he is sunken in excessive age, You will not see his pleasure anywhere. The last attendant is the same for all, Old men and young alike, as in its season Man's heritage of underworld appears: There being no epithalamion, No music and no dance. Death is the finish. Not to be born beats all philosophy. The second best is to have seen the light And then to go back quickly whence we came. The feathery follies of his youth once over, What trouble is beyond the range of man? What heavy burden will he not endure? Jealousy, faction, quarreling, and battle-- The bloodiness of war, the grief of war. And in the end he comes to strengthless age, Abhorred by all men, without company, Unfriended in that uttermost twilight Where he must live with every bitter thing.

You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege too. I am not your slave. I serve Apollo. I don't need Creon to speak for me in public. So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption in your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light! Soon, soon, you'll scream aloud - what haven won't reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won't scream back in echo? That day you learn the truth about your marriage, the wedding-march that sang you into your halls, the lusty voyage home to the fatal harbor! And a crowd of other horrors you'd never dream will level you with yourself and all your children. There. Now smear us with insults - Creon, myself and every word I've said. No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

Upon that foreign soil he chose Died he! For ever laid Low, in the kindly shade, He left behind no tearless grief, No measured mourning, dull and brief, These eyes are wet With weeping yet, Nor know I how to find relief." Antigone

إن الآلهة فحسب هي التي لا تشيخ أبداً ولا تموت، اما كل ما عداها فإن الزمن الذي يسيطر على كل شئ يؤثر فيه؛ فإن الأرض العفية يصيبها الضعف، وقوة الجسد تضمحل، كما تموت الثقة ويظهر بدلاً منها عدم الثقة، ولا تظل المشاعر ذاتها بين البشر حتى ولو كانوا أصدقاء، وكذلك بين المدن؛ لأنه يحلو للبشر -طال الوقت أم قصر- أن يتحولوا بعواطفهم من الحب إلى الكراهية وبالعكس.

One modern oratorio adaptation, The Gospel at Colonus (by Lee Breuer and Bob Telson, 1989), based on Robert Fitzgerald’s translation in our series, has been acclaimed by critics and audiences as a high point of twentieth-century adaptation of Greek tragedy.

My sisters, you, his daughters! Now that you’ve heard our father’s iron curses, I implore you in the name of the gods, if father’s curses all come true at last, and if some way back to Thebes is found for you, don’t neglect me, please, give me burial, the honored rites of death.

But this material offered more than variety of dramatic incident. These myths were the only national memory of the remote past, of a time before the Greeks invented the alphabet, so that, shifting and changing though they might be, they had the authority, for the audience, of what we call history.

The prizes were awarded at the end by ten judges, elected on the opening day by lot and sworn to impartiality. Feelings often ran high, and these judges must have been under considerable pressure from the audience. In 468 B.C., the year in which Sophocles first entered the contest, competing against Aeschylus, the tension was such that the magistrate appointed as judges the ten elected generals for that year, among them Cimon, the hero of the naval crusade against Persia. (They gave Sophocles the first prize.)