Oedipus Rex

Vision/Blindness Imagery

Sirs: though I do not know the man,
I think I see him coming, this shepherd we want:
He is old, like our friend here, and the men
Bringing him seem to be servants of my house.
But you can tell, if you have ever seen him. (1051-1055)

Come here. No, look at me. You must answer
Everything I ask. – You belonged to Laios. (1058-1060)

This man standing here. Have you ever seen him before? (1068)

But all eyes fail before time’s eye,
All actions come to justice there. (1163-1164)

I was blind, and now I can tell why:
Asleep, for you had given ease of breath
To Thebes, while the false years went by. (1173-1175)

Elders of Thebes, most honored in this land,
What horrors are yours to see and hear . . . (1176-1177)

The full horror of what happened you cannot know,
For you did not see it; but I, who did, will tell you
As clearly as I can how she met her death. (1188-1190)

It was by him
As he stormed about the room that our eyes were caught. (1203-1204)

He is calling for someone to open the doors wide
So that all the children of Kadmos may look upon
His father’s murderer, his mother’s—no,
I cannot say it! (1237-1240)

But you will see:
Look, the doors are opening; in a moment
You will see a thing that would crush a heart of stone. (1244-1246)

Dreadful indeed for me to see.
Never have my own eyes
Looked on a sight so full of fear. (1247-1249)

No: I cannot even
Look at you, poor ruined one. (1254-1255)

The pain of the spikes where I had sight,
The flooding pain
Of memory, never to be gouged out. (1269-1271)

He brought my sick, sick fate upon me.
But the blinding hand was my own!
How could I bear to see
When all my sight was horror everywhere? (1287-1290)

Your misery, you are not blind to that.
Would God you had never found it out! (1298-1299)

I do not know what words to offer you.
You were better dead than alive and blind. (1313-1314)

If I had eyes,
I do not know how I could bear the sight
Of my father, when I came to the house of Death,
Or my mother: (1317-1320)

Or do you think my children,
Born as they were born, would be sweet to my eyes? (1322-1323)

No. For the love of God, conceal me
Somewhere far from Thebes; or kill me; or hurl me
Into the sea, away from men’s eyes forever. (1358-1359)

They would be mine again, as when I had my eyes. (1415)

Come quickly to my hands: they are your brother’s –
Hands that have brought your father’s once clear eyes
To this way of seeing –
Ah dearest ones,
I had neither sight nor knowledge then, your father
By the woman who was the source of his own life!
And I weep for you – having no strength to see you – (1424-1429)

Men of Thebes: look upon Oedipus (1467)

No mortal eyes but looked on him with envy (1470)

Light/Darkness Imagery

I think neither Istros nor Phasis, those great rivers,
Could purify this place of all the evil
It shelters now, or soon must bring to light –
Evil not done unconsciously but willed. (1180-1183)

My voice is hurled far on a dark wind.
What has God done to me? (1262-1263)

If I could have stifled my hearing at its source,
I would have done it and made all this body
A tight cell of misery, blank to light and sound:
So I should have been safe in my dark mind
Beyond external evil. (1334-1338)

Do not allow this pollution to show itself
Openly here an affront to the earth
And Heaven’s rain and the light of day. (1371-1373)

Mixing of the Two Dominant Images

O Light, may I look on you for the last time! (1120)

For the king ripped from her gown the golden brooches
That were her ornament, and raised them, and plunged them down
Straight into his own eyeballs, crying, “no more,
No more shall you look on the misery about me,
The horrors of my own doing! Too long you have known
The faces of those whom I should never have seen,
Too long been blind to those for whom I was searching!
From this hour, go in darkness!” And as he spoke,
He struck his eyes—not once, but many times;
And the blood spattered his beard,
Bursting from his ruined sockets like red hail. (1218-1228)

Ah dear friend
Are you faithful even yet, you alone?
Are you still standing near me, will you stay here,
Patient, to care for the blind?
The blind man!
Yet even blind I know who it is attends me
By the voice’s tone –
Though my new darkness hide the comforter. (1275-1281)

Oh fearful act!
What god was it drove you to rake black
Night across your eyes.