The Phoenician Women

[Jocasta's Prologue]

Jocasta

You who cut your way through heaven's stars,
riding the chariot with its welded gold,
Sun, with you swift mares whirling forth our light,
evil the shaft you sent to Thebes that day
when Cadmus came here, leaving Phoenicia's shore,
he who wed Cypris' child, Harmonia,
fathering Polydorus, who in turn
had Labdacus, they say, and he had Laius.
Now I am known as daughter of Menoeceus,
Creon my brother by the selfsame mother,
my name Jocasta, as my father gave it,
Laius my husband. When he still was childless
after long marriage with me in the palace,
he went to Phoebus asking and beseeching
that we might share mal children for the house.
But he said, "Lord of Thebes and it famed horses,
sow not that furrow against divine decree.
For if you have a child, him you beget
shall kill you, and your house shall wade through blood."
But Laius, in his lust, and drunk beside,
begot a child on me, yet when he had,
knowing his sex was sin, as God had said it,
he gave the child to shepherds to expose
in Hera's field, high on Cithaeron's rock,
when he had pinned its ankles with harp iron
(and this is why Greece called it Oedipus)
Then Polybus's herdsman-riders took the child
and brought it home and gave it to their mistress.
She took my labor's fruit to her own breast
and told her husband that it was her own.
When his red beard was growing, my young son,
who had guessed or heard the truth, set off to learn,
at Phoebus' house, his parents.  So did Laius,
seeking to learn if the child he had exposed
were still alive.  They met in middle journey
at the same spot in the split road of Phocis.
Then Laius' runner ordered him away:
"Stranger, yield place to pries."  But he came on,
silent, in pride.  So with their sharp-edged hooves
the mares of Laius bloodied up his feet.
And so--why give the detail of disaster?--
son slew his father, and he took the team
to give to Polybus, his foster parent.
When the Sphinx bore down our city with her raids,
my husband gone, Creon proclaimed my marriage:
whoever might guess the clever maiden's riddle,
to him I should be wed.  And so it happened.
It was Oedipus, my son, who guessed her song.
So he became to ruler of this land
and got the scepter of this realm as prize.
The wretch, unknowing, wedded with his mother;
nor did she know she bedded with her son.
And to my son I bore two further sons,
Eteocles and mighty Polyneices,
and daughters two.  Her father named Ismene
while I before had named Antigone.
When Oedipus learned I was his wife and mother,
he had endured all suffering, and he struck
with terrible gory wounding his own eyes,
bleeding the pupils  with a golden brooch.
When his sons' beards had grown, they shut him up
behind to bolts that this fate might be forgotten
which needs too much intelligence to explain it.
There in the house he lives, and struck by fate
he calls unholy curses on his children.
They shall divide this house with sharpened steel.
They were afraid that if they live together
the gods might grant his prayers.  So they agreed
that Polyneices should go, a willing exile,
while Eteocles stayed in this land and held the scepter,
to change though, year by year.  Yet when Eteocles
sat safe on high, he would not leave the throne,
but keeps his brother exile from this land.
He went to Argos, married Adrastus' daughter,
and bring the Argive force he has collected
against these very seven-gated walls,
seeking his share of the land, and his father's scepter.
I have persuaded son to come to son
under a truce before they take to arms.
I hope for peace.  The messenger says he'll come.
O Zeus who lives in heaven's shining folds
save me and let my sons be reconciled.
If you are wise you should not leave a mortal
constantly wretched throughout all of life.