OEDIPUS TYRANNUS Analysis Essay Example For Students

OEDIPUS TYRANNUS Analysis Essay A monologue from the play by Sophocles NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Greek Dramas. Ed. Bernadotte Perrin. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1904. OEDIPUS: Your prayers are heard: and if you will obeyYour king, and hearken to his words, you soonShall find relief; myself will heal your woes.I was a stranger to the dreadful deed,A stranger een to the report till now;And yet without some traces of the crimeI should not urge this matter; therefore hear me.I speak to all the citizens of Thebes,Myself a citizenobserve me well:If any know the murderer of Laius,Let him reveal it; I command you all.But if restrained by dread punishmentHe hide the secret, let him fear no more;For naught but exile shall attend the crimeWheneer confessed; if by a foreign handThe horrid deed was done, who points him outCommands our thanks, and meets a sure reward;But if there be who knows the murderer,And yet conceals him from us, mark his fate,Which here I do pronounce: Let none receiveThroughout my kingdom, none hold converse with him,Nor offer prayer, nor sprinkle oer his headThe sacred cup; let him be driven from all,By all abandoned, and by all accurse d,For so the Delphic oracle declared;And therefore to the gods I pay this dutyAnd to the dead. Oh! may the guilty wretch,Whether alone, or by his impious friendsAssisted, he performed the horrid deed,Denied the common benefits of Nature,Wear out a painful life! And oh! if here,Within my palace, I conceal the traitor,On me and mine alight the vengeful curse!To you, my people, I commit the careOf this important business; tis my cause,The cause of Heaven, and your expiring country.Een if the god had naught declared, to leaveThis crime unexpiated were most ungrateful.He was the best of kings, the best of men;That sceptre now is mine which Laius bore;His wife is mine; so would his children beDid any live; and therefore I am bound,Een as he were my father, to revenge him.Yes, I will try to find his murderer,I owe it to the son of Labdacus,To Polydorus, Cadmus, and the raceOf great Agenor. Oh! if yet there are,Who will not join me in the pious deed,From such may earth withhold her annual s tore,And barren be their bed, their life most wretched,And their death cruel as the pestilenceThat wastes our city! But on you, my Thebans,Who wish us fair success, may justice smilePropitious, and the gods forever bless!