Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/14

10 “You slew the man whose slayer you seek.”

“Measureless liar! You’ll not repeat with impunity that infamous charge.”

“Shall I tell you more to make you chafe the more?”

“All you like—’t will have no effect.”

“You have been living with your dearest kin most foully and knew it not.”

“Presumputous priest! Do you think you will say on and on and not smart for this?”

“Yes, if there’s strength in truth.”

“There is, except for you; but you are blind in ear and mind and eye.”

“And you a pitiful wretch to utter taunts that all will soon hurl back on you.”

“Are these treasons complotted and contrived by Creon, or are they your own?”

“Creon harms you not—you harm yourself alone.”

Œdipus then inveighs against wealth and sovereignty for the envy that goes with them—machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorders. This power Thebes put into his hands unasked, and now his old and trusty friend Creon is seeking to overthrow him and gripe the general sway into his own hand by the merit of vile gold, by hiring a miserable charlatan, a scheming juggler, blind in his art, but open-eyed for gain, for glistening gold, the yellow slave that will knit and break religions.

“Come, why did you not guess the riddle of the Sphinx—it required a seer’s skill—instead of waiting for the ignorant Œdipus to come and by mother-wit alone, with no lore of birds, to make her mute?”

“Though you are king, I have the right of reply—I am not your servant, but Apollo’s. I am blind, you have taunted me with that—you can see, yet you see not in what woe you are, where you dwell, nor with whom you live. Know you