The Plague (Prologue and Entry of the Chorus)

Before the palace of Thebes, a crowd of suppliants — old men, young men, children — sat on the steps of the altars, with branches of olive wound with wool in their hands, praying. Oedipus, the King, came out to them.

"My children, new generation of old Cadmus, why do you sit before me so, with suppliant branches wreathed? The city is full of incense, full of prayers for healing and of groans. I did not think it right to hear it from messengers, my children; I have come myself, I, Oedipus, whom all men call famous."

The old Priest of Zeus spoke for them. Thebes was dying. A blight was on the fruit of the earth, a blight on the herds in the pastures, on the women in childbirth, whose babies were born dead; and the fire-bearing god, the hateful plague, had swooped upon the city and was emptying the house of Cadmus, while black Hades grew rich with groans and lamentations. They had come to Oedipus, not because they thought him equal to the gods, but because he was the first of men in the chances of life and in dealings with the gods. It was he who had come to Thebes long ago and freed the city from the tribute it paid to the cruel singer — the Sphinx, the winged monster who sat outside the city and killed all who could not answer her riddle. He had answered it, with no help from them; and they had made him their king. "Raise up our city again, best of men . . . for if you are to rule this land, it is better to rule over men than over an empty city."

The Sphinx's riddle, not given in the play, was traditionally: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Oedipus answered: Man — who crawls as a baby, walks upright as a man, and leans on a stick in old age.

Oedipus had already acted. He had sent Creon, his wife's brother, to Apollo's oracle at Delphi, to ask what Thebes must do to be saved; and he was late; and when he came, Oedipus would do whatever the god told him.

Creon arrived, wearing a crown of laurel — a good sign. He had brought an answer from the god, plainly given: there was a pollution in the land, which must be driven out. It was the blood of King Laius, who had ruled Thebes before Oedipus came. Laius had been murdered, years before, on a journey to Delphi; and his murderer was still in Thebes. The killer must be driven out, or killed.

Why had no one searched for the murderer before? Laius had been killed on the road, Creon said, by robbers — many robbers, according to the one servant who escaped; and just then the Sphinx had come, and the people had had to deal with what lay at their feet, and forgotten what was hidden.

Oedipus took it up at once: "Then I will begin again, and bring it all to light." He would avenge Laius, for the land's sake and the god's — and for his own; for whoever had killed Laius might want to kill him too.

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The Chorus of old men of Thebes came in, singing a hymn to the gods for help: to Zeus, to Athena, to Artemis, to Apollo the healer. They told of the plague: "Countless are the sorrows I bear . . . the children of the glorious earth do not grow, nor do women rise up from the pains of childbirth; but one after another, like a winged bird, they speed swifter than fire to the shore of the god of the west." The dead lay unburied in the streets, bringing death; wives and grey-haired mothers wailed at the altars. And they prayed that the god of war, who brings this plague without shields, might be driven from their land.