i've never met him, elders. but i think i see the shepherd we have waited for so long. he's an old man, it tallies with our friend here. but, you perhaps know better than i do. you've met the man before. yes. i recognize him. as reliable a man as laius ever had in his service as shepherd. first, you sir from corinth. i want to know, is this the man you were talking about? yes, your majesty. he stands before you. now, you sir. come here. look me straight in the eyes. answer my questions. were you at one time in laius' service? yes, born and bred in the palace, not bought in the slave market. what was your work? how are you employed? a shepherd most of my life. and which part of the country did you generally stay? it would be cithaeron or thereabouts. do you remember ever seeing this man there? and what connection? what man do you mean? standing in front of you. have you ever met him? i can't offhand remember.

there's nothing strange in that, your majesty. i'll soon jog his memory. he knows quite well that part of cithaeron. he had two flocks. i was neighbor to him with one for three whole seasons from spring to autumn. then the winter came and i would drive my sheep to my own fold. he drove his to laius' estates. well, am i telling the truth or making it up? it is true enough. but it happened a long time ago. now, tell me this. you remember handing me a baby to bring up as my own? why, why are you asking that? my friend, that baby boy is standing here. damn you. can't you keep your mouth shut? none of that, sir. don't speak harshly to him. your story warrants more harsh words than his. how i did offense, your majesty. by not speaking frankly of the child he's talking about. he's a busybody, he doesn't know what he's talking about. if you don't speak freely, you'll be tortured till you tell. in god's name, don't hurt me. i'm an old man. quick, someone. twist his arm behind him.

what do you want to know? he asked you about a baby. did you give it to him? yes. oh god, if only i died that very day. you'll come to that if you don't speak the truth. i'll die a thousand deaths if i do. this fellow is determined to delay us. i'm not. i told you i gave it to him. where did you get it, your own home or someone else's? it wasn't mine. i was given it. by one of these citizens. which house did it come from? in god's name, your majesty. don't, don't ask more questions. if i have to ask that question again, you'll die. it was a child from laius' house. a slave or one of his own family? oh god. i'm on the edge of saying the dreadful thing. and i am hearing it, but i must. it was his own child, they say it. but your lady within could best say how these things are.

was she the one who gave it to you? yes, my lord. for what purpose? to do away with it. oh, cruel. her own child. she was afraid of oracles of doom. what were they? he was to kill his father, they said. what made you give it to this old man? pity, your majesty. i thought he'd take him off to a foreign country, the one he came from. he saved his life for a doom of disaster. if you are the man in question, know this. you are born to sorrow. all then now true. light, may i never look on you again.

you have revealed me, cursed in my parents, cursed in my marriage, cursed in shedding blood. all generations of man, i count you and those whose lives are nothing as equal. who, whoever was there who shared of happiness was more than a moment of illusion and an eternity of disillusion. your fate is my example. your fate, yours and blessed oedipus, shows that for mortals, happiness is nothing.

he shalt more truly than others. he won the prize of prosperity. poor zeus, he laying low that riddling girl with her crooked talons. thus, he stood as a bastion against death for my country. so you won from me the title of king, honored supremely, ruling in mighty thieves. now, whose story more piteous, whose faith more savage,

whose state more grievous, his life upside down, glorious oedipus. the same great harbor met your needs as son and then as father when you rested there a husband. how could the same-- where your father sowed, have you suffered you too long in silence. all seeing time has caught you, ended the none marriage, marriage. the son became husband. oh, laius' son. i wish, how i wish i'd never see you. my song of sorrow is a funeral song. you gave me new life. and now, i've closed my eyes as in sleep.

lords of this land, always in honor. what tragedies, what grim spectacles, what grief you will have to bear if you're true to your nature and care for the house of labdacus. i do not believe that danube or the rioni could wash this house clean of the evils it shrouds, evil soon to be brought to light of day. evils deliberately committed. troubles heard more when we bring them on ourselves and know it. what we knew already was gloomy enough. what more have you to tell? briefest to hear and tell. queen jocasta is dead.

poor woman. what was the cause? suicide. the worst of what happened, you are escaping, you didn't see it. still, so far as memory serves me, you shall learn her wretched fate. she came franticly into the hall then made straight for her bridal bed running the fingers of both hands through her head. the minute she was inside, she slammed the door and cried out, "laius," though he was long dead. she was recalling the seeding and breeding, which brought his death, leaving the mother to be a breeder of polluted children with his own. she cried against her double marriage, poor woman, producing one husband from another one child from another. after that, i don't know how she died. we couldn't observe what happened to her. oedipus burst in screaming. our eyes were on him. to and fro, he paced, calling for a sword,

asking where to find the wife that was no wife, the mother--and twice sold with himself and his children. he was half crazy. some spirit showed the way, none of us humans who were standing around. he screamed at the top of his voice as if someone had told him the news. launched himself with the double doors, burst the bolts out of their sockets and rushed into the room. then we saw her, hanging there in the noose of twisted rope. he saw her, gave a chilling moan and undid the noose. she lay on the ground, the poor woman. a dreadful sight followed. a dress was pinned with gold-worked brooches. he tore them off, lifted them high and thrust them into his eyeballs crying,

"they shall not see my faith, my guilt. "in darkness, for all time shall they see forbidden faces failed to recognize those they love." and this was his chant. not once, but time and again he struck his eyes with the brooches. bloody the eyeballs gushed out staining the ground. the drops of blood never slackened. they gushed the dark cascade, the torrent dyed scarlet. two actors and disasters breaking not on one head but on man and wife in union. the past good fortune well established once on a time was true good fortune. now today, sorrow, calamity, death, shame, all evils you can name without exception, theirs.

poor man. has he any relief from his troubles? he keeps shouting for someone to unlock the door and to display to all thebes his father's murderer. his mother's-- well, i dare not speak the unlucky word he used. he means to fling himself from the land and not to stay, a curse to his home by his own curse. but he needs strength and someone to guide him. his disease is too great to bear. you will see for yourself. they are shooting back the bolts. soon, you will see a sight you may loathe but cannot help pitying. [bells ringing]

grim sight for human eyes, grimmer than ever i encountered before. poor man, what madness came over you? what gods sprang out when colossus tried and blasted your life? poor, tormented soul. there is so much i want to ask, to learn, to see, but dare not look for shuddering. ah. oh, pity. where in this world am i bound?

my voice was swept away on the air. fate, why have you sprung from me? to horrors too grim to hear, too terrible to see. oh, darkness, dark clouds assailing in me. unspeakably, abhorrant born on an ill wind's wing. ah, ah. the sharp points of madness and memory of evil stab me through and through. no wonder, in such calamity, evils redouble on you and grief redoubles. my old friend, still you are my faithful help. still you patiently care for me in my blindness. oh, i'm not mistaken. i recognize your voice clearly through the darkness.

how could you do it? how nerve yourself to put out your eyes? what power drove you? it was apollo, my friends. apollo, who brought to fulfillment my bitter, my bitter pain. but the hand that struck me was no one's but mine own. what need had i of sight with nothing to delight my eyes. true, it's as you say. what could i see of love? what greeting could i hear with pleasure, friends? quick, take me away. take me away, friends. utterly lost, utterly cursed as i am of all men most hateful to heaven. your torment of mind equals your faith. i could wish that i had never known you. [music]

oh, cursed should be the man that forced my feet from the cruel bond as i lay abandoned and saved me from death and rescued me, an act of unkindness. if i had died then, i should not now be such a grief unto my friends.

i, too, could wish it so. i should not now have come to kill my father or be named my mother's husband. now, i am the godless child of pollution begetting where i was begotten. if any evil takes precedence over another, oedipus has it. i think you have made the wrong decision. it is better to die than live without eyes. don't try to tell me that i hadn't acted for the best. don't give me that advice. when i reach hades, could i have gazed with these eyes on my father or my mother? i have offended against them both. i deserve worst than death. could i joy in the sight of children born as mine were born?

never with these eyes. the city, the walls, the holy images of the gods, no. in my misery, i, the noblest man in thebes deprived myself of those when i condemned the offender, the one the gods had shown to be polluted. could i, when i had witnessed to my own uncleanness have looked these people in the eyes? never. if there was some way to block up the spring of hearing, i would have made this wretched body an impenetrable prison: blind, hearing nothing. there's happiness when our thinking is isolated from evil. oh, cithaeron, why did you shelter me? why did you not kill me on the spot? i should not pay every leave my birth to all men. oh, polybus, oh, corinth, my ancient ancestral home,

as i thought, you brought me up to glorious promise and festering corruption. i am revealed a sinner, born of sinners. oh, crossroads, sheltered land, oak tree, narrow junction of free roads, soil which drank my father's-- my own blood, shed with my own hands. do you all recollect what you saw me do, what i went on to do on reaching thebes? oh, marriage, marriage, you gave me life and from that life released the same seed to produce an incestuous brood of fathers, brothers, children, brides, wives, mothers. yes, and all the foulest actions mankind has ever seen.

shameful actions, a shame full to speak of. quick, in god's name, hide me away. kill me. throw me into the sea where no eyes can see me more. come here. don't be afraid to tend the fallen man. listen to me. don't be afraid. no one else, only i can carry my curse. here comes creon. he can best answer your requests with advice-- he is that sole protector of this land in your place. what can i say to him? what convincing plea can i offer? all my wrongs to him have been exposed. oedipus, i have not come to jeer at you or to tax you with past wrongs. if you people have no respect for human decency,

you might at least not dishonor the life giving--of our lord, the son, to expose this pollution nakedly when it's rejected by earth and holy rain and daylight. escort him inside. piety demands that only his own family should watch or listen to his calamities. you relieve me in my worst fears. you've shown yourself noble when i was vile. in god's name, listen to me. it's for your own good, not mine. what's the matter? what's your petition? drive me to exile this instant where no human being can find me. you can be quite sure i'd have done that. only first, i wanted to learn the god's will. but his words are an open book. the sinner, the parricide must die. here i am. that was so. still better in this crisis to see clear instructions. will you inquire of the oracle for a damned sinner? yes.

even you should believe the god now. yes. and on you, i lay this duty. give burial to her that lies within. i leave it to you. you will do what is best by your own sister. for me, see that my father's city is never condemned to have my living presence. leave me to live in the mountains. cithaeron's name is linked with my mother and father, hoped for life by making it my tomb. now their purpose in killing me will be fulfilled. one thing i know, nothing can touch my life, disease or anything else. otherwise, i should not have been saved from death, unless for some strange fate. so be it. creon, you need not worry about my sons, they are men.

wherever they are, they won't lack means to live. but my daughters. my poor, dear daughters. at meal times, my table was never set apart. i was always there, they shared everything i touched. care for them. and let me touch them once more with my hands and weep for my fate. please, my lord. please, noble, creon. if i can touch them once more with my hands, i could think i was holding them as when i had eyes. what's this? oh, the gods. do i hear my darlings weeping? has creon pitted me and sent me my children, my dearest, dearest? am i right? you are. i had already seen to it. i knew your all joy in them. you have it now. god bless you for it.

and god and guide you along this road better than me. children, where are you? come to my hands. my sisters, hands which brought your father's once bright eyes to this. your father, blind, unquestioning, planted you in the furrow where i grew myself. i cannot look on you, but i weep when i think of the bitterness that awaits you and the life you will be forced to lead. creon-- you are the only father left them. we, their parents, are both dead to them. don't stand by and see your family become homeless, husbandless, beggars. don't equate them with me in misery. show them pity. you see their age and helplessness

apart from you. good friend, promise and seal it with your hands' touch. children, if your years were ripe, i'd give you much advice. but let this be your prayer. to live wherever the times allow and to enjoy a better life than your father... enough of tears. now all go inside the palace. i must obey. the world is bitter. at the right moment, all is good. you know my terms for going. tell me and then i shall. send me into exile. that is for the god to grant. the gods hate me.

your wish then will soon be met. you agree. i do not generally waste words not meaning what i say. now, take me away. come along, release the children. don't take them from me. you should not try to order everything. the power you once possessed cannot be your companion all through life. [music] sons and daughters of thebes, look, this is oedipus. he solved our famous riddles. he was a man of power. all citizens gazed with envy on his glory and his fortune.

look how the high seas of disaster have broken on him. we are all mortal. keep your eyes fixed on a man's last day and call no one happy until he crosses the frontiers of life, unharassed by trouble. there are many wondrous things, said sophocles, but nothing is more wondrous than man. the plays of sophocles reveal his awareness of human error, or the fact that mankind is susceptible to evil and suffering, yet capable of rising above these obstacles by self discovery and a spiritual awakening. he allows man freedom to judge himself

and holds him responsible for his actions. at his death, sophocles was honored as a poet and worshipped as a hero. for 70 years, he had contributed to and shaped the art of theater. the love and respect the citizens of athens bore him was expressed by a fellow playwright. how blessed was sophocles? his many plays were beautiful. and after many days of a good life, he suffered no great ill but died as he had lived, an artist still. this was a co-production of miami-dade community college and british broadcasting corporation, british open university. [music] captioning performed by aegis rapidtext