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You’ve seen yourselves how he went from here, no friend as guide, but showing us all where we had to go. When he’d reached the sheerly plunging Verge rooted to earth by its Steps of Bronze, he paused at a place in the branching ways where the Basin of Rock still testifies to the deathless trust King Theseus placed in Perithous, and, poised at a point equidistant from there and the Crag of Dawn and the Maiden’s Tree and the Marble Tomb, he took his stand, and stripping off his ragged clothes he called to his daughters and told them to find some running stream for water to wash and offer the gods, and they ran to the Mound of Green Mother Earth, which lies close by, and brought down what their father had asked, and they washed his body and wrapped him in white like you do when it comes; and when he was sure it was all done right and that none of the things he had meant to arrange had been left undone, then a rumbling thunder roared underground from the Zeus of the Dead, and the terrified girls fell at their father’s knees with a scream, beating their breasts with long drawn moans, and he, at the sound of their keening lament, gathered them into his arms and said, “Today forever your father is gone. All that I am dissolves: lay down the heavy load of sustaining my life. I know it was hard, but a single word cancels the pain: that word is love. No man’s was ever like mine for you. Without me now let your lives unfold.” Clinging together with words like these, father and children became one torrent of tears, but when, exhausting their grief, there was nothing more left, a silence prevailed, but was shattered then by a summoning voice so dreadful it stood our hair on end; from everywhere echoed the call of the god: “You there, Oedipus, what are you waiting for? It is time to go. You’re making us late.” And he, recognizing the voice of the god, groped for Lord Theseus, King of this land, to come near, and told him, “Dearest of friends, give me the pledge of your hand for my daughters, and you, children, for him. Promise not to desert them; be their protector; act in their interest; always be kind.” And the King, with the calm of noble restraint, accepted the oath this stranger imposed. When all this was done, Oedipus then, stroking his daughters with his blind hands, said, “Children, your duty is now to leave this place, not claiming the right to see or hear what the god forbids. Go quickly: Theseus alone has the right to stay to witness what now must happen at last.” All of us there could hear what he said, and helpless with weeping we followed the girls. After we’d gone a short way, we turned and found he was gone: the King was alone, holding his hand as a shield for his eyes, as if he looked on a terror beyond the painfulness human sight could endure; and after a moment of stillness, he bowed in reverence both to the earth and the sky. As for Oedipus, no one but Theseus knows exactly how he passed from this world. No thunderbolt struck him, no storm of the sea, when his time had arrived, but some messenger must have come from the gods above, or the underworld below may have opened a painless way out with mercy at last. Whatever it was, there was nothing unclean in his passing. If ever a man had a wonderful death, it was his. And if anyone thinks I’m not talking sense, I can only say, you can have your sense. — translated from the Greek --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note that I never have used and never will use AI to compose or revise any of my writings. Please note that this translation is Copyright 2026 by me, even though it is being translated from a text that is in the public domain in its original language. A random comment on poetry in general: A successful poem is not an expression of emotion, it is a creating of emotion.

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