Oedipus the King of Thebes, Ii
--Who Has no Tomb to Rest His Soul--
After the long, long wandering in the wasteland,
sometimes by the sea where the roaring wind surges
the waters, or times in the highland where the dews chill the bone,
and other times by the marsh where pouring rain lashes the reeds,
Oedipus the blind and ruined old man, led by his dearest daughter,
came to the land of running horseman Colonus,
the land where Theseus reigns.
Woe is the blindness,
strange ground where Oedipus stepped on,
however, was the holy ground of immortal beings,
the ground forbidden to all who are the mortals.
Oedipus, therefore, an impious old man,
the blasphemous king once reigned Thebes,
the shameless one without the eyes to see.
Since the day driven out from Thebes
Oedipus needed a refuge where to lay his worn out body,
where to rest his wandering soul, and therefore, though
unknowingly, he hastily stepped on Holy Land.
Since he was expelled by his own sons and mother’s brother,
Oedipus needed the comforting word that soothes his aching body,
that relieves his troubled heart, and therefore, to hear
sweet music descending from above and echoes
in the grove as the gay spirited birds twitters,
he hurriedly sat on an altar forbidden to the mortals.
The oracle upon Oedipus since his conception
in mother’s womb was a cursed one, a foe to his own father,
the curse Oedipus, therefore, carried from the day of his birth was,
rather than a blessed one the proud heir to the ruler the king of Thebes,
but to become an abandoned child one forced to be a stranger everywhere.
And after the long wandering in an endless desolated land,
though death gave benediction in the night dark as his sight at last,
it did not allow him to have a tomb where his beloved daughters
would be able to dedicate a piece of stone with an epitaph,
the inscribed words of praise to honor him, or to recollect
his sorrowful image before his grave with tears in time to time,
though it may be a painful reminiscence to his daughters.
Alas! the king Oedipus, who has no tomb to rest his wandering soul
even after his death under an evil star.
Copyright © Su Ben | Year Posted 2015
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