Chorus from Oedipus Rex
In classical Greek tragedy, the chorus, whose metrical variety is believed to derive from its lost musical accompaniment, alternates with the spoken dialogue of the play’s heroic characters and provides both context and commentary for the developing psychological narrative. And it was with the psychological truth of the Oedipus Rex Trilogy (published in 1985) – Stephen Spender’s single-play version of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone – that the theatre critic Michael Billington was most impressed. Spender’s great achievement, in Billington’s view, had been to unify the three plays – which were originally written thirty-five years apart – by focussing on the fact that the characters are “not simply playthings of the gods but victims of their own moral blindness”. For all its mythological trappings, the chorus’ “O thrilling voice of Zeus”, one of six from the play that Spender collected as poems in their own right, is the Theban citizens’ terrified plea to the powers above not to let the mistakes of their rulers fall on their heads: “O Delian healer hear my prayer / star of hope in my night of despair”. (tls)
A Chorus From Oedipus Rex
O thrilling voice of Zeus
sent from Apollo’s golden shrine
with what intent toward us?
I tremble I faint I fail
terror racks my soul
O Delian healer to whom my cries
from this my abyss of despair arise
what fate unknown until now
or lost in the past and renewed
drawn from the revolving years
will you make ours?
O speak o tell us immortal voice
To Athena daughter of Zeus
and her sister Artemis
and Apollo of burning arrows
triple guardians of Thebes
I call
If ever before in time past
you saved us from plague and defeat
come back to us now and save
The plague invades
no knowledge saves
birth pangs of women
bear dead their children
life on life sped
to the land of the dead
birds wing on wing
struck down from their flying
to the parched earth
by the marksman death
O Delian healer hear my prayer
star of hope in my night of despair
Grant that this god who without clash of sword on shield
fills with cries of our dying Thebes he makes his battlefield
turn back in flight from us
be made to yield
driven by great gales favouring our side
to the far Thracian waters wave on wave
where none found haven ever but his grave
O Zeus come with thy lightning to us
save
And come back Bacchus
hair gold-bound and cheeks flame-red
whom the Bacchantae worship and the maenids led
by his bright torch held high
revelling again among us Bacchus and make death
the god whom gods and men most hate lie dead
STEPHEN SPENDER (1984)
In classical Greek tragedy, the chorus, whose metrical variety is believed to derive from its lost musical accompaniment, alternates with the spoken dialogue of the play’s heroic characters and provides both context and commentary for the developing psychological narrative. And it was with the psychological truth of the Oedipus Rex Trilogy (published in 1985) – Stephen Spender’s single-play version of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone – that the theatre critic Michael Billington was most impressed. Spender’s great achievement, in Billington’s view, had been to unify the three plays – which were originally written thirty-five years apart – by focussing on the fact that the characters are “not simply playthings of the gods but victims of their own moral blindness”. For all its mythological trappings, the chorus’ “O thrilling voice of Zeus”, one of six from the play that Spender collected as poems in their own right, is the Theban citizens’ terrified plea to the powers above not to let the mistakes of their rulers fall on their heads: “O Delian healer hear my prayer / star of hope in my night of despair”. (tls)
A Chorus From Oedipus Rex
O thrilling voice of Zeus
sent from Apollo’s golden shrine
with what intent toward us?
I tremble I faint I fail
terror racks my soul
O Delian healer to whom my cries
from this my abyss of despair arise
what fate unknown until now
or lost in the past and renewed
drawn from the revolving years
will you make ours?
O speak o tell us immortal voice
To Athena daughter of Zeus
and her sister Artemis
and Apollo of burning arrows
triple guardians of Thebes
I call
If ever before in time past
you saved us from plague and defeat
come back to us now and save
The plague invades
no knowledge saves
birth pangs of women
bear dead their children
life on life sped
to the land of the dead
birds wing on wing
struck down from their flying
to the parched earth
by the marksman death
O Delian healer hear my prayer
star of hope in my night of despair
Grant that this god who without clash of sword on shield
fills with cries of our dying Thebes he makes his battlefield
turn back in flight from us
be made to yield
driven by great gales favouring our side
to the far Thracian waters wave on wave
where none found haven ever but his grave
O Zeus come with thy lightning to us
save
And come back Bacchus
hair gold-bound and cheeks flame-red
whom the Bacchantae worship and the maenids led
by his bright torch held high
revelling again among us Bacchus and make death
the god whom gods and men most hate lie dead
STEPHEN SPENDER (1984)
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