Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Oedipus the King: Journal Three

Letter a character might have written


Dearest Antigone,

The greatest and heaviest misery now envelopes me. You have been taken from me, my wife has taken her own life, and I write blindly these words to you. In my pride, and my arrogance, I made the foolish mistake to think that I could escape fate. What prophecy foretold, both my father, mother, and myself all unfortunately decided to neglect; and now the gods take their retribution upon me! No, I take retribution upon myself. It is I, Oedipus Rex, that had so doggedly pursued the truth of my birth, the truth of my heritage, of my mother and father, the man whose blood I spilled, and the woman whose loins I have violated.

You cannot imagine what a pain this is. In my foolishness again, I neglected the prophet Tiresias, mocking his blindness, and now I am myself blind. I should never have left that mountainside, I wish now that that shepherd had killed me as a babe; ridding my scourge from all mankind. And to think, what horror I have brought upon you, my daughter, What man will desire you? What happiness shall you achieve? I have cursed my family and myself in my stupidity. My hubris, which drove me so strongly towards the truth, ultimately has destroyed me in my arrogance. I thought myself and my family invulnerable, I thought myself a noble man on a quest to expose the truth. I am nothing but a blind, pitying wreck.

Where I go now, I cannot say. Perhaps I shall head for the mountain, O wretched Cithaeron, where I should have been killed so many years ago. At this time, I cannot think to see another person, I curse the light of day with my presence! I consider it a blessing, though small, that I cannot see the faces of those whom I have wronged, and continue to wrong by allowing them to gaze upon me. Although, perhaps I do not curse them. Perhaps they see the broken creature that was once a man. The man that solved the riddle of the sphinx. The great, and mighty Oedipus Rex! But mighty I am no longer. Yes, I will go to Cithaeron. It is there I will spend the remainder of this life, destitute and alone.

-Oedipus

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