The thunder

Polyneices is gone. The chorus, in the silence after his departure, sings a song on the cost of long life. Whoever loves length of days walks in folly. The years pile up as a heavy load — pleasures few, pains many — until at last not one joy remains for the man who has lingered. They name what they have just seen: the ordeal of Oedipus, who like a storm-struck headland on an iron-bound shore has been beaten on every side by the surge of misfortune. They are still unrolling the metaphor when the sky breaks.

Thunder rolls across the field. The chorus is shaken. Oedipus is not. He hears it and recognizes it. He turns to his daughters. Children, he says — the appointed end has come for me. There is no turning from it now. They are alarmed. How do you know? He answers with quiet certainty. I know it well. Let someone go and summon the Athenian prince. The thunder rolls again, closer. The chorus is on its knees in prayer; lay your hand lightly on the land, Zeus; do not strike us for taking pity on the man you sent us.

Oedipus, calm in the middle of the storm, asks again for Theseus. He has, he says, a promise to keep. He has been waiting for the thunder, and now that it has come, his time is short. He needs to give the king the thing he had promised at their first meeting. The chorus, between thunder claps, calls for Theseus. The play has begun to telegraph what is coming. The death will not be on stage. It will not be by violence. It will be by the appointed sign of the god, with the king's promise kept, in a place that only Theseus will be allowed to see.