Ismene's news, and the curses on his sons

Ismene rides up and dismounts, weeping. She has come alone, with one loyal servant, to find her father and bring him news. She has searched, she says, for a long time. Now that she has found them she can hardly see them through her tears. Antigone embraces her. Ismene takes her father's hands and reports.

The news from Thebes is bad. After Oedipus had been driven out, his sons Eteocles and Polyneices had been content to let their uncle Creon rule the city, recognizing the curse on the family. But the throne pulled at them. Now Eteocles, the younger, has seized it and driven Polyneices into exile. Polyneices has gone to Argos, married into its royal house, and is marching on Thebes with an Argive army. The brothers are at war. Then Ismene names what is making the war urgent. There is a new oracle from Delphi: in time the country of Thebes will long for Oedipus, living or dead, because their welfare depends on him. The land that holds his body will be blessed.

Oedipus listens without speaking. When Ismene has finished he asks the question that will determine everything. Have my sons heard this oracle? Yes, she says. Both of them. They know exactly what it means. Oedipus's voice, when he answers, has the steel that has been in him for twenty years and that the play has not yet shown. They knew, he says, and the ignoble greed for power outweighed any longing for their father's return. He calls down a curse on both of them. May the gods never quench their deadly feud. Let neither return alive. Let no one in Thebes ever reach his bones. The chorus, hearing, knows this is no idle word.