Atonement, and the story told

The chorus, having heard the news from Ismene, turns from frightened hosts to careful ones. They tell Oedipus how to make atonement to the goddesses whose ground he trespassed. The instructions are precise — water from a living spring, bowls wreathed with wool from a freshly sheared yearling, libations of water and honey but no wine, twenty-seven olive sprays on the wet earth, a whispered prayer, no looking back. Oedipus accepts. He cannot perform the rite himself, blind and weak, but one loyal heart, he says, can pay the sacrifice for thousands. Ismene takes the duty and goes into the grove with the keeper of the precinct.

While they wait, the chorus turns its attention back to him. They have a request that pains them. The story of his life has been told far and wide; they would like to hear it from his own mouth. Oedipus tries to refuse. He calls it shame; he asks them not to make him expose it. They press anyway, kindly. He gives in.

What follows is the play's first careful presentation of his case. He gives the facts: the State that bound an unknowing bridegroom in an impious marriage, the two daughters born from the birth-pangs of his own mother-wife, the killing on the road outside Thebes. The chorus, line by line, names each horror. Each time Oedipus answers in the language of intent. He served the State; he did not know who his bride was; he killed the man who would have killed him; he killed without intent. Wretched, yes; but innocent under the law, and standing without stain. The crimes are real. The blame is not his to carry. He has carried it anyway. As the chorus is absorbing this, the messenger announces that Theseus is coming.