Teiresias. Take heed! Thou standest on the verge of fate.
Creon. What meanest thou? Thy message makes me quake.
Teiresias. Hear thou the warning tokens of my art
And thou wilt know. No sooner had I ta’en
My seat in my accustomed place, to hear
The birds that flocked around my ancient seat
Of divination, when I heard a strange
And unfamiliar sound among the screams
Of rage ill-omened, cries confused that made
Their wonted language clear sound like a jargon.
And I perceived that with their talons they
Were clawing one another savagely;
The whirr of wings proclaimed the carnage there.
Alarmed, I tried at once burnt-sacrifice
Upon a kindled altar, but no flame
Leaped from the offerings—an ooze, instead,
Of moisture forth upon the embers dripped,
Exuding from the thigh-bones, smoked and spewed,
The bursting gall was scattered through the air,
While all the fat which had enwrapped the thighs
Was melted off, ran down in streams, and left
The thigh-bones bare. Such failing oracles
Derived from auguries that failed to yield
A sign, this boy informed me of; for he
Doth act as guide to me, as I to others.
And ’t is thy will that brings this malady
Upon the state. For all our altars are defiled,
Our hearths by dogs and vultures, with the food
Torn from the fallen son of Œdipus
Ill-starred. And so the gods do not accept
Our prayers and sacrifices now, nor flame
Of thigh-bones; and no bird shrieks forth its cry
Of warning, forasmuch as all have made
A slain man’s gore their succulent repast.
Think then, my son, on this. A man may err;
But erring, if he cure the ill, stiffnecked
Remain not in his error quite immovable,
No longer he insensate and unblest.
