Lee Breuer Follow

SINGER OEDIPUS [With his Quintet, without accompaniment]:
A voice foretold
Where I shall die
Where my soul shall rest
And my body lie
Where pain unending
Ends for me
Where I shall find
Sanctuary

A voice foretold
That at my grave
Down my God shall come
My soul to save
And I shall be
Endowed with grace
And I shall find
My resting place

QUINTET [individually]:
Hear me
Hear me
Hear me

QUINTET BASS:
O hear my prayer
O Lord, won't you hear my prayer

[The blind singer approaches the podium unassisted to preach over the music. Balladeer sings under him.]

SINGER OEDIPUS:
Ladies whose eyes are terrible:
Spirits: upon your sacred ground
I have first bent my knees in this new land;
Therefore be mindful of me and of Apollo,
For when he gave me oracles of evil,
He also spoke of this: a resting place,
After long years in the last country,
Where I should find a home among the powers of justice;
That I might round out there my bitter life.
Conferring benefits on those who received me,
A curse on those who have driven me away.

Portents, he said, would make me sure of this:
Earthquakes, thunder, or God's smiling lightning;
But I am sure of it now, sure that you guided me
And led me here into your hallowed wood.

Grant me then, Goddesses, passage from life at last,
And consummation, as the unearthly voice foretold;
Unless indeed I seem not worth your grace--
Slave as I am to such unending pain
As no man had before.

O hear my prayer,
Sweet children of original Darkness! Hear me,
Pity a poor man's carcass and his ghost,
For Oedipus is not the strength he was.

Therefore, in the name of God, give me shelter!
Give me sanctuary! Though my face
Be dreadful in its look, yet honor me!
For I come as one endowed with grace
By those who are over Nature; and I bring
Advantage to this place.

SINGER OEDIPUS and BALLADEER [Concluding with a call and response]:
Where pain unending
Ends for me
Where I shall find
Sanctuary