Oedipus at Thebes

I stand here on Boeotia’s barren plain,
I’m facing Pirkinon,
the sun unshielded falls in searing sheets
and radiates sharp torments from the ground.
But I, like Cytheraon now at my back,
am rooted to this desecrated bone strewn spot,
I’m moved to be unmovable
until I have defeated her, bright Hera’s spawn,
and purged this bane from Cadmus Land.

I will remain, sweat rilled, salt stung,
mouth dried, but facing it, grey grim,
this she beast with the fouling breath,
the moulting wings and child’s voice,
that sits toss legged and open crotched
disdainfully upon her perch
as if it owned the road to Thebes,
and slys itself into a smile,
in thinking it has bested me like all the rest,
like all the rest who tried, the fools,
to brave and  beat it down
who took in hand a sword or spear
against this one to whom honed bronze in any shape
was laughable and had no power,
until I’ve brought her low.

For I can bear the parching heat.
For I can bear the thirst that Helios
demands as toll for staying long within his company.
And I can even bear the spiking shafts of pain that throb
within the ridges of my ankles and my feet
from standing vigil dawn to dusk upon this rocky ground.

For now it not long, not long at all
until the contest’s done,
until I’ve wrested Nike from her grasp.
For what she does not know,
for what she does not see despite her eagled eyes,
is that the answer to the savage riddle that
she used to tax assemblies’ minds,
as pretext for her killing sprees
has found its legs and walks in eagerness toward me,
like some bent old and lonely pilgrim on the road,
who mounts a rise and then, in seeing me below,
descends, each step, with walking stick hard gripped,
now much more rapid than the last,
to hail me with a greeting and an outstretched hand.
It’s coming into focus in my mind
the four and two and then the three stepped puzzlement
she’s laid on me to solve.