# data[].attributes.body
OEDIPUS: My children, latest generation born from Cadmus, why are you sitting here with wreathed sticks in supplication to me, while the city fills with incense, chants, and cries of pain?

# data[].attributes.body
PRIEST: Disease infects fruit blossoms in our land, disease infects our herds of grazing cattle, makes women in labor lose their children. And deadly pestilence, that fiery god, swoops down to blast the city, emptying the House of Cadmus, and fills black Hades with groans and howls.

# data[].attributes.body
PRIEST: For you came here, to our Cadmeian city, and freed us from the tribute we were paying to that cruel singer—and yet you knew no more than we did and had not been taught. In their stories, the people testify how, with gods’ help, you gave us back our lives.

# data[].attributes.body
PRIEST: If you’re to rule as you are doing now, it’s better to be king in a land of men than in a desert. An empty ship or city wall is nothing if no men share your life together there.

# data[].attributes.body
OEDIPUS: You must know I’ve been shedding many tears and, in my wandering thoughts, exploring many pathways. After a careful search I followed up the one thing I could find and acted on it.

# data[].attributes.body
OEDIPUS: So I have sent away my brother-in-law, son of Menoeceus, Creon, to Pythian Apollo’s shrine, to learn from him what I might do or say to save our city.

# data[].attributes.body
PRIEST: It seems the news he brings is good—if not, he would not wear that wreath around his head, a laurel thickly packed with berries.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: If you wish to hear the news in public, I’m prepared to speak. Or we could step inside.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: Then let me report what I heard from the god. Lord Phoebus clearly orders us to drive away the polluting stain this land has harbored—which will not be healed if we keep nursing it.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: Before you came, my lord, to steer our ship of state, Laius ruled this land.

# data[].attributes.body
OEDIPUS: I have heard that, but I never saw the man.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: Laius was killed. And now the god is clear: those murderers, he tells us, must be punished, whoever they may be.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: Here in Thebes, so said the god. What is sought is found, but what is overlooked escapes.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: They all died—except for one who was afraid and ran away. There was only one thing he could inform us of with confidence about the things he saw.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: He told us it was robbers who attacked them—not just a single man, a gang of them —  they came on with force and killed him.

# data[].attributes.body
CREON: That’s what we guessed. But once Laius was dead we were in trouble, so no one sought revenge.

# data[].attributes.body
OEDIPUS: And so, as is right, you will see how I work with you, seeking vengeance for this land, as well as for the god. This polluting stain I will remove, not for some distant friend, but for myself. For whoever killed this man may soon enough desire to turn his hand in the same way against me, too, and kill me. Thus, in avenging Laius, I serve myself.