“As to the man surest in mortal ways 

And wisest in the ways of God.  You saved us 

From the Sphinx, that flinty singer, and the tribute 

We paid to her so long: yet you were never 

Better informed than we, nor could we teach you: 

It was some god breathed in you to set us free.” (lines 38-42) 

“ I have sent Creon,

Son of Menoeceus, brother of the Queen, 

To Delphi, Apollo’s place of revelation, 

To learn there. if he can,

What act or pledge of mine may save the city.” (lines 71-75)

“Then I will tell you what I heard at Delphi.

In plain words

The god commands us to expel from the land of Thebes

An old defilement we are sheltering 

It is a deathly thing, beyond cure;

We must not let if feed upon us longer.” (lines 97-102)

“Let me pray to Athena, the immortal daughter of Zeus,

And to Artemis her sister

Who keeps her famous throne in the market ring,

And to Apollo, bowman at the far butts of heaven-

O gods, descend! Like three streams leap against

The fires of our grief, the fires of darkness;

Be swift to bring us rest!” (lines 163-169)

“Phoebus Apollo, stretch the sun’s bowstring,

That golden chord, until it sing for us,

Flashing arrows in heaven!” (lines 196-198)

“Artemis, Huntress, 

Race with flaring lights upon our mountains!

O scarlet god, O golden-banded brow,

O Theban Bacchus in a storm of Maenads,” (lines 200-201)

“For the son of Zeus armed with his father’s thunder

Leaps in lightning after him; 

And the Furies follow him, the sad Furies.” (lines 455-457)

“Shall we lose faith in Delphi’s obscurities,

We who have heard the world’s core

Discredited, and the sacred wood 

Of Zeus at Elis praised no more?

The deeds and the strange prophecies 

Must make a pattern yet to be understood.

Zeus, if indeed you are lord of all, 

Throned in light over night and day,

Mirror this in your endless mind:

Our masters call the oracle

Words on the wind, and the Delphic vision blind!

Their hearts no longer know Apollo, 

And reverence for the gods has died away. (lines 852-864)