"Now you know the horror of which I sought not to speak," spoke a man with a voice he recognized as that of Teiresias. "But I must wonder, with the choices you have made, which path you now walk."

"I don't understand," replied Oedipus. "I did not choose to be born. I did not choose to be abandoned and raised in Corinth. And I did not choose to be set upon by my father. What choice could I have made that might have averted this woeful state?"

"You chose this fate, my blind friend, long ago."

"You speak in riddles and lies, Teiresias."

"Do I? Has not what I spoke been shown to be true? Your fall was bound up in your rise."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you ever wonder what it is that makes men walk on two legs in the day, and three in the evening? What makes men more like gods than animals? It is the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of glory, and the pursuit of power. It is want, and from want, will."

"You speak of the Sphinx."

"I speak of yourself, though the two cannot be separated. You made your choice when you confronted the monster. Your pain now is your reward for being the thing you described, the thing that killed the Sphinx."

"But I didn't know. I couldn't have known. I didn't even know it was a choice."

"Men rarely do."

END

Peter Rauch, 2006