| Sophocles Index |
OEDIPUS
If thou lack'st grace to speak, I'll loose thy tongue.
HERDSMAN
For mercy's sake abuse not an old man.
OEDIPUS
Arrest the villain, seize and pinion him!
HERDSMAN
Alack, alack!
What have I done? what wouldst thou further learn?
OEDIPUS
Didst give this man the child of whom he asks?
HERDSMAN
I did; and would that I had died that day!
OEDIPUS
And die thou shalt unless thou tell the truth.
HERDSMAN
But, if I tell it, I am doubly lost.
OEDIPUS
The knave methinks will still prevaricate.
HERDSMAN
Nay, I confessed I gave it long ago.
OEDIPUS
Whence came it? was it thine, or given to thee?
HERDSMAN
I had it from another, 'twas not mine.
OEDIPUS
From whom of these our townsmen, and what house?
HERDSMAN
Forbear for God's sake, master, ask no more.
OEDIPUS
If I must question thee again, thou'rt lost.
HERDSMAN
Well then--it was a child of Laius' house.
OEDIPUS
Slave-born or one of Laius' own race?
HERDSMAN
Ah me!
I stand upon the perilous edge of speech.
OEDIPUS
And I of hearing, but I still must hear.
HERDSMAN
Know then the child was by repute his own,
But she within, thy consort best could tell.
OEDIPUS
What! she, she gave it thee?
HERDSMAN
'Tis so, my king.
OEDIPUS
With what intent?
HERDSMAN
To make away with it.
OEDIPUS
What, she its mother.
HERDSMAN
Fearing a dread weird.
OEDIPUS
What weird?
HERDSMAN
'Twas told that he should slay his sire.
OEDIPUS
What didst thou give it then to this old man?
HERDSMAN
Through pity, master, for the babe. I thought
He'd take it to the country whence he came;
But he preserved it for the worst of woes.
For if thou art in sooth what this man saith,
God pity thee! thou wast to misery born.
OEDIPUS
Ah me! ah me! all brought to pass, all true!
O light, may I behold thee nevermore!
I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed,
A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed!
Exit OEDIPUS.
CHORUS
strophe 1
Races of mortal man
Whose life is but a span,
I count ye but the shadow of a shade!
For he who most doth know
Of bliss, hath but the show;
A moment, and the visions pale and fade.
Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall
Warns me none born of women blest to call.
antistrophe 1
For he of marksmen best,
O Zeus, outshot the rest,
And won the prize supreme of wealth and power.
By him the vulture maid
Was quelled, her witchery laid;
He rose our savior and the land's strong tower.
We hailed thee king and from that day adored
Of mighty Thebes the universal lord.
strophe 2
O heavy hand of fate!
Who now more desolate,
Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?
O Oedipus, discrowned head,
Thy cradle was thy marriage bed;
One harborage sufficed for son and sire.
How could the soil thy father eared so long
Endure to bear in silence such a wrong?
antistrophe 2
All-seeing Time hath caught
Guilt, and to justice brought
The son and sire commingled in one bed.
O child of Laius' ill-starred race
Would I had ne'er beheld thy face;
I raise for thee a dirge as o'er the dead.
Yet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath,
And now through thee I feel a second death.
Enter SECOND MESSENGER.
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