What prophecies?

OLD MAN

That he should kill his parents, it was said.

OEDIPUS

How came you then to give it to this old man?

OLD MAN

For pity, O my master! thinking he

Would carry it away to other soil,

From whence he came; but he to the worst of harms

Saved it! for if thou art the man he says,

Sure thou wast born destined to misery!

OEDIPUS

Woe! woe! It is all plain, indeed! O Light,

This be the last time I shall gaze on thee,

Who am revealed to have been born of those

Of whom I ought not—to have wedded whom

I ought not—and slain whom I might not slay!

[Exit.

Chorus.

I. 1.

O generations of mankind!

How do I find

Your lives nought worth at all!

For who is he—what state

Is there, more fortunate

Than only to seem great,

And then, to fall?

I having thee for pattern, and thy lot—

Thine, O poor Oedipus—I envy not

Aught in mortality;

For this is he

I. 2.

Who, shooting far beyond the rest,

Won wealth all-blest,

Slaying, Zeus, thy monster-maid,

Crook-taloned, boding; and

Who did arise and stand

Betwixt death and our land,

A tower of aid;

Yea for this cause thou hast been named our king,

And honoured in the highest, governing

The city of Thebae great

In royal state.

II. 1.

And now, who lives more utterly undone?

Who with sad woes, who with mischances rude

Stands closer yoked by life’s vicissitude?

O honoured head of Oedipus, for whom

Within the same wide haven there was room

To come—child, to the birth—

Sire, to the nuptial bower,

How could the furrows of thy parent earth—

How could they suffer thee, O hapless one,

In silence, to this hour?

II. 2.

Time found thee out—Time who sees everything—

Unwittingly guilty; and arraigns thee now

Consort ill-sorted, unto whom are bred

Sons of thy getting, in thine own birth-bed.

O scion of Laius’ race,

Would I had never never seen thy face!

For I lament, even as from lips that sing

Pouring a dirge; yet verily it was thou

Gav’st me to rise

And breathe again, and close my watching eyes.

Enter a second MESSENGER.

2 MESSENGER

O you most honoured ever of this land,

What deeds have you to hear, what sights to see,

What sorrow to endure, if you still cherish

The house of Labdacus with loyalty?

For Ister* I suppose or Phasis’** wave

Never could purge this dwelling from the ills

It covers—or shall instantly reveal,

Invited, not inflicted; of all wounds,

Those that seem wilful are the worst to bear.

1 SENATOR

There was no lack, in what we knew before,

Of lamentable; what have you more to say?

2 MESSENGER

The speediest of all tales to hear and tell;

The illustrious Jocasta is no more.

1 SENATOR

Unhappy woman! From what cause?

2 MESSENGER

Self-slain.

Of what befell the saddest part is spared;

For you were not a witness. None the less