So far as I can tell it you shall hear

Her miserable story. When she passed

So frantically inside the vestibule,

She went straight onward to the bed-chamber,

With both her hands tearing her hair; the doors

She dashed to as she entered, crying out

On Laius, long since dead, calling to mind

His fore-begotten offspring, by whose hands

He, she said, died, and left to his own seed

Its mother’s most unnatural bearing-bed.

Nor did she not bewail that nuptial-couch

Where she brought forth, unhappy, brood on brood,

Spouse to her spouse, and children to her child.

And then—I know no further how she perished;

For Oedipus brake in, crying aloud;

For whom it was impossible to watch

The ending of her misery; but on him

We gazed, as he went raging all about,

Beseeching us to furnish him a sword

And say where he could find his wife—no wife,

Rather the mother-soil both of himself

And children; and, as he raved thus, some Power

Shews him—at least, none of us present did.

Then, shouting loud, he sprang upon the doors

As following some guide, and burst the bars

Out of their sockets, and alights within.

There we beheld his wife hanging, entwined

In a twined noose. He seeing her, with a groan

Looses the halter; then, when on the ground

Lay the poor wretch, dreadful it was to see

What followed; snatching from her dress gold pins

Wherewith she was adorned, he lifted them,

And smote the nerves of his own eyeballs, saying

Something like this—that they should see no more

Evils like those he had endured or wrought;

Darkling, thereafter, let them gaze on forms

He might not see, and fail to recognize

The faces he desired! Chanting this burden,

Not once, but many times, he raised his hand

And stabbed his eyes; so that from both of them

The blood ran down his face, not drop by drop,

But all at once, in a dark shower of gore.

—These are the ills that from a two-fold source,

Not one alone, but in both wife and spouse,

Mingled together, have burst forth at once.

Their former pristine happiness indeed

Was happiness before; but in this hour

Shame—lamentation—Atè*—death—of all

That has a name of evil, nought’s away!

1 SENATOR

And does he stand in any respite now

Of misery, poor soul?

2 MESSENGER

He calls aloud

For some one to undo the bolts, and shew

To all the Cadmeans him, his father’s slayer—

His mother’s—uttering words unhallowed—words

I may not speak; that he will cast himself

Forth of the land, abide no more at home

Under the curse of his own cursing. Nay,

But he lacks force, and guidance; for his sickness

Is more than man can bear. See for yourself;

For these gates open, and you will straight behold

A sight—such as even he that loathes must pity!

Enter OEDIPUS blind.

Chorus.

O sorrow, lamentable for eyes to see!

Sorest of all past ills encountering me!

What frenzy, O wretch, is this, that came on thee?