What Deity was it that with a leap so great—

Farther than farthest—sprang on thy sad fate?

Woe is me, woe is me for thee—unfortunate!

Fain would I gaze at thee, would ask thee much,

Many things learn of thee, wert thou not such

As I may not even behold, as I shudder to touch.

OEDIPUS

Me miserable! Whither must I go?

Ah whither flits my voice, borne to and fro?

Thou Power unseen, how hast thou brought me low!

1 SENATOR TO

ills, intolerable to hear or see.

OEDIPUS

Thou horror of thick darkness overspread,

Thou shadow of unutterable dread

Not to be stemmed or stayed, fallen on my head—

Woe’s me once more! How crowd upon my heart

Stings of these wounds, and memories of woe!

1 SENATOR

No marvel if thou bear a double smart

And writhe, so stricken, with a two-fold throe!

OEDIPUS

Still art thou near me—ready still to tend

And to endure me, faithful to the end,

Blind as I am, with kindness, O my friend!

For strange thou art not; but full well I know

That voice of thine, all darkling though I be.

1 SENATOR

Rash man, how could’st thou bear to outrage so

Thine eyes? What Power was it, that wrought on thee?

OEDIPUS

Apollo, Apollo fulfils,

O friends, my measure of ills—

Fills my measure of woe;

Author was none, but I,

None other, of the blow;

For why was I to see,

When to descry

No sight on earth could have a charm for me?

1 SENATOR

It was even as thou sayest.

OEDIPUS

What was there left for sight?

What, that could give delight?

Or whose address,

O friends, could I still hear with happiness?

Lead me to exile straight;

Lead me, O my friends, the worst

Of murderers, of mortals most accurst,

Yea and to Gods chief object of their hate.

1 SENATOR

Of cunning hapless, as of hapless fate,

I would that I had never known thy name!

OEDIPUS

May he perish, whoe’er ‘twas drew me

Out of the cruel gyve

That bound my feet, on the lea!

He who saved me alive,

Who rescued me from fate,

Shewing no kindness to me!

Sorrow so great,

Had I died then, had spared both mine and me.

1 SENATOR

Fain were I too it had been so.

OEDIPUS

Not then had I become

My father’s murderer,

Nor wedded her I have my being from:

Whom now no God will bless,

Child of incestuousness

In her that bare me, being the spouse of her;

Yea if aught ill worse than all ill be there,

That Oedipus must bear.

1 SENATOR

I know not how to say thou hast done well;

For it were better for thee now to die,

Than to live on in blindness.

OEDIPUS

Tell me not—

Give me no counsel now, that what is done

Has not been done thus best. I know not how

With seeing eyes I could have looked upon

My father—coming to the under-world,