drama of Œdipus the King has reached its final stress of tension, and the discovery is imminent: "May destiny still find me winning the praise of reverent purity in all words and deeds sanctioned by those laws of range sublime, called into life throughout the high clear heaven, whose father is Olympus alone; their parent was no race of mortal men. no, nor shall oblivion ever lay them to sleep; the god is mighty in them, and he grows not old."[1]
So long as man fulfils this prayer, he is possessed of the best that comes to man; with peace in his soul, he is in accord with the mightiest arbiters of his destiny. But Œdipus unwittingly, and yet because he was himself, has shattered these laws through deeds which the tongue refuses to utter. It may be that no man is evil through unwitting sin; and that toward such, men's anger softens (Soph. Frag.. 599: Tracn., ~zj^. Yet all the absolv- ing powers of life cannot make (Edipus as if he had not done these deeds : and as the deeds cannot be undone, neither can the consequences involved in them — an}- more than when a blind man steps off a precipice, one born blind, say, for a parent's sin ! As easy can a man cease to be himself as throw off the entailments of his acts. He can only live them out, as he lives out his life. So the CEUipus oi Colcr.uj comes as the drama of the close of a long expiation, no palny- exculpation by foolish or angr-
- ↑ Œd. Tyr., 863-871. Jebb's Translation.
