Oed. Nay, never fear! Were I proved thrice a slave
And waif of bondwomen, you still are noble.
Jo. Yet hearken, I implore you: do not so.
Oed. I cannot hear you. I must know this through.
Jo. With clear perception I advise the best.
Oed. Thy ‘best’ is still my torment.
Jo. Wretched one,
Never may’st thou discover who thou art!
Oed. Will some one go and bring the herdman hither?
Leave her to revel in her lordly line!
Jo. O horrible! O lost one! This alone
I speak to thee, and no word more for ever. [Exit
Ch. Oedipus, wherefore is Jocasta gone,
Driven madly by wild grief? I needs must fear
Lest from this silence she make sorrow spring.
Oed. Leave her to raise what storm she will. But I
Will persevere to know mine origin,
Though from an humble seed. Her woman’s pride
Is shamed, it may be, by my lowliness.
But I, whilst I account myself the son
Of prospering Fortune, ne’er will be disgraced.
For she is my true mother: and the months,
Coheirs with me of the same father, Time,
Have marked my lowness and mine exaltation.
So born, so nurtured, I can fear no change,
That I need shrink to probe this to the root.
[Oedipus remains, and gazes towards the country, while the Chorus sing.
Chorus.
If I wield a prophet’s might,
Or have sense to search aright,
Cithaeron, when all night the moon rides high,
Loud thy praise shall be confessed,
How upon thy rugged breast,
Thou, mighty mother, nursed’st tenderly
Great Oedipus, and gav’st his being room
Within thy spacious home.
