I know thee well, nor fail I to perceive,
Dark though I be, thy kind familiar voice.
Ch. How dreadful is thy deed! How couldst thou bear
Thus to put out thine eyes? What Power impelled thee?
Oed. Apollo, dear my friends, Apollo brought to pass II 1
In dreadful wise, this my calamitous woe.
But I,—no being else,—I with this hand destroyed them.
[Pointing to his eyes
For why should I have sight,
To whom nought now gave pleasure through the eye?
Ch. There speak’st thou truly.
Oed. What could I see, whom hear
With gladness, whom delight in any more?
Lead me away out of the land with speed!
Be rid of the destroyer, the accursed,
Whom most of all the world the Gods abhor.
Ch. O miserable in thy calamity
And not less miserable in thy despair,
Would thou wert still in ignorance of thy birth !
Oed. My curse on him who from the cruel bond II 2
That held my feet in that high pasture-land
Freed me, and rescued me from murder there,
And saved my life! Vain kindness! Then to have died
Had spared this agony to me and mine.
Ch. Ay, would it had been so!
Oed. Then had I ne’er
Been proved a parricide, ne’er borne the shame
Of marriage-bonds incestuous! But now
I am God-abandoned, Son of the unholy,
Rival of him who gave me being. Ah woe!
What sorrow beyond sorrows hath chief place?
That sorrow Oedipus must bear!
Leader of Ch. I know not how to call thee wise in this:
Thou wert better dead than to be blind and live.
Oed. That this last act hath not been for the best
Instruct me not, nor counsel me again.
