Chorus.
Prince of the Powers Unseen, 1
Durst we with prayers adore
Thee and thy viewless Queen,
Your aid, Aïdôneus, would our lips implore!
By no harsh-sounding doom
Let him we love descend,
With calm and cloudless end,
In deep Plutonian dwelling evermore
To abide among the people of the tomb!
Long worn with many an undeserved woe,
Just Gods will give thee glory there below.
Dread Forms, who haunt this floor, 2
And thou, the Unconquered Beast,
That hugely liest at rest
By the dim-shining adamantine door,
—Still from thy cavernous lair
Gnarling, so legends tell,
A tameless guard of Hell,—
Mayest thou this once thy vigilance forbear,
And leave large room for him now entering there.
Hear us, great Son of Darkness and the Deep;
On thee we call, God of the dreamless sleep!
Enter Messenger.
Mess. Athenian citizens, my briefest tale
Were to say singly, Oedipus is gone;
But to describe the scene enacted yonder
Craves no brief speech, nor was the action brief.
Ch. Then he is gone! Poor man!
Mess. Know it once for all,
He hath left eternally the light of day.
Ch. Poor soul! What? Ended he with peace divine?
Mess. Ay, there is the main marvel. How he moved
From hence, thou knowest, for thou too wert here,
And saw’st that of his friends none guided him,
But he they loved was leader to them all.
Now, when he came to the steep pavement, rooted
