Whence he became the ruler of this land;
Yea, for his guerdon wins the throne of Thebes,
And weds his mother,—wretch!—unwitting he,
Unwitting she that she was her son's bride.
And children to my son I bare, two sons,55
Eteokles and famed Polyneikes' might,
And daughters twain: the one the father named
Ismênê, the elder I, Antigonê.
But, when he knew me mother both and wife,
Oedipus, crushed 'neath utterest sufferings,60
On his own eyes wrought ruin horrible,
Yea, with gold brooch-pin drenched their orbs with blood.
Now, being to bearded manhood grown, my sons
Is the voice thereof; and it changeth its form, this thing alone
Of all that on earth walk, soar through the air, or in sea- depths swim.
But lo, whensoever on most limbs borne it essayeth to run,
Then is it ever the weakest, the slowest in speed of limb."
All, failing to solve it, were torn to pieces, till Oedipus expounded it thus:—
"Hearken, how loth soever, thou foul-winged Muse of the slain,
Unto my voice which tells thee the end of thy guile and thy doom.
Man is the thing thou hast named: four-footed he crawls on the plain,
What time he hath first come forth a babbling babe from the womb.
And when he is old, must a staff, as a third foot, his weakness sustain,
As he stoopeth his neck 'neath the load of his years, as he bows to the tomb."
Thereupon the Sphinx hurled herself from the rock, and was killed.
