CHORUS
Methinks he means none other than the hind
Whom thou anon wert fain to see; but that
Our queen Jocasta best of all could tell.
OEDIPUS
Madam, dost know the man we sent to fetch?
Is the same of whom the stranger speaks?
JOCASTA
Who is the man? What matter? Let it be.
‘Twere waste of thought to weigh such idle words.
OEDIPUS
No, with such guiding clues I cannot fail
To bring to light the secret of my birth.
JOCASTA
Oh, as thou carest for thy life, give o’er
This quest. Enough the anguish _I_ endure.
OEDIPUS
Be of good cheer; though I be proved the son
Of a bondwoman, aye, through three descents
Triply a slave, thy honor is unsmirched.
JOCASTA
Yet humor me, I pray thee; do not this.
OEDIPUS
I cannot; I must probe this matter home.
JOCASTA
‘Tis for thy sake I advise thee for the best.
OEDIPUS
I grow impatient of this best advice.
JOCASTA
Ah mayst thou ne’er discover who thou art!
OEDIPUS
Go, fetch me here the herd, and leave yon woman
To glory in her pride of ancestry.
JOCASTA
O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word
I leave thee, henceforth silent evermore.
[Exit JOCASTA]
CHORUS
Why, Oedipus, why stung with passionate grief
Hath the queen thus departed? Much I fear
From this dead calm will burst a storm of woes.
OEDIPUS
Let the storm burst, my fixed resolve still holds,
To learn my lineage, be it ne’er so low.
It may be she with all a woman’s pride
Thinks scorn of my base parentage. But I
Who rank myself as Fortune’s favorite child,
The giver of good gifts, shall not be shamed.
She is my mother and the changing moons
My brethren, and with them I wax and wane.
Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth?
Nothing can make me other than I am.
CHORUS
(Str.)
If my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail,
Thee, Cithaeron, I shall hail,
As the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet
Ere tomorrow’s full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet.
Dance and song shall hymn thy praises, lover of our royal race.
Phoebus, may my words find grace!
(Ant.)
Child, who bare thee, nymph or goddess?
sure thy sure was more than man,
Haply the hill-roamer Pan.
Of did Loxias beget thee, for he haunts the upland wold;
Or Cyllene’s lord, or Bacchus, dweller on the hilltops cold?
Did some Heliconian Oread give him thee, a new-born joy?
Nymphs with whom he love to toy?
OEDIPUS
Elders, if I, who never yet before
Have met the man, may make a guess, methinks
I see the herdsman who we long have sought;
His time-worn aspect matches with the years
Of yonder aged messenger; besides
I seem to recognize the men who bring him
As servants of my own. But you, perchance,
Having in past days known or seen the herd,
May better by sure knowledge my surmise.
CHORUS
I recognize him; one of Laius’ house;
A simple hind, but true as any man.
[Enter HERDSMAN.]
OEDIPUS
Corinthian, stranger, I address thee first,
Is this the man thou meanest!
MESSENGER
This is he.
OEDIPUS
And now old man, look up and answer all
I ask thee. Wast thou once of Laius’ house?
HERDSMAN
I was, a thrall, not purchased but home-bred.
OEDIPUS
What was thy business? how wast thou employed?
HERDSMAN
The best part of my life I tended sheep.
OEDIPUS
What were the pastures thou didst most frequent?
HERDSMAN
Cithaeron and the neighboring alps.
OEDIPUS
Then there
Thou must have known yon man, at least by fame?
HERDSMAN
Yon man? in what way? what man dost thou mean?
OEDIPUS
The man here, having met him in past times…
HERDSMAN
Off-hand I cannot call him well to mind.
MESSENGER
No wonder, master. But I will revive
His blunted memories. Sure he can recall
What time together both we drove our flocks,
He two, I one, on the Cithaeron range,
For three long summers; I his mate from spring
Till rose Arcturus; then in winter time
I led mine home, he his to Laius’ folds.
Did these things happen as I say, or no?
HERDSMAN
‘Tis long ago, but all thou say’st is true.
MESSENGER
Well, thou mast then remember giving me
A child to rear as my own foster-son?
HERDSMAN
Why dost thou ask this question? What of that?
MESSENGER
Friend, he that stands before thee was that child.
HERDSMAN
A plague upon thee! Hold thy wanton tongue!
OEDIPUS
Softly, old man, rebuke him not; thy words
Are more deserving chastisement than his.
HERDSMAN
O best of masters, what is my offense?
OEDIPUS
Not answering what he asks about the child.
HERDSMAN
He speaks at random, babbles like a fool.
OEDIPUS
If thou lack’st grace to speak, I’ll loose thy tongue.
HERDSMAN
For mercy’s sake abuse not an old man.
OEDIPUS
Arrest the villain, seize and pinion him!
HERDSMAN
Alack, alack!
What have I done? what wouldst thou further learn?
OEDIPUS
Didst give this man the child of whom he asks?
HERDSMAN
I did; and would that I had died that day!
OEDIPUS
And die thou shalt unless thou tell the truth.
HERDSMAN
But, if I tell it, I am doubly lost.
OEDIPUS
The knave methinks will still prevaricate.
HERDSMAN
Nay, I confessed I gave it long ago.
OEDIPUS
Whence came it? was it thine, or given to thee?
HERDSMAN
I had it from another, ’twas not mine.
OEDIPUS
From whom of these our townsmen, and what house?
HERDSMAN
Forbear for God’s sake, master, ask no more.
OEDIPUS
If I must question thee again, thou’rt lost.
HERDSMAN
Well then–it was a child of Laius’ house.
OEDIPUS
Slave-born or one of Laius’ own race?
HERDSMAN
Ah me!
I stand upon the perilous edge of speech.
OEDIPUS
And I of hearing, but I still must hear.
HERDSMAN
Know then the child was by repute his own,
But she within, thy consort best could tell.
OEDIPUS
What! she, she gave it thee?
HERDSMAN
‘Tis so, my king.
OEDIPUS
With what intent?
HERDSMAN
To make away with it.
OEDIPUS
What, she its mother.
HERDSMAN
Fearing a dread weird.
OEDIPUS
What weird?
HERDSMAN
‘Twas told that he should slay his sire.
OEDIPUS
What didst thou give it then to this old man?
HERDSMAN
Through pity, master, for the babe. I thought
He’d take it to the country whence he came;
But he preserved it for the worst of woes.
For if thou art in sooth what this man saith,
God pity thee! thou wast to misery born.
OEDIPUS
Ah me! ah me! all brought to pass, all true!
O light, may I behold thee nevermore!
I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed,
A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed!
[Exit OEDIPUS]
CHORUS
(Str. 1)
Races of mortal man
Whose life is but a span,
I count ye but the shadow of a shade!
For he who most doth know
Of bliss, hath but the show;
A moment, and the visions pale and fade.
Thy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall
Warns me none born of women blest to call.
(Ant. 1)
For he of marksmen best,
O Zeus, outshot the rest,
And won the prize supreme of wealth and power.
By him the vulture maid
Was quelled, her witchery laid;
He rose our savior and the land’s strong tower.
We hailed thee king and from that day adored
Of mighty Thebes the universal lord.
(Str. 2)
O heavy hand of fate!
Who now more desolate,
Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?
O Oedipus, discrowned head,
Thy cradle was thy marriage bed;
One harborage sufficed for son and sire.
How could the soil thy father eared so long
Endure to bear in silence such a wrong?
(Ant. 2)
All-seeing Time hath caught
Guilt, and to justice brought
The son and sire commingled in one bed.
O child of Laius’ ill-starred race
Would I had ne’er beheld thy face;
I raise for thee a dirge as o’er the dead.
Yet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath,
And now through thee I feel a second death.
