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THEB. SH.
O my dread lord, therein do I offend?

OED.
Thou wilt not answer him about the child?

THEB. SH.
He knows not what he speaks. His end is vain.

OED.
So! Thou’lt not tell to please us, but the lash
Will make thee tell.

THEB. SH.
By all that’s merciful,
Scourge not this aged frame!

OED.
Pinion him straight!

THEB. SH.
Unhappy! wherefore? what is’t you would know?

OED.
Gave you this man the child of whom he asks you?

THEB. SH.
I gave it him. Would I had died that hour!

OED.
Speak rightly, or your wish will soon come true.

THEB. SH.
My ruin comes the sooner, if I speak.

OED.
This man will balk us with his baffling prate.

THEB. SH.
Not so. I said long since, ‘I gave the child.’

OED.
Whence? Was’t your own, or from another’s hand?

THEB. SH.
‘Twas not mine own; another gave it me.

OED.
What Theban gave it, from what home in Thebes?

THEB. SH.
O, I implore thee, master, ask no more!

OED.
You perish, if I have to ask again.

THEB. SH.
The child was of the stock of Laius.

OED.
Slave-born, or rightly of the royal line?

THEB. SH.
Ah me! Now comes the horror to my tongue!

OED.
And to mine ear. But thou shalt tell it me!

THEB. SH.
He was given out for Laius’ son: but she,
Thy queen, within the palace, best can tell.

OED.
How? Did she give it thee?

THEB. SH.
My lord, she did.

OED
. With what commission?

THEB. SH.
I was to destroy him.

OED.
And could a mother’s heart be steeled to this?

THEB. SH.
With fear of evil prophecies.

OED.
What were they?

THEB. SH.
‘Twas said the child should be his father’s death.

OED.
What then possessed thee to give up the child
To this old man?

THEB. SH.
Pity, my sovereign lord!
Supposing he would take him far away
Unto the land whence he was come. But he
Preserved him to great sorrow. For if thou
Art he this man hath said, be well assured
Thou bear’st a heavy doom.

OED.
O horrible!
Horrible! All fulfilled, as sunlight clear!
Oh may I nevermore behold the day,
Since proved accursed in my parentage,
In those I live with, and in him I slew!

[Exeunt]

CHORUS.
O mortal tribes of men,
How near to nothingness
I count you while your lives remain!
What man that lives hath more of happiness
Than to seem blest, and, seeming, fade in night?
O Oedipus, in this thine hour of gloom,
Musing on thee and thy relentless doom,
I call none happy who beholds the light.

Thou through surpassing skill
Didst rise to wealth and power,
When thou the monstrous riddling maid didst kill,
And stoodst forth to my country as a tower
To guard from myriad deaths this glorious town;
Whence thou wert called my king, of faultless fame,
In all the world a far-resounded name,
Unparagoned in honour and renown.