FullReads

CR.
Thou hast had enough of weeping. Close thee in thy chamber walls.

OED.
I must yield, though sore against me.

CR.
Yea, for strong occasion calls.

OED.
Know’st thou on what terms I yield it?

CR.
Tell me, let us hear and know.

OED.
That ye send from the country.

CR.
God alone can let thee go.

OED.
But the Gods long since abhor me.

CR.
Thou wilt sooner gain that boon.

OED.
Then consent.

CR.
‘Tis not my wont to venture promises too soon.

OED.
Lead me now within the palace.

CR.
Come, but leave thy children.

OED.
Nay!
Tear not these from my embraces!

CR.
Hope not for perpetual sway:
Since the power thou once obtainedst ruling with unquestioned might
Ebbing from thy life hath vanished ere the falling of the night.

LEADER OF CHORUS.
Dwellers in our native Thebe, fix on Oedipus your eyes.
Who resolved the dark enigma, noblest champion and most wise.
Like a star his envied fortune mounted beaming[6] far and wide:
Now he sinks in seas of anguish, whelmed beneath a raging tide.
Therefore, with the old-world sages, waiting for that final day,
I will call no mortal happy, while he holds his house of clay,
Till without one pang of sorrow, all his hours have passed away.

[THE END]

NOTES:

SOME PROPER NAMES

AIDONEUS, Hades or Pluto.
ARES, The War-God, a destructive Power.
DEO, Demeter.
ERINYES, the Furies.
HELIOS, The Sun-God.
RHEA, the Mother of the Gods.
THEBE, the town of Thebes personified.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] That stern songstress. The Sphinx. See also ‘minstrel hound.’

[2] Will hunt | Pollution forth. The party cry of ‘driving out the pollution’ was raised against the Alcmaeonidae and other families in Athens, who were supposed to lie under a traditional curse.

[3] Who durst declare it. [Greek: Tou pros d’ ephanthe]. Though the emphatic order of words is unusual, this seems more forcible than the var. [Greek: toupos d’ ephanthe].

[4] [CR. You’ll ne’er relent nor listen to my plea.] A line has here been lost in the original.

[5] Your purchase or your child? Oedipus is not to be supposed to have weighed the import of the Corinthian shepherd’s words, ‘Nor I nor he,’ etc., supra.

[6] His envied fortune mounted beaming. Reading [Greek: en zelo politon] (with 2 MSS) and [Greek: epiphlegon] from my conjecture.