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OED.
Misery!

CH.
Be not loth!

OED.
O bitterness!

CH.
Consent.
For all thou didst require we gave to thy content.

OED.
Oh, strangers, I have borne an all-too-willing brand,
Yet not of mine own choice.

CH.
Whence? We would understand.

OED
. Nought knowing of the curse she fastened on my head
Thebe in evil bands bound me.

CH.
Thy mother’s bed,
Say, didst thou fill? mine ear still echoes to the noise.

OED
. ‘Tis death to me to hear, but, these, mine only joys,
Friends, are my curse.

CH.
O Heaven!

OED.
The travail of one womb
Hath gendered all you see, one mother, one dark doom.

CH.
How? Are they both thy race, and–

OED.
Sister branches too,
Nursed at the self-same place with him from whom they grew.

CH.
O horror!

OED.
Ay, not one, ten thousand charged me then!

CH
. O sorrow!

OED.
Never done, an ever-sounding strain.

CH.
O crime!

OED.
By me ne’er wrought.

CH.
But how?

OED.
The guerdon fell.
Would I had earned it not from those I served too well.

CH.
But, hapless, didst thou slay–

OED.
What seek ye more to know?

CH.
Thy father?

OED.
O dismay! Ye wound me, blow on blow.

CH.
Thy hand destroyed him.

OED.
Yes. Yet lacks there not herein
A plea for my redress.

CH.
How canst thou clear that sin?

OED.
I’ll tell thee. For the deed, ’twas proved mine,–Oh ’tis true!
Yet by Heaven’s law I am freed:–I wist not whom I slew.

CH.
Enough. For lo! where Aegeus’ princely son,
THESEUS, comes hither, summoned at thy word.

[Enter THESEUS.]

THESEUS.
From many voices in the former time
Telling thy cruel tale of sight destroyed
I have known thee, son of Laius, and to-day
I know thee anew, in learning thou art here.
Thy raiment, and the sad change in thy face,
Proclaim thee who thou art, and pitying thee,
Dark-fated Oedipus, I fain would hear
What prayer or supplication thou preferrest
To me and to my city, thou and this
Poor maid who moves beside thee. Full of dread
Must be that fortune thou canst name, which I
Would shrink from, since I know of mine own youth,
How in strange lands a stranger as thou art
I bore the brunt of perilous circumstance
Beyond all others; nor shall any man,
Like thee an alien from his native home,
Find me to turn my face from succouring him.
I am a man and know it. To-morrow’s good
Is no more mine than thine or any man’s.

OED.
Thy noble spirit, THESEUS, in few words
Hath made my task of utterance brief indeed.
Thou hast told aright my name and parentage
And native city. Nought remains for me
But to make known mine errand, and our talk
Is ended.

THE.
Tell me plainly thy desire.

OED.
I come to offer thee this woe-worn frame,
As a free boon,–not goodly in outward view.
A better gift than beauty is that I bring.