MESSENGER If I must first make plain beyond a doubt My message, know that Polybus is dead.

OEDIPUS By treachery, or by sickness visited?

MESSENGER One touch will send an old man to his rest.

OEDIPUS So of some malady he died, poor man.

MESSENGER Yes, having measured the full span of years.

OEDIPUS Out on it, lady! why should one regard The Pythian hearth or birds that scream i' the air?

Did they not point at me as doomed to slay My father? but he's dead and in his grave And here am I who ne'er unsheathed a sword; Unless the longing for his absent son Killed him and so _I_ slew him in a sense.

But, as they stand, the oracles are dead-- Dust, ashes, nothing, dead as Polybus.

JOCASTA Say, did not I foretell this long ago?

OEDIPUS Thou didst: but I was misled by my fear.

JOCASTA Then let I no more weigh upon thy soul.

OEDIPUS Must I not fear my mother's marriage bed.

JOCASTA Why should a mortal man, the sport of chance, With no a.s.sured foreknowledge, be afraid?

Best live a careless life from hand to mouth.

This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou.

How oft it chances that in dreams a man Has wed his mother! He who least regards Such brainsick phantasies lives most at ease.

OEDIPUS I should have shared in full thy confidence, Were not my mother living; since she lives Though half convinced I still must live in dread.

JOCASTA And yet thy sire's death lights out darkness much.

OEDIPUS Much, but my fear is touching her who lives.

MESSENGER Who may this woman be whom thus you fear?

OEDIPUS Merope, stranger, wife of Polybus.

MESSENGER And what of her can cause you any fear?

OEDIPUS A heaven-sent oracle of dread import.

MESSENGER A mystery, or may a stranger hear it?

OEDIPUS Aye, 'tis no secret. Loxias once foretold That I should mate with mine own mother, and shed With my own hands the blood of my own sire.

Hence Corinth was for many a year to me A home distant; and I trove abroad, But missed the sweetest sight, my parents' face.

MESSENGER Was this the fear that exiled thee from home?

OEDIPUS Yea, and the dread of slaying my own sire.

MESSENGER Why, since I came to give thee pleasure, King, Have I not rid thee of this second fear?

OEDIPUS Well, thou shalt have due guerdon for thy pains.

MESSENGER Well, I confess what chiefly made me come Was hope to profit by thy coming home.

OEDIPUS Nay, I will ne'er go near my parents more.

MESSENGER My son, 'tis plain, thou know'st not what thou doest.

OEDIPUS How so, old man? For heaven's sake tell me all.

MESSENGER If this is why thou dreadest to return.

OEDIPUS Yea, lest the G.o.d's word be fulfilled in me.

MESSENGER Lest through thy parents thou shouldst be accursed?

OEDIPUS This and none other is my constant dread.

MESSENGER Dost thou not know thy fears are baseless all?

OEDIPUS How baseless, if I am their very son?

MESSENGER Since Polybus was naught to thee in blood.

OEDIPUS What say'st thou? was not Polybus my sire?

MESSENGER As much thy sire as I am, and no more.

OEDIPUS My sire no more to me than one who is naught?

MESSENGER Since I begat thee not, no more did he.

OEDIPUS What reason had he then to call me son?

MESSENGER Know that he took thee from my hands, a gift.

OEDIPUS Yet, if no child of his, he loved me well.

MESSENGER A childless man till then, he warmed to thee.

OEDIPUS A foundling or a purchased slave, this child?

MESSENGER I found thee in Cithaeron's wooded glens.

OEDIPUS What led thee to explore those upland glades?

MESSENGER My business was to tend the mountain flocks.