ISM. Then to my task. Meantime, Antigone, Watch by our sire. We must not make account Of labour that supplies a parent's need. [_Exit_
CH. Thy long since slumbering woe I would not wake again, I 1 But yet I long to learn.
CH. The pain That sprang against thy life with spirit-mastering force.
OED. Ah, sirs, as ye are kind, re-open not that source Of unavoided shame.
CH. Friend, we would hear the tale Told truly, whose wide voice doth hourly more prevail.
CH. Consent. For all thou didst require we gave to thy content.
OED. Oh, strangers, I have borne an all-too-willing brand, I 2 Yet not of mine own choice.
OED. Nought knowing of the curse she fastened on my head Thebè 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.
OED. The travail of one womb Hath gendered all you see, one mother, one dark doom.
CH. How? Are they both thy race, and-- II 1
OED. Sister branches too, Nursed at the self-same place with him from whom they grew.
OED. Ay, not one, ten thousand charged me then!
OED. Never done, an ever-sounding strain.
OED. The guerdon fell. Would I had earned it not from those I served too well.
OED. O dismay! Ye wound me, blow on blow.
OED. Yes. Yet lacks there not herein A plea for my redress.
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.
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.