COR. SH. Friend, yonder stands the infant whom we knew.
THEB. SH. Confusion seize thee, and thy evil tongue!
OED. Check not his speech, I pray thee, for thy words Call more than his for chastisement, old sir.
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!
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!
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. And could a mother's heart be steeled to this?
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 accursèd in my parentage, In those I live with, and in him I slew! [_Exeunt_
CHORUS. O mortal tribes of men, I 1 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.