(2nd Counter-turn.)

Ed. Accurst, he that loosed from cruel fetterspurs The waif of the wilderness! As a deliverer he Rescued, recovered me from death-unkind! Life had I then resigned,

Cho.

Ed.

Less misery to myself and mine I'd be!
Ay, would it e'en had gone that way!

Instead, my father's life I took,

Gained in all the world repute

For bridals whence my birth was-hers.

Now am I God-forsaken, iniquity-bred ;

Bed of my birth was made into my marriage-bed. Is there in bad yet a worst? Foul to more foul defers?

Edipus' it shall be.

L. of Cho. I know not how I can approve your mind: Better to be no more than living blind.

Ed. That this is not the best that did allow

You need not school me and admonish now!

For with what eyes I know not could I

brook

Down in the grave upon my sire to look,

And my poor mother-sinned against past hope
Of expiation by the strangling rope?

My children's looks, tho', could it fail to please,
Got where they got them, to contemplate
these?

Ah, no! Ah, nevermore with eyes of mine!
Town, tower, and monumental form divine-
Never again! From all these things I stand
Self-barred, who knew no peer on Theban land,
Self-banned, a miscreant, I whose voice was
loud

"Reject the impious man, the heaven-avowed
Impure!" And now my evidence has shewn
This blot on Laïos' house to be my own,

Must I have eyes with which to look on them?
Not that! Why, had there been a means to

stem

The hearing fount in the ear, I'd not have spared

To lock up this unhappy flesh, prepared

For blindness and for hearing nothing. Sweet,
If, lodged apart, no griefs the mind could meet!
Why didst thou harbour me, Citharon? Why
Didst thou not take and slay me straight ?-that I
Might ne'er have published proof of whence I

come.

Polybus! Corinth! The old house, called my home!

What festering mischief, glozed, in me you

nurst!

Now I'm declared the worst and born o' the

worst.

O Three Crossways, and O sequester'd lea,
Covert and pass, where meet the highways three,
You drank my blood from father's veins out-
poured

By these my hands! And can you still record
What acts I did, what acts I went to do
At Thebes thereafter? Nuptials, nuptials! You
Engendered me and then must breed again,
Sprout the same seed, and give to sight of men
Fathers, and sons and brothers; blood of kin,
Brides, wives and mothers-all the acts of sin
The most abominable a man can wreak !

But things not good to do, are ill to speak— Make haste in God's name, hide me from the world.

Away, let me be slain, or seaward hurled,

Where never eyes of yours may see me more!
Come, deign to touch a man afflicted sore!
Consent, be not afraid!—My guilt and pain
None else but I am able to sustain.

L. of Cho. To Creon, now sole guardian of this nation,
Belongs the effecting and consideration

Of this request :-and here he comes at need! Ed. What words have I to address him, what indeed? What proper warrant can I now declare,

Base as I was to him in that affair?

Enter CREON.

Cre. Not as a mocker,

dipus, I'm come

To make reproaches of that martyrdom.
[To the CHORUS.
But tho' of humankind you have no shame,
Respect the all-invigorating flame

Of our Lord God the Sun at least, and spare
Parading such pollution, nude and bare,

As Earth, and holy Rain, and Light of Day
Disowns! Make haste! Within the house
convey!

Religion bids for eyes and ears of kin
Reserve the secret of a kinsman's sin.

Ed. Oh, since so noble visiting so base

Shocks expectation, in God's name a grace

I crave! for your sake, not for mine indeed! Cre. And what may be the want for which you plead ? Ed. Fling me abroad with all despatch you can,

Where I may perish far from speech of man!
Cre. That would I, doubt not, did I not desire
Before all else God's pleasure to inquire.
Ed. His word was manifest enough, I'm sure:
Cut off the parricide, the man impure!
Gre. This was so said: but, poorly as we stand,
'Tis better ascertain the God's command.

Ed. Ask a response about a man so low?

Cre. Even you will not dispute him now, I know. Ed. Well. And I charge you-ay, I'll supplicateFor her who lies within, to celebrate

Such funeral as you please your right's ungrudged.

For me let this my Thebes be ne'er adjudged
To have me for a living inmate. Rather
Let me abide in the mountains, where my father
And mother, living, destined me a tomb-
Yon hill called my Citharon,(38) that my doom
May come from them who sought my death.
But still,

One thing I know: nor plague nor other ill
Must ever wreck me-else I'd ne'er escaped
When dying-till the ghastly doom be shaped.

But let my fortune take what path it takes.
Then, for my children-for the male ones' sakes
Urge no endeavour; they are men, and so
Want not for livelihood where'er they go.
But these poor girls, my tearful, cheerless pair,
Apart from whom my board was never set
To separate them from my person yet,

But still in all I touched they had their share-
Take thought for them. And let me, if I may,
Touch them, and weep together, weep away.

O Sir, allow this!

O gentle and generous! Touch them if I might,
I'd feel them mine as when I had my sight.

[Enter ANTIGONE and ISMENE.

What is it now? This

O Heavens! No-it cannot be I hear

My sweet ones crying, dearest of my dear,
-Fetched hither to me by King Creon's kind-

ness?

Inform my blindness!

Cre. You are informed!

blest you

I with this boon have

For this fond love I knew had long possessed you.