Oedipus Trilogy Part 34

Comes she by chance or learning her son's fate?

[Enter EURYDICE]

EURYDICE Ye men of Thebes, I overheard your talk.

As I pa.s.sed out to offer up my prayer To Pallas, and was drawing back the bar To open wide the door, upon my ears There broke a wail that told of household woe Stricken with terror in my handmaids' arms I fell and fainted. But repeat your tale To one not unacquaint with misery.

MESSENGER Dear mistress, I was there and will relate The perfect truth, omitting not one word.

Why should we gloze and flatter, to be proved Liars hereafter? Truth is ever best.

Well, in attendance on my liege, your lord, I crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where The corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled, Was lying yet. We offered first a prayer To Pluto and the G.o.ddess of cross-ways, With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire.

Then laved with l.u.s.tral waves the mangled corse, Laid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre, And to his memory piled a mighty mound Of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock, The bridal chamber of the maid and Death, We sped, about to enter. But a guard Heard from that G.o.dless shrine a far shrill wail, And ran back to our lord to tell the news.

But as he nearer drew a hollow sound Of lamentation to the King was borne.

He groaned and uttered then this bitter plaint: "Am I a prophet? miserable me!

Is this the saddest path I ever trod?

'Tis my son's voice that calls me. On press on, My henchmen, haste with double speed to the tomb Where rocks down-torn have made a gap, look in And tell me if in truth I recognize The voice of Haemon or am heaven-deceived."

So at the bidding of our distraught lord We looked, and in the craven's vaulted gloom I saw the maiden lying strangled there, A noose of linen twined about her neck; And hard beside her, clasping her cold form, Her lover lay bewailing his dead bride Death-wedded, and his father's cruelty.

When the King saw him, with a terrible groan He moved towards him, crying, "O my son What hast thou done? What ailed thee? What mischance Has reft thee of thy reason? O come forth, Come forth, my son; thy father supplicates."

But the son glared at him with tiger eyes, Spat in his face, and then, without a word, Drew his two-hilted sword and smote, but missed His father flying backwards. Then the boy, Wroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent Fell on his sword and drove it through his side Home, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms The maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined With his expiring gasps. So there they lay Two corpses, one in death. His marriage rites Are consummated in the halls of Death: A witness that of ills whate'er befall Mortals' unwisdom is the worst of all.

[Exit EURYDICE]

CHORUS What makest thou of this? The Queen has gone Without a word importing good or ill.

MESSENGER I marvel too, but entertain good hope.

'Tis that she shrinks in public to lament Her son's sad ending, and in privacy Would with her maidens mourn a private loss.

Trust me, she is discreet and will not err.

CHORUS I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, Is no less ominous than excessive grief.

MESSENGER Well, let us to the house and solve our doubts, Whether the tumult of her heart conceals Some fell design. It may be thou art right: Unnatural silence signifies no good.

CHORUS Lo! the King himself appears.

Evidence he with him bears 'Gainst himself (ah me! I quake 'Gainst a king such charge to make) But all must own, The guilt is his and his alone.

CREON (Str. 1) Woe for sin of minds perverse, Deadly fraught with mortal curse.

Behold us slain and slayers, all akin.

Woe for my counsel dire, conceived in sin.

Alas, my son, Life scarce begun, Thou wast undone.

The fault was mine, mine only, O my son!

CHORUS Too late thou seemest to perceive the truth.

CREON (Str. 2) By sorrow schooled. Heavy the hand of G.o.d, Th.o.r.n.y and rough the paths my feet have trod, Humbled my pride, my pleasure turned to pain; Poor mortals, how we labor all in vain!

[Enter SECOND MESSENGER]

SECOND MESSENGER Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come, One lying at thy feet, another yet More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.

CREON What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

SECOND MESSENGER Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here, Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.

CREON (Ant. 1) How bottomless the pit!

Does claim me too, O Death?

What is this word he saith, This woeful messenger? Say, is it fit To slay anew a man already slain?

Is Death at work again, Stroke upon stroke, first son, then mother slain?

CHORUS Look for thyself. She lies for all to view.

CREON (Ant. 2) Alas! another added woe I see.

What more remains to crown my agony?

A minute past I clasped a lifeless son, And now another victim Death hath won.

Unhappy mother, most unhappy son!

SECOND MESSENGER Beside the altar on a keen-edged sword She fell and closed her eyes in night, but erst She mourned for Megareus who n.o.bly died Long since, then for her son; with her last breath She cursed thee, the slayer of her child.

CREON (Str. 3) I shudder with affright O for a two-edged sword to slay outright A wretch like me, Made one with misery.

SECOND MESSENGER 'Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen As author of both deaths, hers and her son's.

CREON In what wise was her self-destruction wrought?

SECOND MESSENGER Hearing the loud lament above her son With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.

CREON (Str. 4) I am the guilty cause. I did the deed, Thy murderer. Yea, I guilty plead.

My henchmen, lead me hence, away, away, A cipher, less than nothing; no delay!

CHORUS Well said, if in disaster aught is well His past endure demand the speediest cure.

CREON (Ant. 3) Come, Fate, a friend at need, Come with all speed!

Come, my best friend, And speed my end!

Away, away!

Let me not look upon another day!

CHORUS This for the morrow; to us are present needs That they whom it concerns must take in hand.

CREON I join your prayer that echoes my desire.

CHORUS O pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom Of fate for mortals refuge is there none.

CREON (Ant. 4) Away with me, a worthless wretch who slew Unwitting thee, my son, thy mother too.

Whither to turn I know now; every way Leads but astray, And on my head I feel the heavy weight Of crus.h.i.+ng Fate.

CHORUS Of happiness the chiefest part Is a wise heart: And to defraud the G.o.ds in aught With peril's fraught.

Swelling words of high-flown might Mightily the G.o.ds do smite.

Chastis.e.m.e.nt for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.