The Seven Plays in English Verse Part 30

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 a.s.sured Thou bear'st a heavy doom.

OED. O horrible!

Horrible! All fulfilled, as sunlight clear!

Oh may I nevermore behold the day, Since proved accursed 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.

Thou through surpa.s.sing skill I 2 Didst rise to wealth and power, When thou the monstrous riddling maid didst kill, And stoodst forth to my country as a tower To guard from myriad deaths this glorious town; Whence thou wert called my king, of faultless fame, In all the world a far-resounded name, Unparagoned in honour and renown.

But now to hear of thee, who more distressed? II 1 Who more acquainted with fierce misery, a.s.saulted by disasters manifest, Than thou in this thy day of agony?

Most n.o.ble, most renowned!--Yet one same room Heard thy first cry, and in thy prime of power, Received thee, harbouring both bride and groom, And bore it silently till this dread hour.

How could that furrowing of thy father's field Year after year continue unrevealed?

Time hath detected thine unwitting deed, II 2 Time, who discovers all with eyes of fire, Accusing thee of living without heed In hideous wedlock husband, son, and sire.

Ah would that we, thou child of Laius born, Ah would that we had never seen thee nigh!

E'er since we knew thee who thou art, we mourn Exceedingly with cries that rend the sky.

For, to tell truth, thou didst restore our life And gavest our soul sweet respite after strife.

_Enter_ Messenger.

MESS. O ye who in this land have ever held Chief honour, what an object of dire woe Awaits your eyes, your ears! What piercing grief Your hearts must suffer, if as kinsmen should Ye still regard the house of Laius!

Not Phasis, nor the Danube's rolling flood, Can ever wash away the stain and purge This mansion of the horror that it hides.

--And more it soon shall give to light, not now Unconsciously enacted. Of all ill, Self-chosen sorrows are the worst to bear.

CH. What hast thou new to add? the weight of grief From that we know burdens the heart enough.

MESS. Soon spoken and soon heard is the chief sum.

Jocasta's royal head is sunk in death.

CH. The hapless queen! What was the fatal cause?

MESS. Her own determination. You are spared The worst affliction, not being there to see.

Yet to the height of my poor memory's power The wretched lady's pa.s.sion you shall hear.

When she had pa.s.sed in her hot mood within The vestibule, straight to the bridal room She rushes, tearing with both hands her hair.

Then having entered, shutting fast the door, She called aloud on Laius, long dead, With anguished memory of that birth of old Whereby the father fell, leaving his queen To breed a dreadful brood for his own son.

And loudly o'er the bed she wailed, where she, In twofold wedlock, hapless, had brought forth Husband from husband, children from a child.

We could not know the moment of her death, Which followed soon, for Oedipus with cries Broke in, and would not let us see her end, But held our eyes as he careered the hall, Demanding arms, and where to find his wife,-- No, not his wife, but fatal mother-croft, Cropped doubly with himself and his own seed.

And in his rage some G.o.d directed him To find her:--'twas no man of us at hand.

Then with a fearful shout, as following His leader, he a.s.sailed the folding-doors; And battering inward from the mortised bolts The bending boards, he burst into the room: Where high suspended we beheld the queen, In twisted cordage resolutely swung.

He all at once on seeing her, wretched king!

Undid the pendent noose, and on the ground Lay the ill-starred queen. Oh, then 'twas terrible To see what followed--for he tore away The tiring-pins wherewith she was arrayed, And, lifting, smote his eyeb.a.l.l.s to the root, Saying, Nevermore should they behold the evil His life inherited from that past time, But all in dark henceforth should look upon Features far better not beheld, and fail To recognize the souls he had longed to know.

Thus crying aloud, not once but oftentimes He drave the points into his eyes; and soon The bleeding pupils moistened all his beard, Nor stinted the dark flood, but all at once The ruddy hail poured down in plenteous shower.

Thus from two springs, from man and wife together, Rose the joint evil that is now o'erflowing.

And the old happiness in that past day Was truly happy, but the present hour Hath pain, crime, ruin:--whatsoe'er of ill Mankind have named, not one is absent here.

CH. And finds the sufferer now some pause of woe?

MESS. He bids make wide the portal and display To all the men of Thebes the man who slew His father, who unto his mother did What I dare not repeat, and fain would fling His body from the land, nor calmly bide The shock of his own curse on his own hall.

Meanwhile he needs some comfort and some guide, For such a load of misery who can bear?

Thyself shalt judge: for, lo, the palace-gates Unfold, and presently thine eyes will see A hateful sight, yet one thou needs must pity.

_Enter_ OEDIPUS, _blind and unattended._

LEADER OF CH. O horror of the world!

Too great for mortal eye!

More terrible than all I have known of ill!

What fury of wild thought Came o'er thee? Who in heaven Hath leapt against thy hapless life With boundings out of measure fierce and huge?

Ah! wretched one, I cannot look on thee: No, though I long to search, to ask, to learn.

Thine aspect is too horrible.--I cannot!

OED. Me miserable! Whither am I borne?

Into what region are these wavering sounds Wafted on aimless wings? O ruthless Fate!

To what a height thy fury hath soared!

CH. Too far For human sense to follow, or human thought To endure the horror.

OED. O dark cloud, descending I 1 Unutterably on me! invincible, Abhorred, borne onward by too sure a wind.

Woe, woe!

Woe! Yet again I voice it, with such pangs Both from these piercing wounds I am a.s.sailed And from within through memory of my grief.

CH. Nay, 'tis no marvel if thy matchless woe Redouble thine affliction and thy moan!

OED. Ah! Friend, thou art still constant! Thou remainest I 2 To tend me and to care for the blind man.

Alas!

I know thee well, nor fail I to perceive, Dark though I be, thy kind familiar voice.

CH. How dreadful is thy deed! How couldst thou bear Thus to put out thine eyes? What Power impelled thee?

OED. Apollo, dear my friends, Apollo brought to pa.s.s II 1 In dreadful wise, this my calamitous woe.

But I,--no being else,--I with this hand destroyed them.

[_Pointing to his eyes_ For why should I have sight, To whom nought now gave pleasure through the eye?

CH. There speak'st thou truly.

OED. What could I see, whom hear With gladness, whom delight in any more?

Lead me away out of the land with speed!

Be rid of the destroyer, the accursed, Whom most of all the world the G.o.ds abhor.

CH. O miserable in thy calamity And not less miserable in thy despair, Would thou wert still in ignorance of thy birth!

OED. My curse on him who from the cruel bond II 2 That held my feet in that high pasture-land Freed me, and rescued me from murder there, And saved my life! Vain kindness! Then to have died Had spared this agony to me and mine.

CH. Ay, would it had been so!