Shepherd.
The babe must slay his father; so
’Twas written.
Oedipus.
Why didst thou, then, let him go
With this old man?
Shepherd.
O King, my heart did bleed.
I thought the man would save him, past all need
Of fear, to his own distant home. . . . And he
Did save him, to great evil. Verily
If thou art he whom this man telleth of,
Know, to affliction thou art born.
Oedipus.
Enough!
All will come true. . . . Thou Light, never again
May I behold thee, I in the eyes of men
Made naked, how from sin my being grew,
In sin I wedded and in sin I slew!
[He rushes into the Palace. The Shepherd is led away by the thralls.
Chorus.
[Strophe.
Nothingness, nothingness,
Ye Children of Man, and less
I count you, waking or dreaming!
And none among mortals, none,
Seeking to live, hath won
More than to seem, and to cease
Again from his seeming.
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