CHAPTER II.
ŒDIPUS THE KING.
No tragedy in history or in fiction can equal the horror of the tale of Œdipus. The plot is so simple as to be told in a sentence. An oracle foretells that Œdipus shall slay his father and be married to his mother; and, against his own will and knowledge, he fulfils his destiny. By a sudden revolution of fortune we see a man, to all appearance as wise as Solomon and as blameless as Job, hurled into an abyss of misery and despair; and this by a chain of circumstances of whose real import he is himself unconscious until the final catastrophe. It is a case where the punishment seems out of all proportion to the crime. Even when we take into account the passion, the pride, and the curiosity of Œdipus, we still feel that the criminal has been in a measure "the victim of a mistake"—that he is a mere puppet in the hands of some superior and relentless power. And yet this Fatality, to which Œdipus is subject, is not so great or capricious as at first sight it seems to be. It is true that chance and misfortune are the means which it makes use of for
