Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/60

---

Oedipus: Then hasten, slaves,
Let all the master-shepherds drive their flocks
Before the altar here, yea, summon all
On whom depends the guidance of the flocks.
Old Man: Or chance or providence has kept thy fate 825
In darkness hid. What long hath lain concealed,
I hid thee suffer to remain in doubt.
For often truth, when brought into the light,
Becomes the bane of him who seeks for her.
Oedipus: Can any ills be worse than those I fear?
Old Man: Oh, be thou sure the truth is big with fate,
Whose meaning must be sought with toil and pain.
The public weal calls there, and here thine own, 830
And both with equal voice. Direct thy steps
Along a middle course! provoke not fate;
Permit thy fortune to unfold itself.
It profits naught to change a happy state.
Oedipus: A change is well when all is at the worst.
Old Man: What better canst thou ask than royal birth? 835
No further seek, lest thou thy sire repent.
Oedipus: Though I should prove to be of shameful blood,
My purpose still is fixed to know the truth.
[Enter Phorbas, the head-shepherd.]
But see, the agéd man, old Phorbas, comes,
'Neath whose control the royal flocks are kept.
Dost thou remember still his face or name? 840
Old Man: His form eludes my mind; not fully known,
And yet again not all unknown his face.
[To Phorbas.]
Old man, while Laius still was king, didst thou,
His shepherd, ever drive the royal flocks
To pasture here upon Cithaeron's slopes?
Phorbas: On fair Cithaeron's sunny slopes my flocks 845
Have ever found the greenest pasturage.
Old Man: Dost thou know me?
Phorbas: But dim and indistinct
My memory.
Oedipus: Didst thou at any time
An infant boy deliver to this man?
[Phorbas falters and turns pale.]