Come then, speak out! why dost thou hesitate?
And why does pallor overspread thy cheeks?
Why seek for words? The truth no respite needs. 850
Phorbas: Thou speak'st of things long buried and forgot.
Oedipus: But speak, or pain shall drive thee to confess.
Phorbas: I gave a boy to him, a useless gift;
He never could have lived or known the light.
Old Man: The gods forbid! The child is living still; 855
And may his life be long on earth, I pray.
Oedipus: Why dost thou think the child did not survive?
Phorbas: A slender rod of iron his ankles pierced,
And bound his limbs. This wound produced a sore,
Which by contagion spread o'er all his frame.
Old Man: Why question more? The fatal truth draws near. 860
Who was that infant boy?
Phorbas: My lips are sealed.
Oedipus: Bring hither fire! Its flames shall loose thy speech.
Phorbas: Must truth be sought along such cruel paths?
I pray thy grace.
Oedipus: If I seem harsh to thee,
Or headstrong, thy revenge is in thy hand— 865
The truth revealed. Then speak: who was the child?
Of what sire gotten? Of what mother born?
Phorbas: He was the son of her who is thy—wife.
Oedipus: Then yawn, O earth! and thou, O king of shades,
Into the lowest depths of hades hurl
This vile confounder of the son and sire! 870
Ye citizens, on my incestuous head
Heap crushing rocks! with weapons slaughter me I
Let husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers—all
Whose name I have defiled, against me arm!
And let the poor, plague-smitten populace
Hurl blazing brands from off their funeral pyres!
The plague spot of the age, I wander here, 875
Heaven-cursed pollutor of all sacred ties;
Who, in the day when first I breathed the air,
Was doomed to death.
[To himself.]
Call up thy courage now,
And dare some deed befitting these thy crimes.
Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/61
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Oedipus
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