Io. How then? Is the aged Polybus no more in power?
Me. No, verily: for death holds him in the tomb.
Io. How sayest thou? Is Polybus dead, old man?
Me. If I speak not the truth, I am content to die.
Io. O handmaid, away with all speed, and tell this to thy master! O ye oracles of the gods, where stand ye now! This is the man whom Oedipus long feared and shunned, lest he should slay him; and now this man hath died in the course of destiny, not by his hand.
Oe. Iocasta, dearest wife, why hast thou summoned950 me forth from these doors?
Io. Hear this man, and judge, as thou listenest, to what the awful oracles of the gods have come.
Oe. And he—who may he be, and what news hath he for me?
Io. He is from Corinth, to tell that thy father Polybus lives no longer, but hath perished.
Oe. How, stranger? Let me have it from thine own mouth.
Me. If I must first make these tidings plain, know indeed that he is dead and gone.
Oe. By treachery, or by visit of disease?960
Me. A light thing in the scale brings the aged to their rest.
Oe. Ah, he died, it seems, of sickness?
Me. Yea, and of the long years that he had told.
Oe. Alas, alas! Why, indeed, my wife, should one look to the hearth of the Pythian seer, or to the birds that scream above our heads, on whose showing I was