wretched that I am! Why was I to see, when sight could show me nothing sweet?
Ch. These things were even as thou sayest.
Oe. Say, friends, what can I more behold, what can I love, what greeting can touch mine ear with joy? Haste,1340 lead me from the land, friends, lead me hence, the utterly lost, the thrice accursed, yea, the mortal most abhorred of heaven!
Ch. Wretched alike for thy fortune and for thy sense thereof, would that I had never so much as known thee!
ant. 2. Oe. Perish the man, whoe'er he was, that freed me in the pastures from the cruel shackle on my feet,1350 and saved me from death, and gave me back to life,—a thankless deed! Had I died then, to my friends and to mine own soul I had not been so sore a grief.
Ch. I also would have had it thus.
Oe. So had I not come to shed my father's blood, nor been called among men the spouse of her from whom I sprang: but now am I forsaken of the gods, son of a defiled mother,1360 successor to his bed who gave me mine own wretched being: and if there be yet a woe surpassing woes, it hath become the portion of Oedipus.
Ch. I know not how I can say that thou hast counselled well: for thou wert better dead than living and blind.
