Success, in all things blest;
And did, Ο Zeus! destroy
The Virgin with claws bent,
And sayings wild and dark;
And against many deaths
A tower and strong defence 1200
Did for my country rise:
And so thou king art named,
With highest glory crowned,
Ruling in mighty Thebes.
Stroph. II.
And now, who lives than thou more miserable?
Who equals thee in wild woes manifold,
In shifting turns of life?
Ah, noble one, our Œdipus!
For whom the same wide harbour
Sufficed for sire and son,
In marriage rites to enter:
Ah how, ah, wretched one,
How could thy father's bed
Receive thee, and so long, 1210
Even till now, be dumb?
Antistroph. II.
Time, who sees all things, he hath found thee out,
Against thy will, and long ago condemned
The wedlock none may wed,
Begetter and begotten.
Ah, child of Laios ! would
I ne'er had seen thy face!
I mourn with wailing lips,
Mourn sore exceedingly.
'Tis simplest truth to say,
By thee from death I rose, 1220
By thee in death I sleep.
