test
ensues--he slays the old man and his train. Could this be Laius? Can
it be to the marriage couch of the man he slew that he has ascended?
No, his fears are too credulous! he clings to a straw; the herdsman
who had escaped the slaughter of Laius and his attendants may prove
that it was _not_ the king whom he encountered. Jocasta sustains this
hope--she cannot believe a prophecy--for it had been foretold that
Laius should fall by the hand of his son, and that son had long since
perished on the mountains. The queen and Oedipus retire within their
palace; the chorus resume their strains; after which, Jocasta
reappears on her way to the temple of Apollo, to offer sacrifice and
prayer. At this time a messenger arrives to announce to Oedipus the
death of Polybus, and the wish of the Corinthians to elect Oedipus to
the throne! At these tidings Jocasta is overjoyed.

"Predictions of the gods, where are ye now?
Lest by the son's doomed hand the sire should fall,
The son became a wanderer on the earth,
Lo, not the son, but Nature, gives the blow!"

Oedipus, summoned to the messenger, learns the news of his supposed
father's death! It is a dread and tragic thought, but the pious
Oedipus is glad that his father is no more, since he himself is thus
saved from parricide; yet the other part of the prediction haunts him.
His mother!--she yet lives. He reveals to the messenger the prophecy
and his terror. To cheer him, the messenger now informs him that he
is not the son of Merope and Polybus. A babe had been found in the
entangled forest-dells of Cithaeron by a herdsman and slave of Laius
--he had given the infant to another--that other, the messenger who
now tells the tale. Transferred to the care of Polybus and Merope,
the babe became to them as a son, for they were childless. Jocasta
hears--stunned and speechless--till Oedipus, yet unconscious of the
horrors still to come, turns to demand of her if she knew the herdsman
who had found the child. Then she gasps wildly out--

"Whom speaks he of? Be silent--heed it not--
Blot it out from thy memory!--it is evil!
Oedipus. It cannot be--the clew is here; and I
Will trace it through that labyrinth--my birth.
Jocasta. By all the gods I warn thee; for the sake
Of thine own life beware; it is enough
For me to hear and madden!"

Oedipus (suspecting only that the pride of his queen revolts from the
thought of he