PUS.

How?--Stranger, speak thyself. This that she saith ...

STRANGER.

Is sure. If that is the first news ye crave,
I tell thee, Polybus lieth in his grave.

OEDIPUS.

Not murdered?... How? Some passing of disease?

STRANGER.

A slight thing turns an old life to its peace.

[Sidenote: vv. 962-978]

OEDIPUS.

Poor father!... 'Tis by sickness he is dead?

STRANGER.

The growing years lay heavy on his head.

OEDIPUS.

O wife, why then should man fear any more
The voice of Pytho's dome, or cower before
These birds that shriek above us? They foretold
Me for my father's murderer; and behold,
He lies in Corinth dead, and here am I
And never touched the sword.... Or did he die
In grief for me who left him? In that way
I may have wrought his death.... But come what may,
He sleepeth in his grave and with him all
This deadly seercraft, of no worth at all.

JOCASTA.

Dear Lord, long since did I not show thee clear...?

OEDIPUS.

Indeed, yes. I was warped by mine own fear.

JOCASTA.

Now thou wilt cast it from thee, and forget.

OEDIPUS.

Forget my mother?... It is not over yet.

JOCASTA.

What should man do with fear, who hath but Chance
Above him, and no sight nor governance

[Sidenote: vv. 979-993]

Of things to be? To live as life may run,
No fear, no fret, were wisest 'neath the sun.
And thou, fear not thy mother. Prophets deem
A deed wrought that is wrought but in a dream.
And he to whom these things are nothing, best
Will bear his burden.

OEDIPUS.

All thou counsellest
Were good, save that my mother liveth still.
And, though thy words be wise, for good or ill
Her I still fear.

JOCASTA.

Think of thy father's tomb!
Like light across our darkness it hath come.

OEDIPUS.

Great light; but while she lives I fly from her.

STRANGER.

What woman, Prince, doth fill thee so with fear?

OEDIPUS.

Merope, friend, who dwelt with Polybus.

STRANGER.

What in Queen Merope should fright thee thus?

OEDIPUS.

A voice of God, stranger, of dire import.

STRANGER.

Meet for mine ears? Or of some secret sort?

[Sidenote: vv. 994-1009]

OEDIPUS.

Nay, thou must hear, and Corinth. Long ago
Apollo spake a doom, that I should know
My mother's flesh, and with mine own hand spill
My father's blood.--'Tis that, and not my will,
Hath kept me a