It was she, O King.

OEDIPUS.

And bade you ... what?

SHEPHERD.

Destroy it.

OEDIPUS.
Her own child?...
Cruel!

SHEPHERD.

Dark words of God had made her wild.

OEDIPUS.

What words?

[Sidenote: vv. 1176-1192]

SHEPHERD.

The babe must slay his father; so
'Twas written.

OEDIPUS.

Why didst thou, then, let him go
With this old man?

SHEPHERD.

O King, I pitied him.
I thought the man would save him to some dim
And distant land, beyond all fear.... And he,
To worse than death, did save him!... Verily,
If thou art he whom this man telleth of,
To sore affliction thou art born.

OEDIPUS.

Enough!
All, all, shall be fulfilled.... Oh, on these eyes
Shed light no more, ye everlasting skies
That know my sin! I have sinned in birth and breath.
I have sinned with Woman. I have sinned with Death.

[_He rushes into the Palace. The_ SHEPHERD
_is led away by the thralls._

CHORUS.

[_Strophe._

Nothingness, nothingness,
Ye Children of Man, and less
I count you, waking or dreaming!
And none among mortals, none,
Seeking to live, hath won
More than to seem, and to cease
Again from his seeming.

[Sidenote: vv. 1193-1212]

While ever before mine eyes
One fate, one ensample, lies--
Thine, thine, O Oedipus, sore
Of God oppressed--
What thing that is human more
Dare I call blessed?

[_Antistrophe._

Straight his archery flew
To the heart of living; he knew
Joy and the fulness of power,
O Zeus, when the riddling breath
Was stayed and the Maid of Death
Slain, and we saw him through
The death-cloud, a tower!

For that he was called my king;
Yea, every precious thing
Wherewith men are honoured, down
We cast before him,
And great Thebes brought her crown
And kneeled to adore him.

[_Strophe._

But now, what man's story is such bitterness to speak?
What life hath Delusion so visited, and Pain,
And swiftness of Disaster?
O great King, our master,
How oped the one haven to the slayer and the s