lain?
And the furrows of thy father, did they turn not nor shriek,
Did they bear so long silent thy casting of the grain?

[Sidenote: vv. 1213-1235]

[_Antistrophe._

'Tis Time, Time, desireless, hath shown thee what thou art;
The long monstrous mating, it is judged and all its race.
O child of him that sleepeth,
Thy land weepeth, weepeth,
Unfathered.... Would God, I had never seen thy face!
From thee in great peril fell peace upon my heart,
In thee mine eye clouded and the dark is come apace.

[_A_ MESSENGER _rushes out from the Palace._

MESSENGER.

O ye above this land in honour old
Exalted, what a tale shall ye be told,
What sights shall see, and tears of horror shed,
If still your hearts be true to them that led
Your sires! There runs no river, well I ween,
Not Phasis nor great Ister, shall wash clean
This house of all within that hideth--nay,
Nor all that creepeth forth to front the day,
Of purposed horror. And in misery
That woundeth most which men have willed to be.

LEADER.

No lack there was in what we knew before
Of food for heaviness. What bring'st thou more?

MESSENGER.

One thing I bring thee first.... 'Tis quickly said.
Jocasta, our anointed queen, is dead.

[Sidenote: vv. 1236-1260]

LEADER.

Unhappy woman! How came death to her?

MESSENGER.

By her own hand.... Oh, of what passed in there
Ye have been spared the worst. Ye cannot see.
Howbeit, with that which still is left in me
Of mind and memory, ye shall hear her fate.
Like one entranced with passion, through the gate
She passed, the white hands flashing o'er her head,
Like blades that tear, and fled, unswerving fled,
Toward her old bridal room, and disappeared
And the doors crashed behind her. But we heard
Her voice within, crying to him of old,
Her Laius, long dead; and things untold
Of the old kiss unforgotten, that should bring
The lover's death and leave the loved a thing
Of horror, yea, a field beneath the plough
For sire and son: then wailing bitter-low
Across that bed of births unreconciled,
Husband from husband born and child from child.
And, after that, I know not how her death
Found her. For sudden, with a roar of wrath,
Burst Oedipus upon us. Then, I ween,
We marked no more what passion held the Queen,
But him, as in the fury of his stride,
"A sword! A sword! And show me here,"