LEADER.

Thy bitter will, thy hard calamity,
Would I had never known nor looked on thee!

OEDIPUS.

[_Antistrophe._

My curse, my curse upon him,
That man whom pity held in the wilderness,
Who saved the feet alive from the blood-fetter
And loosed the barb thereof!

[Sidenote: vv. 1351-1377]

That babe--what grace was done him,
Had he died shelterless,
He had not laid on himself this grief to bear,
And all who gave him love.

LEADER.

I, too, O Friend, I had been happier.

OEDIPUS.

Found not the way to his father's blood, nor shaken
The world's scorn on his mother,
The child and the groom withal;
But now, of murderers born, of God forsaken,
Mine own sons' brother;
All this, and if aught can fall
Upon man more perilous
And elder in sin, lo, all
Is the portion of Oedipus.

LEADER.

How shall I hold this counsel of thy mind
True? Thou wert better dead than living blind.

OEDIPUS.

That this deed is not well and wisely wrought
Thou shalt not show me; therefore school me not.
Think, with what eyes hereafter in the place
Of shadows could I see my father's face,
Or my poor mother's? Both of whom this hand
Hath wronged too deep for man to understand.
Or children--born as mine were born, to see
Their shapes should bring me joy? Great God!
To me

[Sidenote: vv. 1378-1403]

There is no joy in city nor in tower
Nor temple, from all whom, in this mine hour,
I that was chief in Thebes alone, and ate
The King's bread, I have made me separate
For ever. Mine own lips have bid the land
Cast from it one so evil, one whose hand
To sin was dedicate, whom God hath shown
Birth-branded ... and my blood the dead King's own!
All this myself have proved. And can I then
Look with straight eyes into the eyes of men?
I trow not. Nay, if any stop there were
To dam this fount that welleth in mine ear
For hearing, I had never blenched nor stayed
Till this vile shell were all one dungeon made,
Dark, without sound. 'Tis thus the mind would fain
Find peace, self-prisoned from a world of pain.
O wild Kithairon, why was it thy will
To save me? Why not take me quick and kill,
Kill, before ever I could make men know
The thing I am, the thing from which I grow?
Thou dead King, Polybus, thou city wall
Of Corinth, thou old castle