am,
Nor probe me with more question.

CH. What dost thou mean?

OED. My birth is dreadful.

CH. Tell it forth.

OED. What should I utter, O my child? Woe is me!

CH. Thy seed, thy father's name, stranger, pronounce!

OED. Alas! What must I do? My child!

ANT. Since no resource avails thee, speak!

OED. I will. I cannot hide it further.

CH. Ye are long about it. Haste thee!

OED. Know ye of one
Begotten of Laius?

CH. Horror! Horror! Oh!

OED. Derived from Labdacus?

CH. O Heaven!

OED. Fate-wearied Oedipus?

CH. Art thou he?

OED. Fear not my words.

CH. Oh! Oh!

OED. Unhappy me!

CH. Oh!

OED. Daughter, what is coming?

CH. Away! Go forth. Leave ye the land. Begone!

OED. And where, then, is the promise thou hast given?

CH. No doom retributive attends the deed
That wreaks prevenient wrong.
Deceit, matched with deceit, makes recompense
Of evil, not of kindness. Get thee forth!
Desert that seat again, and from this land
Unmooring speed thee away, lest on our state
Thou bring some further bale!

MONODY.

ANT. O strangers, full of reverent care!
Since ye cannot endure my father here,
Aged and blind,
Because ye have heard a rumour of the deeds
He did unknowingly,--yet, we entreat you.
Strangers, have pity on me, the hapless girl,
Who pray for mine own sire and for none else,
--Pray, looking in your eyes with eyes not blind.
As if a daughter had appeared to you.
Pleading for mercy to the unfortunate.
We are in your hands as in the hand of God,
Helpless. O then accord the unhoped for boon!
By what is dear to thee, thy veriest own,
I pray thee,--chattel or child, or holier name!
Search through the world, thou wilt not find the man
Who could resist the leading of a God.

CH. Daughter of Oedipus, be well assured
We view with pity both thy case and his,
But fear of Heavenly wrath confines our speech
To that we have already said to you.

OED. What profit lives in fame and fair renown
By unsubstantial rumour idly spread?
When Athens is extolled with peerless praise
For reverence, and for mercy!--She alone
The sufferer's shield, the exile's comforter!
What have I reaped hereof? Ye have raised me up
From yonder seat, and now would drive me forth
Fearing a name! For there is nought in me
Or