Chorus: Grant my request, I granted all to thee.
Oedipus: Antistrophe 1
Know then I suffered ills most vile, but none (So help me Heaven!) from acts in malice done.
Chorus: Say how.
Oedipus: The State around An all unwitting bridegroom bound An impious marriage chain; That was my bane.
Chorus: Didst thou in sooth then share A bed incestuous with her that bare—
Oedipus: It stabs me like a sword, That two-edged word, O stranger, but these maids—my own—
Chorus: Say on.
Oedipus: Two daughters, curses twain.
Chorus: Oh God!
Oedipus: Sprang from the wife and mother’s travail-pain.
Chorus: Strophe 2
What, then thy offspring are at once—
Oedipus: Too true. Their father’s very sister’s too.
Chorus: Oh horror!
Oedipus: Horrors from the boundless deep Back on my soul in refluent surges sweep.
Chorus: Thou hast endured—
Oedipus: Intolerable woe.
Chorus: And sinned—
Oedipus: I sinnèd not.
Chorus: How so?
Oedipus: I served the State; would I had never won That graceless grace by which I was undone.
Chorus: Antistrophe 2
And next, unhappy man, thou hast shed blood?
Oedipus: Must ye hear more?