Jocasta: O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word I leave thee, henceforth silent evermore. Exit Jocasta.
Chorus: Why, Oedipus, why stung with passionate grief Hath the queen thus departed? Much I fear From this dead calm will burst a storm of woes.
Oedipus: Let the storm burst, my fixed resolve still holds, To learn my lineage, be it ne’er so low. It may be she with all a woman’s pride Thinks scorn of my base parentage. But I Who rank myself as Fortune’s favorite child, The giver of good gifts, shall not be shamed. She is my mother and the changing moons My brethren, and with them I wax and wane. Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth? Nothing can make me other than I am.
Chorus: Strophe
If my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail, Thee, Cithaeron, I shall hail, As the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet Ere tomorrow’s full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet. Dance and song shall hymn thy praises, lover of our royal race. Phoebus, may my words find grace!
Antistrophe
Child, who bare thee, nymph or goddess? sure thy sure was more than man, Haply the hill-roamer Pan. Of did Loxias beget thee, for he haunts the upland wold; Or Cyllene’s lord, or Bacchus, dweller on the hilltops cold? Did some Heliconian Oread give him thee, a new-born joy? Nymphs with whom he love to toy?
Oedipus: Elders, if I, who never yet before Have met the man, may make a guess, methinks I see the herdsman who we long have sought; His time-worn aspect matches with the years Of yonder agèd messenger; besides I seem to recognise the men who bring him As servants of my own. But you, perchance, Having in past days known or seen the herd, May better by sure knowledge my surmise.
Chorus: I recognise him; one of Laius’ house; A simple hind, but true as any man.
Enter Herdsman.
Oedipus: Corinthian, stranger, I address thee first, Is this the man thou meanest!
Messenger: This is he.
Oedipus: And now old man, look up and answer all I ask thee. Wast thou once of Laius’ house?
Herdsman: I was, a thrall, not purchased but home-bred.
Oedipus: What was thy business? how wast thou employed?
Herdsman: The best part of my life I tended sheep.
Oedipus: What were the pastures thou didst most frequent?
Herdsman: Cithaeron and the neighbouring alps.
Oedipus: Then there Thou must have known yon man, at least by fame?
Herdsman: Yon man? in what way? what man dost thou mean?
Oedipus: The man here, having met him in past times …
Herdsman: Off-hand I cannot call him well to mind.
Messenger: No wonder, master. But I will revive His blunted memories. Sure he can recall What time together both we drove our flocks, He two, I one, on the Cithaeron range, For three long summers; I his mate from spring Till rose Arcturus; then in winter time I led mine home, he his to Laius’ folds. Did these things happen as I say, or no?
Herdsman: ’Tis long ago, but all thou say’st is true.
Messenger: Well, thou mast then remember giving me A child to rear as my own foster-son?