TIR. I can tell the no farther; whereupon, if thou wilt, be exasperate with such whatever rage is most ferocious.

ED. Aye, on my soul, and I will at least pass over nothing, so enraged am I, of what I am apprised of. For, know, thou art suspected by me both to have helped engender the deed, and to have done it, in all but killing him with thine hands; nay, hadst thou possessed sight, even this deed its very self had I asserted to be thine alone.

TIR. Is it even so?--I charge thee to abide by the proclamation, even that which thou hast promulged, and from this day forth to speak word neither to these here, nor to me; for that thou art the unhallowed defiler of this land.

CED. Hast thou thus shamelessly given vent to these words of thine, and canst thou possibly expect that thou shalt acquit thyself of this?

TIR. I stand acquitted, for I cherish truth in its strength.

ED. At whose hand schooled? for surely not from thy art.

TIR. At thine; for thou hast provoked me reluctant to speak.

ED. What manner of speech? speak again, that I may the rather apprehend.

TIR. Understood'st thou not before, or temptest thou my words?

ED. No, not at least to have termed it intelligible; but say again.

TIR. I say thou art the murderer of the man, whose murderer thou seekest.

C

ED. But in no wise with impunity shalt thou twice at least utter calumnies.

TIR. Shall I tell thee, then, one other thing also, that thou mayest be the more angered?

ED. As much at least as thou inclinest, since it will be said in vain.

TIR. I affirm thee to be unconsciously holding the most shameful intercourse with thy dearest friends, and not to see the depth of misery in which thou art.

ED. And dost think thou shalt always say these things even exultingly?

TIR. Yes, if at least there be (as there is) any might in truth.

CED. Nay, there is, save to thee; but to thee there is not this, since thou art blind both in thine ears and thy mind and thine eyes.

TIR. But thou at any rate art wretched in reproaching me with this, wherewith is there not one of these who will not speedily reproach thee.

CED. Thou art fostered by night alone, so that thou couldst never do either me or any other, whoever he be, that looks on the light, a mischief.

TIR. For it is not fated thou shouldst fall, at least by me, since Apollo is sufficient, whose care it is to accomplish all this.

ED. Are these the inventions of Creon, or thine own?

TIR. Nay, Creon is no bane to thee, but thyself to thyself.

ED. O wealth, and sovereignty, and art surpassing art in this life of constant emulation, how great is the jealousy stored up among you! if at least for the sake

of this my dominion, which the city reposed in my hands, a free gift and not solicited, from this Creon the loyal, my former friend, secretly supplanting me is longing to eject me, having suborned a sorcerer such as this, a vamper up of plots, a wily mountebank, a wretch that hath eyes only for his gains, but as to his art was born blind. For if not, come tell me, wherein art thou a true seer? How didst thou not, when the monster of wild song was here, pronounce some spell of deliverance to these our citizens? And yet her riddle at least was not for the chance-comer to expound, but required divination, which thou plainly exposedst thyself as not possessing, either from birds or known from any one of the gods; but I, when I was come, the nothing-knowing Edipus, put her down, having mastered it by judgment, and not having learnt it from birds: I, whom forsooth thou must try to depose, expecting that thou shalt stand next in place near the Creontean throne. To thy cost methinks both thou and he that contrived all this will go exorcising pollutions: nay, hadst thou not

aǹ paydòç kúwv. A puzzling title to translate; but the Sphinx was all a puzzle, and would have made a great figure in these days of Egyptian statues and hieroglyphics, particularly as her acted charades were better than her spoken, at least they nonplussed the poor Thebans more, being of that ancient kind which he who receives aright "had need from head to foot well understand." For the translation, if any one have so much of Euripides, or rather Diogenes, in him as to prefer "enigmatical bitch," he may find in the poem of Christabelle one of the same breed, and most enigmatical." vv. 2 et seq.

b On the expression τῷ Λαβδακέιῳ παιδί Brunck has a long note from Eustathius, producing two examples from Homer of these adjectives in εtog, in both of which there seem a certain solemnity and state intended to be expressed, which indeed are more palpable in these instances from Sophocles: τῷ Λαβδάκου τε παιδὶ would not have had the same force.

borne an old man's seeming, to thy cost hadst thou known what manner of things they be thou purposest.

CH. To our conjecture, both this man's words and thine, O Edipus, appear to have been uttered in passion. But there is want not of such as they, but how we shall best expedite the oracles of the god, to consider this.

TIR. Even though thou art a king, the right of an equal reply at any rate must be equalized to us, for of this I too am master. For in no wise do I hold life as servant to thee, but to Loxias, so that I shall not by and by be entered under Creon as patron. But I tell thee, inasmuch as thou hast taunted me with being blind also thou actually hast thy sight, and seest not in what evil thou art, nor where thou art dwelling, nor with whom thou art consorting. Knowest thou now from whom thou art? Thou art even unaware that thou art the enemy of thine own buried kindred, and of those on earth above. And thee a fearful-footedd curse with double stroke both from thy mother and thy father shall one day chase from this land, thee seeing now indeed rightly but then darkness. But with thine outcry what manner of haven, of Cithæron, shall not speedily

c Brunck renders " damno tuo cognosceres, quam male sentias." This is not satisfactory, the force of the particle èp being entirely lost, unless it be thought implied by "sentias." Since Edipus appears confident of the nature of Tiresias' intentions, may we translate "thou hadst known as the sufferer just what thou knowest as the designer," and consider it a threat of banishment; or does ola Tèp mean qualia cunque? Elmsley prints them together, olarɛp; Hermann separately.

Η δεινόπους.

And long upon my troubled ear

Rang his dark courser's hoofs of fear.-GIAOUR.

be in unison, when thou shalt have become sensible of the marriage into which, though void of harbourage, thou hast in thine halls steered thy course, happening on a fair voyage-time? But thou dost not feel conscious of a whole host of other miseries, which shall level thee with thy real self and with thy children. Now then foully asperse both Creon and my words, for there lives not the mortal who shall ever wear himself away more direfully than thou.

CED. And is all this then bearable to hear from this thing? Wilt not away to thy death? Wilt not instantly? Wilt thou not turn thy back upon these halls, and get thee away again in haste?

TIR. Nay, I for my part had not come, hadst thou not bidden me hither..

ED. I did, because I was by no means aware that thou wouldst utter folly, else had I taken my time at least in fetching thee to my dwelling.

TIR. Such as we are, we are, to thy thinking, fools, but to the parents who begat thee, wise.

ED. What parents? tarry: nay, who of mankind is my parent?

TIR. This day shall give thee thy birth and thy destruction.

ED. How perplexed and obscure to excess dost thou speak every thing?

TIR. Art not thou then by nature the aptest at discovering these?

ED. Revile me, and welcome, in those things in which thou wilt find me great.

TIR. Yet is it nevertheless this very chance which has been thy ruin.