ED. When any one takes quick steps in covert machinations, it needs me counteract him in counsel quickly; but if, keeping quiet, I wait for him, his practices will have been matured already, but my cause already failed in.

CR. Well then, what is thine aim? To eject me from the land?

ED. By no means: I would have thy death, not exile. CR. When thou shalt have first shown the nature of thy grudge to me.

ED. Speakest thou as one who will obey neither command nor agreement?

CR. Yes; for I see thou art not in thy right mind.

ED. For my own interest at least.

CR. But thou oughtest as much for mine too.

ED. But thou art a born traitor.

CR. But what an thou understandest nothing?

ED. Yet still one must be ruled.

CR. Surely not by a bad ruler at least.

ED. O city, city!

CR. I too have a part in the city, and not thou only.

CH. Princes, desist; nay, in good time, for you see I Jocasta advancing from the palace, in concert with whom you are bound amicably to settle your quarrel now pending,

JOCASTA.

Why, infatuated, have ye raised up this unadvised strife of tongue, nor blush ye, when our land is thus diseased at stirring up private mischiefs? Wilt not both thou get thee home, and thou, Creon, to thy dwelling, and not raise a nothing of an offence to magnitude?

CR. Sister, Edipus, thy husband, thinks proper to do me foul wrong, having limited choice to two evils, either to banish me from my father's land, or to take and slay me.

ED. I confess it; for I have detected him, lady, in malpractices against my person with wicked craft.

CR. Now may I never prosper, but perish accursed, if I have done aught to thee of what thou accusest me of doing.

Jo. Oh! in the gods' name, Edipus, be persuaded to this: more especially, indeed, in respect to this adjuration of the gods; secondly, to both me and these who are at thy side. CH. Be prevailed on, consentingly and sensibly, my liege, I implore thee.

ED. What wilt thou, then, I shall concede to thee? CH. To respect him who neither ere now was imprudent, and now is mighty in virtue of his oath.

ED. Dost know, then, what thou wishest?

CH. I do know.

ED. Explain, then, what thou hast to say,

CH. That thou beware of bringing into impeachment and disgrace thy friend, who underlies thy suspicion, with an uncertain rumour at least.

ED. Know now full well, that when thou seekest this, thou art seeking death or banishment from this land for me.

CH. No, by the god, champion of all the gods, the sun, since I wish I may die without god, without a friend, the direst of all deaths, whatever it be, if I have this design; but my withering land wears out the spirit of hapless me, especially if these afflictions, I mean which arise from you two, shall attach to the previous afflictions.

ED. Then let him begone; aye, if it be my destiny utterly to fall a victim, or be thrust out by violence, dishonoured from this country; for 'tis thy piteous appeal, not his, that I compassionate but he, wherever he shall be, shall be loathed.

CR. Full of loathing, indeed, thou plainly showest thyself in yielding; but intractable, when thou shalt have exceeded in thy passion. Such tempers, however, are justly the most painful to themselves to bear with.

ED. Wilt thou not leave me alone, and get thee forth?

CR. I will be gone, having happened on thee, indeed, unacquainted with me; but in the eyes of these the same as heretofore.

CH. Lady, why delayest thou to convey this man within the house?

Jo. I will, when I have learnt at least what may have been the mischance.

CH. An unproved presumption came of certain words: even the unjust taunt is cutting.

Jo. From both of them?

CH. Even so.

Jo. And what was the saying?

CH. Enough, enough to me at least it seems, when the land is previously distressed, that it rest there where it left off.

ED. Seest thou to what thou, a man of upright intention, art come, deadening and lowering by my spirit?

CH. O prince, I have said not once alone, but know that I should show myself beside my senses, incapacitated from regaining those senses, were I to secede from thee, who hast piloted right steadily down the stream mine own dear land, when rocking about in troubles; and now too, be safe convoy to it, if thou mayest.

Jo. In the gods' name inform me also, O king, from what circumstance on earth thou hast conceived so great wrath as this.

ED. I will tell thee; for I hold thee, lady, in more respect than these it is from Creon; that he has plotted such devices against me.

Jo. Speak, if thou wilt plainly state the cause of quarrel, charging it on him.

ED. He says that I am the murderer of Laïus.

Jo. Of his own privity, or having learnt it from other?

ED. Why, by having sent me a knavish soothsayer, however; for as to himself, at least, he exculpates his speech entirely.*

Jo. Do thou now, leaving thine own matter alone, as touching the things thou speakest of, give ear to me, and learn for thy comfort, how that there is no mortal essence endowed with the prophetic art. But I will develope to thee concise evidence of this. For long ago came an oracle to Laïus, I will not assert from Phoebus himself, however, but from his ministers, that his doom shall come for him to fall by a son who should be begotten of me and him. And him, indeed, at least as the story goes, do foreign robbers murder on a time, at the junction of three carriage-ways. But on the birth of the child there intervened not three days before he, having tied the joints of its feet together, cast it away by others' hands upon an untrodden mountain. And therein Apollo brought to pass neither that it should be the slayer of its father, nor that Laïus, the disaster which he then dreaded, should die by his son's hand. Such fates did the prophetic declarations predetermine, of which take thou no heed. For whatever the god investigates as necessary; will he in person easily make appear.

ED. What distraction of soul and perturbation of feelings at this moment possesses me, having heard thee, lady.

Jo. By what manner of solicitude altered in mind sayest thou this?

ED. I thought I heard this from thee, that Laïus was slaughtered near three high-ways.

Jo. Yes; for these things were rumoured, nor have they yet ceased to be.

ED. And where is this said spot where this catastrophe occurred?

Jo. Phocis the land is called: but a separate roads lead to the same point from Delphi and from Daulia.

ED. And what is the time that has elapsed to these events? Jo. Some short time previous to thy coming forward as ruler of this land, were these rumours published to the city. ED. O Jupiter, what hast thou purposed to do by me?

* i. e. from having accused me. It appears strange that so many commentators should have missed the true sense of a passage so strongly marked by the particles pév ovv, and the yé in the next clause. Edipus is positive (ou) of Tiresias being merely Creon's mouthpiece, though Creon himself had vindicated his own language. See Hermann's and Erfurdt's notes.

Jo. But what, O Edipus, is this monster of thy thought? ED. Question me not yet.* But of Laïus, tell me what personal appearance he had, and that at what era of his prime.

Jo. Of lofty port, just now whitening to down the hoary honours of his head: but he was not very unlike thine own form.

ED. Woe me unhappy! It seems I have, without knowing it, even now forced myself prematurely into horrid curses. Jo. How sayest thou? verily I shudder as I glance at thee, O king.

ED. Fearfully am I despondent, lest the prophet saw too well: but thou wilt the surer demonstrate it if thou wilt be explicit on one more point.

Jo. Indeed, indeed I shrink from it; yet what thou shalt ask, if aware, I will tell.

ED. Was he journeying thinly attended, or with a train of many armed retainers, as one of a chieftain's rank should? Jo. They were five altogether; and among them was a herald: but a single chariot conveyed Laïus.

ED. O, O! all this is now full clear. Who on earth was he who told this same narrative to you, lady?

Jo. A certain domestic, who in fact was the only one who returned safely escaped.

ED. And does he happen to be now at hand in the palace? Jo. O no! for from the time when he returned thence, and saw both thee installed into the sovereignty, and Laïus dead, he petitioned me, grasping my very hand, to send him into the country and to the pastures of the flocks, that he might be most completely removed from sight of this city. And I sent him: for he was worthy, considering him as but a slave, to obtain even a higher favour than this.

ED. How then may he return to us speedily?

Jo. It is feasible: but wherefore seekest thou this?

ED. For myself I fear, lady, lest over much have been said by me, for which cause I wish to see him.

"Not yet." Porson says, ad Hec. 1260, ed. Pors.) that pw is used for pnmore, which Erfurdt quotes on this place, although totally inapplicable, and quotes moreover without the most essential part, the "Tórns quædam" of μnnw for μýñorε; which omission might lead one to suppose that Porson thought the two words equivalent, and the particle to have two senses.

† “And that.” Erfurdt's note on this place is truly admirable, when contrasted with the opinions of those learned men who, by dubbing those words noirs faineants which they cannot express, would conceal their own laziness or the poverty of modern languages. Participia exwv, Xaßov, et alia nunquam sic ponuntur, ut nihil plane significent, semperque imaginibus rerum ad summam illam, cui Græcorum nobilissima gens per omnia studebat, perfectionem exprimendis inserviunt."

Jo. Nay, he shall come. But surely I also am worthy to learn, at least, what circumstances are irksome to thee, O king.

ŒD. And thou surely must by no means be disappointed of this, when I have now arrived as such a pitch of expectancy.* For to whom could I speak who would be of more account even than thou, when implicated in such a fate as this? I had for my father Polybus of Corinth, for my mother, Merope of Doris and I was esteemed chiefest in rank of the citizens of Corinth, before an accident befel me such as I shall tell, worthy indeed of wonder, but unworthy nevertheless of the interest I took in it. For at a banquet a man overcharged with wine, brands me over his cups with being a supposititious son of my father. And I, deeply displeased, with much ado restrained me for that day; but on the next I visited my mother and father, and strictly questioned them; but they were highly offended for the affront with him who gave vent to the assertion. And I began to be soothed indeed with their conduct; but yet this inuendo was always galling me, for it had sunk deep in my mind. But unknown to my mother and father I go on a journey to Delphi. And Phœbus dismissed me in disgrace, indeed, as to the matters for which I came; but other fortunes, wretched, and horrible, and deplorable, he was but too ready to tell:† that it was my doom to commit incest with my mother, and that I should bring to light a progeny mankind should not endure to behold, and that I should be the murderer of the father who begot me. And I on hearing this, from that time forth measuring out the site of the land of Corinth by the stars, began my flight from it to where I might never witness the scandals of those evil prophecies about me accomplished. But in my travel I reach those very spots on which thou sayest that this same monarch met his death. And to thee, lady, will I divulge the truth: when I wending on my way was close upon this triple road, there

* Erfurdt, referring to v. 829, thinks is correctly translated by hope here. The other seems the most natural sequel to Edipus' words immediately preceding.

† Пpovpán λéywv. Aperte prædixit, Brunck. But both the sense of the passage and the force of popávnte in the first chorus are in favour of the other rendering.

This is the first of four passages which Hermann in his preface to Erfurdt's edition has specially noticed. Elmsley in his preface has these words, "H pro v, eram, quater reposui. *H aliquoties ante vocalem legitur apud Euripidem, ut in Hippol. 1012; Alc. 658; Iph. Aul. 944; Ion. 280. Quamquam hæc omnia corrupta esse suspicor. Sic etiam ter Aristophanes, sed in Pluto, novissima omnium fabula, v. 29, 695, 823. Nihil tale apud Sophoclem reperitur. Vid. Ed. Tyr. 801, 1123, 1389, 1393; Ed. Col. 768, 973, 1366; Trach. 87, 414; Aj. 1377; Phil. 1219; Fl. 1023." From this remark of our critic, Hermann has taken occasion