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 no, with a god's aid, as we say and deem, didst thou uplift our life.

"And now, Œdipus, name glorious in all eyes, we beseech thee, all we suppliants, to find for us some succour; whether thou wottest of it by the whisper of a god, or knowest it in the power of man."

Then comes the oracle, announcing that the land is thus plagued because it harbours the unknown murderer of Laius; the pity of Œdipus is quickened into a fiery zeal for discovery and atonement; and he appeals to the prophet Teiresias:—

"Teiresias, whose soul grasps all things, the lore that may be told and the unspeakable, the secrets of heaven and the low things of the earth,—thou feelest, though thou canst not see, what a plague doth haunt our state,—from which, great prophet, we find in thee our protector and only saviour. Now, Phœbus—if perchance thou knowest it not from the messengers—sent answer to our question that the only riddance from this pest which could come to us was if we should learn aright the slayers of Laius, and slay them, or send them into exile from our land. Do thou, then, grudge neither voice of birds nor any other way of seer-lore that thou hast, but save thyself and the state and me, and take away all the taint of the dead. For in thee is our hope; and a man's noblest task is to help others by his best means and powers."

Teiresias is silent: the taunts of Œdipus at last sting him into uttering his secret—Œdipus is the