Page:Oedipus, King of Thebes (Murray 1911).djvu/30

Rh For help, and a great lightening of ill.

Thereof I come to speak, a stranger still

To all this tale, a stranger to the deed:

(Else, save that I were clueless, little need

Had I to cast my net so wide and far:)

Howbeit, I, being now as all ye are,

A Theban, to all Thebans high and low

Do make proclaim: if any here doth know

By what man’s hand died Laïus, your King,

Labdacus’ son, I charge him that he bring

To me his knowledge. Let him feel no fear

If on a townsman’s body he must clear

Our guilt: the man shall suffer no great ill,

But pass from Thebes, and live where else he will.

Is it some alien from an alien shore

Ye know to have done the deed, screen him no more!

Good guerdon waits you now and a King’s love

Hereafter.

Hah! If still ye will not move

But, fearing for yourselves or some near friend,

Reject my charge, then hearken to what end

Ye drive me.—If in this place men there be

Who know and speak not, lo, I make decree

That, while in Thebes I bear the diadem,

No man shall greet, no man shall shelter them,

Nor give them water in their thirst, nor share

In sacrifice nor shrift nor dying prayer,

But thrust them from our doors, the thing they hide

Being this land’s curse. Thus hath the God replied

This day to me from Delphi, and my sword

I draw thus for the dead and for God’s word.