Page:Oedipus, King of Thebes (Murray 1911).djvu/96

Rh There is no joy in city nor in tower

Nor temple, from all whom, in this mine hour,

I that was chief in Thebes alone, and ate

The King’s bread, I have made me separate

For ever. Mine own lips have bid the land

Cast from it one so evil, one whose hand

To sin was dedicate, whom God hath shown

Birth-branded and my blood the dead King’s own!

All this myself have proved. And can I then

Look with straight eyes into the eyes of men?

I trow not. Nay, if any stop there were

To dam this fount that welleth in mine ear

For hearing, I had never blenched nor stayed

Till this vile shell were all one dungeon made,

Dark, without sound. ’Tis thus the mind would fain

Find peace, self-prisoned from a world of pain.

O wild Kithairon, why was it thy will

To save me? Why not take me quick and kill,

Kill, before ever I could make men know

The thing I am, the thing from which I grow?

Thou dead King, Polybus, thou city wall

Of Corinth, thou old castle I did call

My father’s, what a life did ye begin,

What splendour rotted by the worm within,

When ye bred me! O Crossing of the Roads,

O secret glen and dusk of crowding woods,

O narrow footpath creeping to the brink

Where meet the Three! I gave you blood to drink.

Do ye remember? ’Twas my life-blood, hot

From mine own father’s heart. Have ye forgot

What deed I did among you, and what new

And direr deed I fled from you to do?

O flesh, horror of flesh!