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40 could have nursed this "child of fortune"—the last fatal witness, the aged shepherd who, half a century before, had received the child of Laius from its mother, is led before the king. Forced to give his evidence on pain of death and torture, slowly and reluctantly—for he realises the horrible import of his words—he reveals all that he knows. And then Œdipus utters a wail of agony (and even across the lapse of years that loud and bitter cry pierces us with terrible reality)—

Then he too flies in horror from the stage.

Again the Chorus mourn over the vanity of life, and again their lament is like that of the sons of Dan in 'Samson Agonistes'—

Their king, who had once proved a tower of defence to his country in her hour of need, is now beset himself by countless sorrows. Would that the sin and death could be forgotten, and those guilty nuptials!

True to the principle of the Greek tragic drama, that horrors should not be acted in the presence of the audience, the rest of this miserable story is narrated by messengers. Jocasta, as we have seen, had left the scene suddenly and in ominous silence: she had