Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/225

 Made my conjecture doubly sure; and now

Thy garb and that marred visage prove to me

That thou art he. So pitying thine estate,

Most ill-starred Oedipus, I fain would know

What is the suit ye urge on me and Athens,

Thou and the helpless maiden at thy side.

Declare it; dire indeed must be the tale

Whereat I should recoil. I too was reared,

Like thee, in exile, and in foreign lands

Wrestled with many perils, no man more.

Wherefore no alien in adversity

Shall seek in vain my succour, nor shalt thou;

I know myself a mortal, and my share

In what the morrow brings no more than thine.

Theseus, thy words so apt, so generous,

So comfortable, need no long reply.

Both who I am and of what lineage sprung,

And from what land I came, thou hast declared.

So without prologue I may utter now

My brief petition, and the tale is told.

Say on, and tell me what I fain would learn.

I come to offer thee this woe-worn frame,

A gift not fair to look on; yet its worth

More precious far than any outward show.

What profit dost thou proffer to have brought?

Hereafter thou shalt learn, not yet, methinks. 203