Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/241

 Fear nothing and refrain from angry words.

I come with no ill purpose; I am old,

And know the city whither I am come,

Without a peer amongst the powers of Greece.

It was by reason of my years that I

Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring

Him back to Thebes; not the delegate

Of one man, but commissioned by the State,

Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed,

Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes.

O listen to me, luckless Oedipus,

Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim

With right to have thee back, I most of all,

For most of all (else were I vile indeed)

I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee

An aged outcast, wandering on and on,

A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay.

Ah! who had e’er imagined she could fall

To such a depth of misery as this,

To tend in penury thy stricken frame,

A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed,

A prey for any wanton ravisher?

Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast

On thee and on myself and all the race?

Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid.

Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst.

O, by our fathers’ gods, consent I pray;

Come back to Thebes, come to thy father’s home,

Bid Athens, as is meet, a fond farewell;

Thebes thy old foster-mother claims thee first. 219