Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/18

14 “I fear I have said too much already and—I want to see him.”

“I will send for him. But surely I too have a right to know what troubles you.”

And willingly shall I tell you all. In whom else should I confide?

My father was Polybus of Corinth, my mother Merope, a Dorian. I was held second to none among the citizens, till one day, at a banquet, a fellow who had drunk much wine said that I was not my father’s son. I contained myself that day, but on the morrow I questioned my parents. They were angry at the man who had uttered the reproach; but it ever haunted me—for the whisper of it went abroad—and, unknown to them, I went to Delphi and asked Apollo, who answered not my query, but dismissed me with words of woe and terror, saying that it was my fate to mate with my own mother, bring into the world progeny that men would loathe to look upon, and murder him who was the author of my being. I turned, avoiding Corinth, and went where you say the king was slain. There I met a herald, and a man in a carriage drawn by colts. They tried to force me from the road. Furious, I struck the driver; but the old man watching his opportunity, as I passed, fetched me a blow with his double goad upon the head. But dearly did he pay for his rashness. A swift, sure blow from this right arm rolled him out of the car upon his back. Then I slew all. Now, if he was related to Laius, was ever man more wretched? Who could be more accurst?—received in no home, no man to speak to me—and to think that not another, but I myself laid this curse upon myself—and I must defile the dead man’s wife by the very hands that slew her lord. Do you not see that I am all vile? Am I not utterly polluted?—banished, never to see my own again, never set foot on my native soil, or else wed my mother and kill my father, Polybus. Oh! Great heaven! No! May I never see that day, but vanish from the sight of men before I meet with such an awful doom!