Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/36

18 Oedipus: Not mine the guilt of fear; My valor feels no such ignoble throes. Should swords be drawn against me, should the power, The dreadful power of Mars upon me rush, Against the wry giants would I stand. The Sphinx I fled not when she wove her words In mystic measures, but I bore to look Upon the bloody jaws of that fell bard, And on the ground, all white with scattered bones. But when, from a lofty cliff, with threatening mien, The baleful creature poised her wings to strike, And, like a savage lion, lashed her tail, In act to spring; still did I dare my fate And ask her riddle. Then with horrid sound Of deadly jaws together crashed, she spake; The while her claws, impatient of delay, And eager for my vitals, rent the rock. But the close-wrought words of fate with guile entwined, Arid that dark riddle of the wingéd beast Did I resolve. Jocasta: What meant'st then thou by these Thy maddened prayers for death? Thou mightst have died. But no; the very scepter in thy hand Is thy reward for that fell Sphinx destroyed. Oedipus: Yea that, the artful monster's cruel shade, Doth war against me still. Now she alone, In vengeance for her death, is wasting Thebes. But now, one only way of safety still is left, If Phoebus show us not of safety all bereft.

[Enter the Chorus of Theban elders, deploring the violence of the plague.]

Chorus: How art thou fall'n, O glorious stock Of Cadmus, thou and Thebes in one! How dost thou see, poor ruined Thebes, Thy lands laid waste and tenantless. And thou, O Theban Bacchus, hear: That hardy soldiery of thine,