Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/65

Rh As the blood flows streaming from his ruptured veins. Chorus: By fate we're driven; then yield to fate. No anxious, brooding care can change The thread of destiny that falls From that grim spindle of the Fates. Whate'er we mortals suffer here, Whate'er we do, all hath its birth In that deep realm of mystery. Stern Lachesis her distaff whirls, Spinning the threads of mortal men, But with no backward-turning hand. All things in ordered pathways go; And on our natal day was fixed Our day of death. Not God himself Can change the current of our lives, Which bears its own compelling force Within itself. Each life, goes on In order fixed and absolute, Unmoved by prayer. Nay fear itself Has been by many found a bane; For, while they sought to shun their fate, They came upon it in their flight. But now the palace gates resound, and see, The sightless king himself, with none to guide, Takes hitherward his blind and groping way. [Enter Oedipus.] Oedipus: Now all is well and finished; to my sire I've paid the debt I owed. How sweet these shades! What god, at length appeased, hath wrapped my head In a pall of darkness, and my crimes forgiven? Now have I 'scaped the conscious eye of day; And nothing dost thou owe, O parricide, To thine avenging hand. Thy sight is gone, And such a countenance becomes thee well. [Enter Jocasta.] Chorus: See where with hurried step Jocasta comes, Beside herself and overcome with grief; As when in maddened rage that Theban dame Her son's head tore away and realized What she had done. She wavers, longs to speak