Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Jebb 1917).djvu/18

6 my kinsman, son of Menoeceus, what news hast thou brought us from the god?

Good news: I tell thee that even troubles hard to bear,—if haply they find the right issue,—will end in perfect peace.

. But what is the oracle? So far, thy words make me neither bold nor yet afraid.

. If thou wouldest hear while these are nigh, I am ready to speak; or else to go within.

. Speak before all: the sorrow which I bear is for these more than for mine own life.

. With thy leave, I will tell what I heard from the god. Phoebus our lord bids us plainly to drive out a defiling thing, which (he saith) hath been harboured in this land, and not to harbour it, so that it cannot be healed.

. By what rite shall we cleanse us? What is the manner of the misfortune?

. By banishing a man, or by bloodshed in quittance of bloodshed, since it is that blood which brings the tempest on our city.

. And who is the man whose fate he thus reveals?

. Laïus, king, was lord of our land before thou wast pilot of this State.

. I know it well—by hearsay, for I saw him never.

. He was slain; and the god now bids us plainly