Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Jebb 1917).djvu/49

941—966] . How then? Is the aged Polybus no more in power?

. No, verily: for death holds him in the tomb.

. How sayest thou? Is Polybus dead, old man?

. If I speak not the truth, I am content to die.

. O handmaid, away with all speed, and tell this to thy master! O ye oracles of the gods, where stand ye now! This is the man whom Oedipus long feared and shunned, lest he should slay him; and now this man hath died in the course of destiny, not by his hand.

[Enter.

. Iocasta, dearest wife, why hast thou summoned me forth from these doors?

. Hear this man, and judge, as thou listenest, to what the awful oracles of the gods have come.

. And he—who may he be, and what news hath he for me?

. He is from Corinth, to tell that thy father Polybus lives no longer, but hath perished.

. How, stranger? Let me have it from thine own mouth.

. If I must first make these tidings plain, know indeed that he is dead and gone.

. By treachery, or by visit of disease?

. A light thing in the scale brings the aged to their rest.

. Ah, he died, it seems, of sickness?

. Yea, and of the long years that he had told.

. Alas, alas! Why, indeed, my wife, should one look to the hearth of the Pythian seer, or to the birds that scream above our heads, on whose showing I was