Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/143

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Success, in all things blest;

And did, Ο Zeus! destroy

The Virgin with claws bent,

And sayings wild and dark;

And against many deaths

A tower and strong defence

Did for my country rise:

And so thou king art named,

With highest glory crowned,

Ruling in mighty Thebes.

And now, who lives than thou more miserable?

Who equals thee in wild woes manifold,

In shifting turns of life?

Ah, noble one, our Œdipus!

For whom the same wide harbour

Sufficed for sire and son,

In marriage rites to enter:

Ah how, ah, wretched one,

How could thy father's bed

Receive thee, and so long,

Even till now, be dumb?

Time, who sees all things, he hath found thee out,

Against thy will, and long ago condemned

The wedlock none may wed,

Begetter and begotten.

Ah, child of Laios ! would

I ne'er had seen thy face!

I mourn with wailing lips,

Mourn sore exceedingly.

'Tis simplest truth to say,

By thee from death I rose,

By thee in death I sleep.