Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/145

Rh For Œdipus struck in with woeful cry,

And we no longer looked upon her fate,

But gazed on him as to and fro he rushed.

For so he raves, and asks us for a sword,

Wherewith to smite the wife that wife was none,

The womb polluted with accursèd births,

Himself, his children,—so, as thus he raves,

Some spirit shows her to him, (none of us

Who stood hard by had done so): with a shout

Most terrible, as some one led him on,

Through the two gates he leapt, and from the wards

He slid the hollow bolt, and rushes in;

And there we saw his wife had hung herself,

By twisted cords suspended. When her form

He saw, poor wretch! with one wild, fearful cry,

The twisted rope he loosens, and she fell,

Ill-starred one, on the ground. Then came a sight

Most fearful. Tearing from her robe the clasps,

All chased with gold, with which she decked herself,

He with them struck the pupils of his eyes,

With words like these—"Because they had not seen

What ills he suffered and what ills he did,

They in the dark should look, in time to come,

On those whom they ought never to have seen,

Nor know the dear ones whom he fain had known,"

With such like wails, not once or twice alone,

Raising his eyes, he smote them, and the balls,

All bleeding, stained his cheek, nor poured they forth

Gore drops slow trickling, but the purple shower

Fell fast and full, a pelting storm of blood.

Such were the ills that sprang from both of them,

Not on one only, wife and husband both.

His ancient fortune, which he held of old,

Was truly fortune; but for this day's doom