" O IDIPOUS AT C OLONOS . "
Was 't not predicted, even before my birth,
By Phaebus, Fate's unerring Oracle,
That I should slay my father? And the God
Provided for his own accomplishment,
Even by the very means that father took
To wrench out of my hands his destiny,
As old Kithairon wots of to this hour.
For Fate, that was not to be baffled thus,
And Phaebus, that was not to be forsworn,
There found and reared me till my arm was strong
To do the execution they fore-doomed.
Yea, on the very road King Laios
Again was going to that Oracle
He fondly dreamed — as afterward his son
More vainly bragged — of having foiled before,
I met — I smote — I slew — my Father — yes —
And you, before this presence, answer me!
If one you knew not save that King he were,
Upon the public thoroughfare of men
Had struck you, no less royal than himself;
Would you, sedate and pious as you are,
In youth and courage strong as I was then —
Would you have paused to think whether, in all
The roll of human possibility
The man who smote you might not in his veins
Have running blood akin to that in yours,
Or, in the sudden wrath of self-defence,
Retaliated with a counter-blow?
Yea! as the very Father whom I slew,
Could his voice reach us tho the earth between,
Would even now bear me witness, as he shall
When I rejoin him in the world below;
That, howsoever for the world's behoof,
The Gods, albeit with pitying eyes from heaven,
Chastise the guiltless instruments of crime
For which they know that Fate is chargeable,
They look not with a like compassion down
Upon those mortal agents of their doom
Who, with a vengeance more implacable,
Pursue and persecute — ay, let it be
The Parricide! — The Parricide! —
And for that yet more terrible mischance
That followed — and for which yourselves in Thebes
Were, under Destiny, responsible —
All shameless as thou art, art not ashamed
Before an alien People and their King
To breathe — as breathe thou wert about to do
Had not I swept it from thy lips unsaid
The Word which not myself alone involves,
But one — whose Memory Thou least of all
Shouldst have untombed — involves, I say, in that
Which unaware to have done is less shame
Than with aforethought malice to proclaim!
Was 't not predicted, even before my birth,
By Phaebus, Fate's unerring Oracle,
That I should slay my father? And the God
Provided for his own accomplishment,
Even by the very means that father took
To wrench out of my hands his destiny,
As old Kithairon wots of to this hour.
For Fate, that was not to be baffled thus,
And Phaebus, that was not to be forsworn,
There found and reared me till my arm was strong
To do the execution they fore-doomed.
Yea, on the very road King Laios
Again was going to that Oracle
He fondly dreamed — as afterward his son
More vainly bragged — of having foiled before,
I met — I smote — I slew — my Father — yes —
And you, before this presence, answer me!
If one you knew not save that King he were,
Upon the public thoroughfare of men
Had struck you, no less royal than himself;
Would you, sedate and pious as you are,
In youth and courage strong as I was then —
Would you have paused to think whether, in all
The roll of human possibility
The man who smote you might not in his veins
Have running blood akin to that in yours,
Or, in the sudden wrath of self-defence,
Retaliated with a counter-blow?
Yea! as the very Father whom I slew,
Could his voice reach us tho the earth between,
Would even now bear me witness, as he shall
When I rejoin him in the world below;
That, howsoever for the world's behoof,
The Gods, albeit with pitying eyes from heaven,
Chastise the guiltless instruments of crime
For which they know that Fate is chargeable,
They look not with a like compassion down
Upon those mortal agents of their doom
Who, with a vengeance more implacable,
Pursue and persecute — ay, let it be
The Parricide! — The Parricide! —
And for that yet more terrible mischance
That followed — and for which yourselves in Thebes
Were, under Destiny, responsible —
All shameless as thou art, art not ashamed
Before an alien People and their King
To breathe — as breathe thou wert about to do
Had not I swept it from thy lips unsaid
The Word which not myself alone involves,
But one — whose Memory Thou least of all
Shouldst have untombed — involves, I say, in that
Which unaware to have done is less shame
Than with aforethought malice to proclaim!