[Jocasta and Oedipus go together into the Palace.

Chorus.

[They pray to be free from such great sins as they have just heard spoken of.

[Strophe.

Toward God’s great mysteries, oh, let me move

Unstainèd till I die

In speech or doing; for the Laws thereof

Are holy, walkers upon ways above,

Born in the far blue sky;

Their father is Olympus uncreate;

No man hath made nor told

Their being; neither shall Oblivion set

Sleep on their eyes, for in them lives a great

Spirit and grows not old.

[Antistrophe.

[They wonder if these sins be all due to pride and if Creon has guilty ambitions;

’Tis Pride that breeds the tyrant; drunken deep

With perilous things is she,

Which bring not peace: up, reeling, steep on steep

She climbs, till lo, the rock-edge, and the leap

To that which needs must be,

The land where the strong foot is no more strong!

Yet is there surely Pride

That saves a city; God preserve it long!

I judge not. Only through all maze of wrong

Be God, not man, my guide.

[Strophe.

[Or if Tiresias can really be a lying prophet with no fear of God; they feel that all faith in oracles and the things of God is shaken.

Is there a priest who moves amid the altars

Ruthless in deed and word,

Fears not the presence of his god, nor falters

Lest Right at last be heard?

If such there be, oh, let some doom be given

Meet for his ill-starred pride,

Who will not gain his gain where Justice is,

Who will not hold his lips from blasphemies,

Who hurls rash hands amid the things of heaven

From man’s touch sanctified.

In a world where such things be,

What spirit hath shield or lance

To ward him secretly

From the arrow that slays askance?

If honour to such things be,

Why should I dance my dance?

[Antistrophe

I go no more with prayers and adorations

To Earth’s deep Heart of Stone,12

Nor yet the Abantes’ floor, nor where the nations

Kneel at Olympia’s throne,

Till all this dark be lightened, for the finger

Of man to touch and know.

O Thou that rulest—if men rightly call

Thy name on earth—O Zeus, thou Lord of all

And Strength undying, let not these things linger

Unknown, tossed to and fro.

For faint is the oracle,

And they thrust it aside, away;

And no more visible

Apollo to save or slay;

And the things of God, they fail

As mist on the wind away.

[Jocasta comes out from the Palace followed by handmaids bearing incense and flowers.

Jocasta.

Lords of the land, the ways my thought hath trod11

Lead me in worship to these shrines of God

With flowers and incense flame. So dire a storm

Doth shake the King, sin, dread and every form

Of grief the world knows. ’Tis the wise man’s way

To judge the morrow by the yester day;

Which he doth never, but gives eye and ear

To all who speak, will they but speak of fear.

And seeing no word of mine hath power to heal

His torment, therefore forth to thee I steal,

O Slayer of the Wolf, O Lord of Light,13

Apollo: thou art near us, and of right

Dost hold us thine: to thee in prayer I fall.

[She kneels at the altar of Apollo Lukeios.

Oh, show us still some path that is not all

Unclean; for now our captain’s eyes are dim

With dread, and the whole ship must follow him.

[While she prays a Stranger has entered and begins to accost the Chorus.

Stranger.

Good masters, is there one of you could bring

My steps to the house of Oedipus, your King?

Or, better, to himself if that may be?

Leader.

This is the house and he within; and she

Thou seest, the mother of his royal seed.

Jocasta rises, anxious, from her prayer.