the whole tale—was Polybus,
|
In Corinth King; my mother Meropê
|
Of Dorian line. And I was held to be
|
The proudest in Corinthia, till one day
|
A thing befell: strange was it, but no way
|
Meet for such wonder
and such rage as mine.
|
A feast it was, and some one flushed with wine
|
Cried out at me that I was no
true son
|
Of Polybus. Oh, I was wroth! That one
|
Day I kept silence, but the morrow morn
|
I sought my
parents, told that tale of scorn
|
And claimed the truth; and they rose in their pride
|
And smote the mocker. …
Aye, they satisfied
|
All my desire; yet still the cavil gnawed
|
My heart, and still the story crept abroad.
|
At
last I rose—my father knew not, nor
|
My mother—and went forth to Pytho’s floor
|
To ask. And God in
that for which I came
|
Rejected me, but round me, like a flame,
|
His voice flashed other answers, things
of woe,
|
Terror, and desolation. I must know
|
My mother’s body and beget thereon
|
A race no mortal eye
durst look upon,
|
And spill in murder mine own father’s blood.
|
I heard, and, hearing, straight from where
I stood,
|
No landmark but the stars to light my way,
|
Fled, fled from the dark south where Corinth lay,
|
To
lands far off, where never I might see
|
My doom of scorn fulfilled. On bitterly
|
I strode, and reached the
region where, so saith
|
Thy tale, that King of Thebes was struck to death. …
|
Wife, I will tell thee true. As
one in daze
|
I walked, till, at the crossing of three ways,
|
A herald, like thy tale, and o’er his head
|
A man
behind strong horses charioted
|
Met me. And both would turn me from the path,
|
He and a thrall in front.
And I in wrath
|
Smote him that pushed me—’twas a groom who led
|
The horses. Not a word the master
said,
|
But watched, and as I passed him on the road
|
Down on my head his iron-branchèd goad
|
Stabbed.
But, by heaven, he rued it! In a flash
|
I swung my staff and saw the old man crash
|
Back from his car in
blood. … Then all of them
|
I slew.
|
Oh, if that man’s unspoken name
|
Had aught of Laïus in him, in God’s
eye
|
What man doth move more miserable than I,
|
More dogged by the hate of heaven! No man, kin
|
Nor stranger, any more may take me in;
|
No man may greet me with a word, but all
|
Cast me from out
their houses. And withal
|
’Twas mine own self that laid upon my life
|
These curses.—And I hold the dead
man’s wife
|
In these polluting arms that spilt his soul. …
|
Am I a thing born evil? Am I foul
|
In every vein?
Thebes now doth banish me,
|
And never in this exile must I see
|
Mine ancient folk of Corinth, never tread
|
The land that bore me; else my mother’s bed
|
Shall be defiled, and Polybus, my good
|
Father, who loved
me well, be rolled in blood.
|
If one should dream that such a world began
|
In some slow devil’s heart,
that hated man,
|
Who should deny him?—God, as thou art clean,
|
Suffer not this, oh, suffer not this sin
|
To be, that e’er I look on such a day!
|
Out of all vision of mankind away
|
To darkness let me fall ere such
a fate
|
| Touch me, so unclean and so desolate! |