Racine: Phaedra

50
SOPHOCLES
Bacchos, all flushed with wine.
With clamor loud and long,
Wandering with Maenads wild,
Flashing with blazing torch,
Draw near against the God whom all the Gods disown.^^
CEdipus.—Thou prayest, and for thy prayers, if thou wilt hear
My words, and treat the dire disease with skill.
Thou shalt find help and respite from thy pain
My words, which I, a stranger to report,
A stranger to the deed, will now declare
For I myself should fail to track it far.
Finding no trace to guide my steps aright.
But now, as I have joined you since the deed,
A citizen with citizens, I speak
To all the sons of Cadmos. Lives there one
Who knows of Laios, son of Labdacos,
The hand that slew him ; him I bid to tell
His tale to me ; and should it chance he shrinks
From raking up the charge against himself,
Still let him speak ; no heavier doom is his
Than to depart uninjured from the land
Or, if there be that knows an alien arm
As guilty, let him hold his peace no more
I will secure his gain and thanks beside.
But if ye hold your peace, if one through fear,
Or for himself, or friend, shall hide this thing,
What then I purpose let him hear from me.
That man I banish, whosoe'er he be.
From out this land whose powei and throne are mine;
And none may give him shelter, none speak to him,
Nor join with him in prayers and sacrifice.
Nor give him share in holy lustral stream
But all shall thrust him from their homes, declared
Our curse and our pollution, as but now
The Pythian God's prophetic word has shown
With acts like this, I stand before you here,
A helper to the God and to the dead.
All this I charge you do, for mine own sake,
^ So, in the Iliad, Ares is. of all the (v. 800), as the cause of all Strife and
Gods of Olympos, most hateful to Zeus slaughter.