Racine: Phaedra

(EDIPUS REX 53
I knew it all too well, and then forgot,
Or else I had not on this journey come.
CEdipus.—What means this ? How despondingly thou com'st
Teiresias.—Let me go home ! for thus thy lot shalt thou,
And I mine own, bear easiest, if thou yield.
CEdipus.—No loyal words thou speak'st, nor true to Thebes
Who reared thee, holding back this oracle.
Teiresias.—I see thy lips speak words that profit not
And lest I too a like fault should commit . . .
CEdipus.—Now, by the Gods, unless thy reason fails.
Refuse us not, who all implore thy help.
Teiresias.—Ah ! Reason fails you all, but ne'er will I
Say what thou bidd'st, lest I thy troubles show.
CEdipus.—What mean'st thou, then ? Thou know'st and wilt
not tell.
But wilt betray us, and the state destroy ?
Teiresias.— I will not pain myself nor thee. Why, then,
All vainly question? Thou shalt never know.
CEdipus.—Oh, basest of the base! (for thou would'st stir
A heart of stone;) and wilt thou never tell,
But still abide relentless and unmoved?
Teiresias.—My mood thou blamest, but thou dost not know
What dwelleth with thee while thou chidest me.
CEdipus.—And who would not feel anger, hearing words
Like those with which thou dost the state insult ?
Teiresias.—Well! come they will, though I should hold my
peace.
CEdipus.—If come they must, thy duty is to speak.
Teiresias.— I speak no more. So, if thou wilt, rage on,
With every mood of wrath most desperate.
CEdipus.—Yes ; I will not refrain, so fierce my wrath,
From speaking all my thought. I think that thou
Did'st plot the deed, and do it, though the blow
Thy hands, it may be, dealt not. Had'st thou seen,
I would have said it was thy deed alone.
Teiresias.—And has it come to this ? I charge thee, hold
To thy late edict, and from this day forth
Speak not to me, nor yet to these, for thou,
Thou are the accursed plague-spot of the land.