Racine: Phaedra

CEDIPUS REX 6$
JocASTA.—A servant who alone escaf)ed with life.
CEdipus.—And does he chance to dwell among us now ?
JocASTA.—Not so; for from the time when he returned,
And found thee bearing sway, and Laios dead.
He, at my hand, a suppliant, implored
This boon, to send him to the distant fields
To feed his flocks, as far as possible
From this our city. And I sent him forth
For though a slave, he might have claimed yet more.
CEdipus.—Ah ! could we fetch him quickly back again
JocASTA.—That may well be. But why dost thou wish this ?
CEdipus.—I fear, O queen, that words best left unsaid
Have passed these lips, and therefore wish to see him.
JocASTA.—Well, he shall come. But some small claim have I,
king, to learn what touches thee with woe.
CEdipus.—Thou shalt not fail to learn it, now that I
Have gone so far in bodings. Whom should I
More than to thee tell all the passing chance?
1 had a father, Polybos of Corinth,
And Merope of Doris was my mother,
And I was held in honor by the rest
Who dwelt there, till this accident befel,
Worthy of wonder, of the heat unworthy
man
It roused within me. Thus it chanced : A
At supper, in his cups, with wine o'ertaken,
Reviles me as a spurious changeling boy
And I, sore vexed, hardly for that day
Restrained myself. And when the morrow came
I went and charged my father and my mother
With what I thus had heard. They heaped reproach
On him who stirred the matter, and I soothed
My soul with what they told me yet it ; teased
Still vexing more and more ; and so I went,
Unknown to them, to Pytho, and the God
Sent me forth shamed, unanswered in my quest
And other things He spake, dread, dire, and dark,
That I should join in wedlock with my mother,
Beget a brood that men should loathe to look at.
Be murderer of the father that begot me.
[And, hearing this, I straight from Corinth fled,