Racine: Phaedra

66
SOPHOCLES
The stars thenceforth the land-marks of my way,
And fled where never more mine eyes might see
The shame of those dire oracles fulfilled
And as I went I reached the spot where he,
This king, thou tell'st me, met the fatal blow.
And now, O lady, I will tell the truth.
Wending my steps that way where three roads meet,
There met me first a herald, and a man
Like him thou told'st of, riding on his car,
Drawn by young colts. With rough and hasty force
They drove me from the road—the driver first,
And that old man himself ; and then in rage
I strike the driver, who had turned me back.
And when the old man sees it, watching me
As by the chariot-side I passed, he struck
My forehead with a double-pointed goad.
But we were more than quits, for in a trice
With this right hand I struck him with my staff.
And he rolls backward from his chariot's seat
And then I slay them all. And if it chance
That Laios and this stranger are akin,
What man more wretched than this man who speaks?
What man more harassed by the vexing Gods ?
He whom none now, or alien, or of Thebes,
May welcome to their house, or speak to him,
But thrust him forth an exile. And 'twas I,
None other, who against myself proclaimed
These curses. And the bed of him that died
I with my hands, by which he fell, defile.
Am 1 not born to evil, all unclean ?
If I must flee, yet still in flight my doom
Is never more to see the friends I love.
Nor tread my country's soil ;
or else to bear
The guilt of incest, and my father slay.
Yea, Polybos, who begat and brought me up.
Would not a man say right who said that here
Some cruel God was pressing hard on me ?
Not that, not that, at least, thou Presence, pure
And awful, of the Gods ; may I ne'er look
On such a day as that, but far away