Racine: Phaedra

74
SOPHOCLES
JocASTA.—Woe ! woe ! ill-fated one ! my
last word this,
This only, and no more for evermore. [Rushes out.
Chorus.—Why has thy queen, O CEdipus, gone forth
In her wild sorrow rushing? Much I fear
Lest from such silence evil deeds burst out.
(Edipus.—Burst out what will ; I seek to know my birth,
Low though it be, and she perhaps is shamed
(For, like a woman, she is proud of heart)
At thoughts of my low birth ; but I, who count
Myself the child of Fortune, fear no shame;
My mother she, and she has prospered me.
And so the months that span my life have made me
Both low and high ; but whatsoe'er I be,
Such as I am I am, and needs must on
To fathom all the secret of my birth.
Strophe.
, Chorus.—If the seer's gift be mine,
Or skill in counsel wise.
Thou, O Kithseron, by Olympos high,
When next our full moon comes,
Shalt fail not to resound
With cry that greets thee, fellow-citizen.
Mother and nurse of CEdipus
And we will on thee weave our choral dance.
As bringing to our princes glad good news.
Hail, hail ! O Phoebos, grant that what we do
May meet thy favoring smile.
Antistrophe.
Who was it bore thee, child,^**
Of Nymphs whose years are long,
Or drawing near the mighty Father, Pan,
Who wanders o'er the hills,
Or Loxias' paramour.
Who loves the high lawns of the pasturing flocks ?
*>The Chorus, thinking only of the Hermes, worshipped on Kyllene in _Arwonder
of CEdipus's birth, plays with cadia; or Bacchos, roaming on the highthe
conjecture that he is the offspring est peaks of Parnassos. The Heliconian
of the Gods, of Pan, the God of the nymphs are, of course, the Muses,
hills, or Apollo, the prophet -God, or