Racine: Phaedra

82
SOPHOCLES
Lead me away, my friends, with utmost speed.
'Lead me away, the foul polluted one,
Of all men most accursed.
Most hateful to the gods.
Chorus.—Ah, wretched one, alike in soul and doom,
I fain could wish that I had never known thee.
(Edipus.—111 fate be his who from the fetters freed
The child upon the hills.
And rescued me from death.
And saved me—thankless boon!
Ah !
had I died but then.
Nor to my friends nor me had been such woe.
Chorus.—I, too, could fain wish that.
CEdipus.—Yes ; then I had not been
My father's murderer:
Nor had men pointed to me as the man
Wedded with her who bore him.
But now all godless, born of impious stock,
In incest joined with her who gave me birth ;—
Yea, if there be an evil worse than all,
It falls on CEdipus
Chorus.—I may not say that thou art well-advised,
For better wert thou dead than living blind.
CEdipus.—Persuade me not, nor counsel give to show
That what I did was not the best to do.
I know not with what eyes, in Hades dark,
To look on mine own father or my mother.
When I against them both, alas ! have done
Deeds for which strangling were too light a doom.
My children's face, forsooth, was sweet to see.
Their birth being what it was ; nay, nay, not so
To these mine eyes, nor yet this, nor tower.
Nor sacred shrines of gods whence I, who stood
Most honored one in Thebes, myself have banished.
Commanding all to thrust the godless forth.
Him whom the gods do show accursed, the stock
Of Laios old. And could I dare to look.
Such dire pollution fixing on myself,
And meet these face to face? Not so, not so.
Yea, if I could but stop the stream of sound.