Racine: Phaedra

84
SOPHOCLES
CEdipus.—Ah, me ! what language shall I hold to him.
What trust at his hands claim? In all the past
I showed myself to him most vile and base.
Enter Creon.
Creon.—I have not come, O CEdipus, to scorn,
Nor to reproach thee for thy former crimes.
CEdipus.—Oh, by the gods ! since thou, beyond my hopes,
Dost come all noble unto me all base,
One favor grant. I seek thy good, not mine.
Creon.—And what request seek'st thou so wistfully?
CEdipus.—Cast me with all thy speed from out this land.
Where nevermore a man may speak to me
Creon.—Be sure, I would have done so, but I wished
To learn what now the god will bid us do.
CEdipus.—The oracle was surely clear enough
That I the parricide, the pest, should die.
Creon.—So ran the words. But in our present need
'Tis better to learn surely what to do.
CEdipus.—And will ye ask for one so vile as I ?
Creon,—Yea, thou, too, now would'st trust the voice of God.
CEdipus.—And this I charge thee, yea, and supplicate
For her within, provide what tomb thou wilt.
For for thine own most meetly thou wilt care
But never let this city of my fathers
Be sentenced to receive me as its guest
But suffer me on yon lone hills to dwell.
On my Kithseron, destined for my tomb,
While still I lived, by mother and by sire.
That I may die by those who sought to kill.
And yet this much I know, that no disease.
Nor aught else could have killed me ;
ne'er from death
Had I been saved but for some evil dread.
As for our fate, let it go where it will
But for my children, of my boys, O Creon,
Take thou no thought ; as men they will not feel,
Where'er they be, the lack of means to live.
But for my two poor girls, all desolate.
To whom my table never brought a meal
Without my presence, but whate'er I touched