Part 16

OEDIPUS.

Say then the meaning true.

LEADER.

I would not have thee cast to infamy Of guilt, where none is proved, One who hath sworn and whom thou once hast loved.

OEDIPUS.

'Tis that ye seek? For me, then ... understand Well ... ye seek death or exile from the land.

LEADER.

No, by the God of Gods, the all-seeing Sun! May he desert me here, and every friend With him, to death and utterest malison, If e'er my heart could dream of such an end!

But it bleedeth, it bleedeth sore, In a land half slain, If we join to the griefs of yore Griefs of you twain.

OEDIPUS.

Oh, let him go, though it be utterly My death, or flight from Thebes in beggary. 'Tis thy sad lips, not his, that make me know Pity. Him I shall hate, where'er he go.

CREON.

I see thy mercy moving full of hate And slow; thy wrath came swift and desperate. Methinks, of all the pain that such a heart Spreadeth, itself doth bear the bitterest part.

OEDIPUS.

Oh, leave me and begone!

CREON.

I go, wronged sore By thee. These friends will trust me as before.

LEADER. [Antistrophe.

Queen, wilt thou lead him to his house again?

JOCASTA.

I will, when I have heard.

LEADER.

There fell some word, some blind imagining Between them. Things known foolish yet can sting.

JOCASTA.

From both the twain it rose?

LEADER.

From both the twain.

JOCASTA.