Jo. But what? is not the aged Polybus still on the throne?

MES. No truly, since death prisons him in the grave. Jo. How hast thou said? is Polybus deceased, old

man?

MES. If I speak not the truth, I confess me worthy of death.

Jo. Ho, handmaiden, wilt thou not be gone and tell this with all speed to thy lord? Predictions of the gods, where are ye? This very man Edipus long ago in alarm lest he should murder, went into banishment, and now, behold! he has perished by course of nature, not by my husband.

EDIPUS.

O mine own dearest consort-queen Jocasta, wherefore hast thou sent for me hither out of the palace here?

Jo. Listen to this man, and as thou hearest, mark to what are come the solemn predictions of the god.

ED. But who can this man be, and what has he to tell me?

Jo. From Corinth, to bring thee news that thy father Polybus is no more, but is dead.

CED. What sayest thou, stranger? Do thou thyself become my informant.

MES. If I must first deliver me of this fact clearly, be assured that he is dead and gone.

ED. By treachery, or the encounter of disease?

P Not with odóv understood after Oavάoipov, but the latter agreeing with Beẞnkóra, according to Erfurdt.

MES. A trifling bend of the scale sends to their last sleep aged frames.

ED. By sicknesses, it seems, the poor sufferer wasted away.

MES. And surely, also, by having lived commensurately with so long a time.

ED. Alas! alas! why then, my queen, should any one regard the Delphic hearth of divination, or the birds that scream above our heads, under whose predestination I was fated to slay my own father? But he is dead and buried deep down in earth, while I here before you am guiltless of handling weapon against him, unless in any degree he pined away from regret of me, but so he might have been done to death by my means. The present oracles then Polybus has swept off with him utterly worthless, and lies in Hades.

Jo. Did not I now forewarn thee of this long ago? ED. Thou didst say it; but I was led away by my fear.

Jo. See thou no longer give one of them place in thy mind now.

ED. And how must I not shrink from a mother's bed?

Jo. But why should man fear, whom the decrees of chance control, while there is no certain foresight

These reflections on the part of the king and queen are the more ungrateful, in that Apollo had just sent them, without demur, instructions for the removal of the plague. The whole demeanour of these impious personages, who

"Lifted up so high

Disdained subjection, and thought one step higher

Would set them highest;"

and their encouragement of each other in irreligion, reminds one forcibly of

of aught? 'Twere best to live at random, e'en as one could. But have thou no fear of the bridal alliance with thy mother; for many among mankind have ere now, and that in dreams, done incest with a mother; but to whomsoever this reckons as nothing, he bears his life the easiest.

ED. Fairly had all this been stated by thee, had my mother happened not to have been alive; but now, since she does live, there is positive necessity, even though thou thinkest fairly, for me to recoil.

Jo. And yet the burial of thy father is at least a great help to sight in this.

ED. Great, I admit; but I have dread of the survivor.

MES. But on what woman's account is it even that ye are afraid?

ED. Of Merope, old man, with whom Polybus used to live.

MES. But what is there of her which makes to your apprehension?

CED. A dreadful prediction sent from heaven, stranger.

MES. Is it to be spoken, or is it not permitted that another know it?

ED. Most certainly it is. For Apollo foretold once that it was my destiny to be my own mother's paramour, and with mine own hands to shed my father's blood. For which cause has Corinth this long while,

Vathek and Nouronihar, when "with haughty and determined gait" they descended the staircase of Istakhar to the hall of Eblis, In both princes curiosity is the prime agent; and in both Ὕβρις, ἀκρότατον εἰσταναβᾶς ἐς ἀπότομον, ὤρουσεν ἐς ἀνάγκαν.

been dwelt far away from by me, prosperously indeed; but still it is most sweet, to look one's parents in the face.

MES. Why, was it in dread of this thou wert expatriated from thence?

ED. And from desire also to avoid being my father's murderer, old man.

MES. Why then have I not released thee from this thy fear, O king, since in fact I came thy wellwisher? ED. Do, and I swear thou shouldst have a right worthy recompense of me.

MES. Aye, and I swear I came especially for this, that, on thy restoration to thy home, I might in some way be advantaged.

ED. But never will I come into the presence of my parents, at least.

Mes. My son, thou showest full well that thou knowest not what thou doest.

ED. How, old man? In the name of the gods, in

struct me.

MES. If for these causes thou shunnest to return home.

ED. It is at least from alarm lest Phoebus prove in the issue true towards me.

MES. Is it lest thou shouldst contract contamination from thy parents?

ED. This very thing, old man, even this for ever affrights me.

MES. Knowest thou not, then, that thou tremblest with no just cause?

ED. Nay, how should I not, at least if I was the child of these progenitors?

MES. Even because Polybus was in no wise of kin to thee.

ED. How hast thou said? why, was not Polybus my father?

MES. Not a whit more than he thou seest before thee, but as much.

CED. And how comes one's father to be on a par with no one"?

MES. But neither he begat thee, nor I.

ED. But in consideration of what, then, did he allow me a son's title?

MES. Know, it was from having received thee formerly a present from my hands.

ED. And then did he, though from another's hand thus dearly love me?

MES. Yes, for his former childless state induced him.

ED. But wert thou my purchaser or parents, and gavest me to him?

MES. Having found thee in the bushy forest dells of Citharon.

ED. But for what purpose wert thou a wayfarer in those said regions?

This, according to Erfurdt, is not to be understood of the meanness or nothingness of the herdsman, but, as he paraphrases it, Qui dici possunt genuisse aliquem, quorum nemo genuit?" See v. 838, and the note following.

"Or parent." Hermann remarks, that might seem wonderful for Edipus to ask this, when the messenger had just told him that he was not his father any more than Polybus; but that he must consider Edipus as attending to the intention of the old man, and not his words. Hence, too, when Edipus says πῶς ὁ φύσας ἐξ ἴσου τῷ μηδενί; he does not allude slightingly to the old man, but merely to himself having no father.