But he was saved by a compassionate shepherd and became the adopted son of Pol'y-bus, king of Corinth. When he grew up he was troubled by a rumor that he was not his father's H: went to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and was told-not of his origin but of his destiny-that he should be guilty of parricide and incest.

son.

"He was too horror-stricken to return to Corinth, and as he traveled the other way, he met Laius going from Thebes to Delphi. The travelers quarreled, and the son killed his father, but knew not whom he had slain. He went onward till he came near Thebes, where the Sphinx was making havoc of the noblest citizens. Edipus solved her riddle and overcame her, and as Laius did not return, was rewarded with the regal sceptre,—and with the hand of the queen.

"He reigned nobly and prosperously, and lived happily with Jocasta, by whom he had four children.

'But after some years a plague descended on the people, and Apollo, on being inquired of, answered that it was for Laius's death. The act of regicide must be avenged. Edipus undertakes the task of discovering the murderer,—and in the same act discovers his own birth, and the fulfillment of both the former oracles.

"Jocasta hangs herself, and Edipus, in his despair, puts out his eyes."

It is the object of Sophocles to present at first the protagonist of his play, King Edipus, in the character of a man supremely prosperous and happy. The prosperity and the happiness are, however, not real. This the spectators of the play, familiar beforehand with the story of Edipus, perfectly understand. Their interest in the spectacle is not the interest of persons awaiting with curiosity an unforeseen development of plot. It is rather the interest of observers who, themselves in the secret of the future, contemplate the conduct of persons involved in a destiny of which they, the observed, are unawarę,

We may omit the opening scene, in which the sympathies of the spectators are by the poet skillfully engaged on behalf of King Edipus unconsciously in the toils of fate. In response to the appeals of his people he issues his royal mandate against the unknown murderer of Laius, as follows (the spectators shudder with pity and horror, considering how, in the terms of this edict, unconsciously the king is denouncing himself):

Whoever is the author of the deed,

I here prohibit all within this realm

Whereof I wield the sovereignty and sway,

To admit him to their doors or speak with him,
Or share with him in vow or sacrifice

Or lustral rite. All men shall thrust him forth,
Our dark pollution, so to me revealed

By this day's oracle from Pytho's cell.

Thus firm is mine allegiance to the God
And your dead sovereign in this holy war.

And now the king, blindfold to fate, imprecates-in form as upon another-upon himself, a fearful curse:

Now on the murderer, whether he lurk

In lonely guilt, or with a numerous band,

I here pronounce this curse: let his crushed life
Perish forlorn in hopeless misery.

Next, I pray Heaven, should he or they be housed
With my own knowledge in my home, that I
May suffer all I imprecate on them.

A colloquy ensues between Edipus and the chorus, most artfully contrived by Sophocles to increase the tension of the situation. A certain blind prophet, Tei'-re'si-as by nameMilton mentions him for parallel with himself in the Paradise Lost is to be invoked. This prophet is reluctant to appear, knowing in himself what a burden he bears of doom for the king. He comes at last, and the situation grows gradually more intense throughout the conversation that follows between the king and the seer. The king speaks first in the

character of a gracious sovereign paying just tribute, which ought to be appreciated, to a venerable prophet. The stubborn reticence of the prophet-reticence inspired, the spectator understood how, but the king did not know or guessat last irritated Edipus. The baffled monarch begins to divine the reason for the strange behavior of Teiresias-but to divine it utterly wrong. He suspects his brother-in-law, Creon, of designs against himself. Creon, Edipus thinks, has set Teiresias on to engender among the people distrust of their king. But the dialogue is too important not to be shown somewhat at large:

Ed. O thou whose universal thought surveys

All knowlege and all mysteries, in heaven
And on the earth beneath, thy mind perceives,
Teiresias, though thine outward eye be dark,
What plague is wasting Thebe, who in thee,
Great sir, finds her one saviour, her sole guide.

We cast ourselves on thee: and beautiful
It is to use the power one hath for good.
Tei. Ah! terrible is knowledge to the man

Whom knowledge profits not. This well I knew,
But had forgotten. Else had I ne'er come hither.
Ed. Why dost thou bring a mind so full of gloom?
Tei. Let me go home. Thy part and mine to-day
Will best be borne, if thou obey me there.
Ed. Rebellious and ungrateful! to deprive

The state that reared thee of thine utterance now.
Tei. Thy speech, I see, is crossing thine intent;

And I would shield me from the like mishap.
Ed. Nay, if thou knowest, turn thee not away:

Lo, all these suppliants are entreating thee!
Tei. Yea, for ye all are blind. Never will I

Utter the sound that shall reveal thine evil.
Ed. So, then, thou hast the knowledge of the crime
And wilt not tell, but rather wouldst betray
This people, and destroy thy fatherland!

Tei. You press me to no purpose. I'll not pain

Thee, nor myself. Thou wilt hear nought from me.

Ed. How? Miscreant! thy stubbornness would rouse
Wrath in a breast of stone. Wilt thou still keep
That silent, hard, impenetrable mien?

Tei. You censure me for my harsh mood. Your own
Dwells unsuspected with you. Me you blame !
Ed. Who can be mild and gentle, when thou speakest
Such words to mock this people?

Tei.

It will come :
Although I bury it in silence here.

Ed. Must not the king be told of what will come?
Tei. No word from me. At this, an if thou wilt,

Rage to the height of passionate vehemence.
Ed. Ay, and my passion shall declare my thought.
'Tis clear to me as daylight, thou hast been
The arch-plotter of this deed; yea, thou hast done
All but the actual blow. Hadst thou thy sight,
I would pronounce thee the sole murderer.
Tei. Ay, sayst thou so?—I charge thee to abide

By that thou hast proclaimed; and from this hour
Speak not to any Theban nor to me.

Thou art the vile polluter of the land.

Ed. O void of shame! What wickedness is this?

What power will give thee refuge for such guilt?
I am free.

Tei. The might of truth is scatheless.

Ed. Whence gottest thou this truth? Not from thine art. Tei. From thee, whose rage impelled my backward tongue. Ed. Say it once more, that may know the drift.

Tei. Was it so dark? Or wouldst thou tempt my voice?

Ed. I cannot say 'twas clear. Speak it again.

Tei. I say thou art the murderer whom thou seekest.
Ed. Again that baleful word! But thou shalt rue.
Tei. Shall I speak something more, to feed thy wrath?
Ed. All is but idleness. Say what thou wilt.
Tei. I tell thee thou art living unawares

In shameful commerce with thy near'st of blood,
Ignorant of the abyss wherein thou liest.
Ed. Mean'st thou to triumph in offending still?
Tei. Yes, if the might of truth be any thing.
Ed. It is, for other men, but not for thee,

Blind as thou art in eyes and ears and mind.
Tei. O miserable reproach, which all who now

Behold thee, soon shall thunder forth on thee !

Ed. Nursed in unbroken night, thou canst not harm,
Or me, or any man who seeth the day.

Tei. No, not from me proceeds thy fall; the God,
Who cares for this, is able to perform it.
Ed. Came this device from Creon or thyself?
Tei. Not Creon: thou art thy sole enemy.
Ed. O wealth and sovereign power and high success
Attained through wisdom and admired of men,
What boundless jealousies environ you!

The chorus intervene with the soft answer which turns away wrath:

Ch. Your friends would humbly deprecate the wrath
That sounds both in your speech, my lord, and his.
That is not what we need, but to discern

How best to solve the heavenly oracle.

Teiresias has time, during this short intervention from the chorus, to collect himself. He resumes speech to Edipus, and enigmatically, with stern truth, threatens the impending doom:

Tei. Though thou art sovereign here, the right of speech
Is my prerogative no less. Not thee

I serve, but Phoebus. He protects my life.

Small need of Creon's arm to shelter me!

Now, then my blindness is thy theme :-thou hast
Thine eyes, nor seest where thou art sunk in woe,

What halls thou dost inhabit, or with whom :
Knowest not from whence thou art-nay, to thy kin,
Buried in death and here above the ground,

Unwittingly art a most grievous foe.

And when thy father's and thy mother's curse

With fearful tread shall drive thee from the land,

On both sides lashing thee,-thine eye so clear

Seeing but darkness in that day,-O, then,
What region will not shudder at thy cry?
What echo of Citharon will be mute,