it be to the marriage couch of the man he slew that he has ascended? No, his fears are too credulous! he clings to a straw; the herdsman who had escaped the slaughter of Laius and his attendants may prove that it was _not_ the king whom he encountered. Jocasta sustains this hope--she cannot believe a prophecy--for it had been foretold that Laius should fall by the hand of his son, and that son had long since perished on the mountains. The queen and Oedipus retire within their palace; the chorus resume their strains; after which, Jocasta reappears on her way to the temple of Apollo, to offer sacrifice and prayer. At this time a messenger arrives to announce to Oedipus the death of Polybus, and the wish of the Corinthians to elect Oedipus to the throne! At these tidings Jocasta is overjoyed. "Predictions of the gods, where are ye now? Lest by the son's doomed hand the sire should fall, The son became a wanderer on the earth, Lo, not the son, but Nature, gives the blow!" Oedipus, summoned to the messenger, learns the news of his supposed father's death! It is a dread and tragic thought, but the pious Oedipus is glad that his father is no more, since he himself is thus saved from parricide; yet the other part of the prediction haunts him. His mother!--she yet lives. He reveals to the messenger the prophecy and his terror. To cheer him, the messenger now informs him that he is not the son of Merope and Polybus. A babe had been found in the entangled forest-dells of Cithaeron by a herdsman and slave of Laius --he had given the infant to another--that other, the messenger who now tells the tale. Transferred to the care of Polybus and Merope, the babe became to them as a son, for they were childless. Jocasta hears--stunned and speechless--till Oedipus, yet unconscious of the horrors still to come, turns to demand of her if she knew the herdsman who had found the child. Then she gasps wildly out-- "Whom speaks he of? Be silent--heed it not-- Blot it out from thy memory!--it is evil! Oedipus. It cannot be--the clew is here; and I Will trace it through that labyrinth--my birth. Jocasta. By all the gods I warn thee; for the sake Of thine own life beware; it is enough For me to hear and madden!" Oedipus (suspecting only that the pride of his queen revolts from the thought of her husband's birth being proved base and servile) replies,