Let her storm on! resolved am I to find The stem that bore me, lowly though it be. She, very like, puffed with a woman's pride, May feel ashamed of my ignoble birth. For me, I do esteem me Fortune's child, Nor blush to hold me of her favour born. She is my mother; and my father, Time, Whose months have on to greatness borne his child. With such a parentage I fear no change That should forbid me to search out my birth. * * * * * _THE CATASTROPHE_. Jocasta, in despair, hangs herself. Oedipus puts out his own eyes. The scene is described by a second messenger, who has witnessed it. LINES 1223-1296. MESSENGER. O reverend priests and elders of this land, What are ye doomed to hear? what to behold? What sorrow will be yours if loyally Ye love the royal house of Labdacus? Ister or Phasis were too scant a stream, To wash the bloodstains of this roof away, Such horrors does it hide, and presently Will show beneath the sun; horrors self-caused, And self-caused woes are of all woes the worst. CHORUS. That which we knew already topped the height Of misery. What hast thou more to tell? MESSENGER. What fewest words serve to impart is this, Jocasta the illustrious is no more. CHORUS. Alas, poor Queen! How was it that she died? MESSENGER. By her own hand. That which is worst of all, The sight of what was done, your eyes are spared; But to your ears, so far as memory serves, I will recount her most disastrous end. When, in a storm of passion, hence she passed To yonder house, straight to her marriage-bed, Tearing her hair with both her hands, she flew. She slammed the door behind her; then she cries To Laius, that had long been in his grave, Calling to mind the seed that they had raised To murder its begetter, while his mate, Was left to her own child's incestuous arms. She cursed the bed which to a husband bore A husband and gave children to a child. Thereon she slew herself, I wot not how, For, with loud outcries Oedipus rushed in, And on his movements all our eyes were turned, So that we could not mark Jocasta's end. He, raving, shouted to us for a sword, And asked where was his wife that was no wife, But his own mother and his children's, too. Then, in his frenzy, some mysterious power, For it was none of us, showed him the way. With a wild yell, as though one led him on, He charged the doorway, from their sockets tore The bolts, and headlong dashed into the room. There we beheld Jocasta hanging dead, Her neck entangled in the fatal noose. This the King seeing, gave a fearful yell, And loosed the rope; the corpse fell to the ground. What then ensued was fearful to behold: The golden buckles wherewith she was dight He from her garment plucked, and, lifting them On high, he smote the pupils of his eyes, Crying aloud that they should look no more Upon his suffering or his crimes, but dark Henceforth betray their duty seeing those Whom they ought not, not seeing those they ought.