Chanting this strain, once and again he smote, With hand uplift, his eyeballs, till the blood Ran from his wounded eyes down to his chin, Not in slow-oozing drops of clotted gore, But in a pelting shower of crimson hue. Such is the wreck, not of a single life, But of a husband's and a wife's in one. The grandeur of this house in happier hours Was grandeur worthy of the name. To-day Sorrow and desolation, death and shame, All evils for which man has names are here. CHORUS. Rests now the victim from this agony? MESSENGER. He calls to us to open wide the door And let all Thebes behold the parricide. His mother's--names too horrible he used, Vowing he'll doom himself to banishment, Nor live beneath the curse himself called down. But some support and guidance he will need, For he is stricken past man's strength to bear. Thyself will see it, for behold, the gates Open and will a spectacle disclose That might the bitterest foe to pity move! * * * * * THE PARTING. Oedipus bewails his calamities. A scene follows between him and Creon, his wife's brother, whom he had accused of treasonably plotting against him in concert with Tiresias. LINES 1369-1514. OEDIPUS. That what is done is not done for the best, Forbear to preach; thy counsel is in vain. Could I have looked upon my father's face, Meeting him yonder in the underworld, Or on my hapless mother's, when to both I had done wrongs worse than the worst of deaths? Perchance you'll say to see my progeny Were sweet! when I remembered whence they sprung. Never, believe me, to their father's eyes; Nor to see city, tower, or temple more, From which, of all men most unfortunate, When I had lived the noblest life in Thebes, I did myself cut off, adjuring all To drive the sinner out by heaven declared Accursed and of the blood of Laius. When I had thus proclaimed my infamy, Could I meet, eye to eye, those citizens? It might not be. Nay, were there any means Of cutting off the source of hearing, too, I would have closed all avenues of sense, And made this wretched frame both blind and deaf. The mind has peace that dwells apart from ills. Why, O Cithaeron, didst thou cherish me, Not end my life at once, that so my kind Had never learned the secret of my birth? O Polybus, and Corinth, and that home By me paternal deemed, how foul beneath Was that which ye brought up so outward fair! I stand a villain, and of villains born. O meeting of three ways, and lonely glen, And copse, and narrow pass at the cross-roads, That from my father's veins drank, by my hand, The blood which filled my own, remember ye, What ye beheld me do, and what I did Thereafter in this land? Marriage ill-starred, Thou gavest me birth, and then of me gave birth To a fresh offspring, and before the sun Showed fathers, brothers, children, parricides, Brides, wives, and mothers in unnatural train, With all things most abhorred among mankind. But what is foul to do is foul to hear,