So deaths innumerable abound. II 2 My city's sons unpitied lie around Over the plague-encumbered ground And wives and matrons old on every hand Along the altar-strand Groaning in saddest grief Pour supplication for relief. Loud hymns are sounding clear With wailing voices near. Then, golden daughter of the heavenly sire, Send bright-eyed Succour forth to drive away this fire. And swiftly speed afar, III 1 Windborne on backward car, The viewless fiend who scares me with wild cries, To oarless Thracian tide, Of ocean-chambers wide, About the bed where Amphitrite lies. Day blights what night hath spared. O thou whose hand Wields lightning, blast him with thy thundrous brand. Shower from the golden string III 2 Thine arrows Lycian King! O Phoebus, let thy fiery lances fly Resistless, as they rove Through Xanthus' mountain-grove! O Thoeban Bacchus of the lustrous eye, With torch and trooping Maenads and bright crown Blaze on thee god whom all in Heaven disown. [OEDIPUS _has entered during the Choral song_ OED. Your prayers are answered. Succour and relief Are yours, if ye will heed my voice and yield What help the plague requires. Hear it from me, Who am hitherto a stranger to the tale, As to the crime. Being nought concerned therewith, I could not of myself divine the truth. But now, as one adopted to your state, To all of you Cadmeans I speak this: Whoe'er among you knoweth the murderer Of Laius, son of royal Labdacus, Let him declare the deed in full to me. First, if the man himself be touched with fear, Let him depart, carrying the guilt away; No harm shall follow him:--he shall go free. Or if there be who knows another here, Come from some other country, to have wrought This murder, let him speak. Reward from me And store of kind remembrance shall be his. But if ye are silent, and one present here Who might have uttered this, shall hold his peace, As fearing for himself, or for his friend, What then shall be performed, hear me proclaim. I here prohibit all within this realm Whereof I wield the sceptre and sole sway, To admit the murderer, whosoe'er he be, Within their houses, or to 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. So firm is mine allegiance to the God And your dead sovereign in this holy war. Now on the man of blood, whether he lurk In lonely guilt, or with a numerous band, I here pronounce this curse:--Let his crushed life Wither forlorn in hopeless misery. Next, I pray Heaven, should he or they be housed With mine own knowledge in my home, that I May suffer all I imprecate on them.