OED. I cannot say 'twas clear. Speak it again. TI. I say thou art the murderer whom thou seekest. OED. Again that baleful word! But thou shalt rue. TI. Shall I add more, to aggravate thy wrath? OED. All is but idleness. Say what thou wilt. TI. I tell thee thou art living unawares In shameful commerce with thy near'st of blood, Ignorant of the abyss wherein thou liest. OED. Think you to triumph in offending still? TI. If Truth have power. OED. She hath, but not for thee. Blind as thou art in eyes and ears and mind. TI. O miserable reproach, which all who now Behold thee, soon shall thunder forth on thee! OED. Nursed in unbroken night, thou canst not harm Or me, or any man who seeth the day. TI. No, not from me proceeds thy fall; the God, Who cares for this, is able to perform it. OED. Came this device from Creon or thyself? TI. Not Creon: thou art thy sole enemy. OED. O wealth and sovereign power and high success Attained through wisdom and admired of men, What boundless jealousies environ you! When for this rule, which to my hand the State Committed unsolicited and free, Creon, my first of friends, trusted and sure, Would undermine and hurl me from my throne, Meanly suborning such a mendicant Botcher of lies, this crafty wizard rogue, Blind in his art, and seeing but for gain. Where are the proofs of thy prophetic power? How came it, when the minstrel-hound was here, This folk had no deliverance through thy word? Her snare could not be loosed by common wit, But needed divination and deep skill; No sign whereof proceeded forth from thee Procured through birds or given by God, till I, The unknowing traveller, overmastered her, The stranger Oedipus, not led by birds, But ravelling out the secret by my thought: Whom now you study to supplant, and trust To stand as a supporter of the throne Of lordly Creon,--To your bitter pain Thou and the man who plotted this will hunt Pollution forth[2].--But for thy reverend look Thou hadst atoned thy trespass on the spot. 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.