_Manto_: Oh, what is this? For not, as is their wont, With gentle motion do the entrails quake, But, rather, strongly throb beneath the touch, While from the veins the blood leaps forth anew. 355 The sickly heart is shriveled up and lies Deep hidden in the breast; the veins appear Of livid hue. The entrails suffer lack; And from the wasting liver oozes slow A stream of black corruption. Nay, behold (A sign of dark foreboding to a king Who holdeth single sway), two swelling points Of equal elevation rise to view; 360 But both are lopped and covered with a veil. Refusing lurking-place to things unseen, The hostile side uprears itself with strength And shows seven swelling veins; but these, again, An intersecting line cuts straight across, Preventing their return. The natural law 365 And order of the parts has been reversed, And nothing lies within its proper place. All on the right the blood-filled lungs appear, Incapable of air; the heart no more Is found upon the left, its 'customed place. The fatty walls, with their soft covering, No longer richly fold the entrails in. 370 The ways of nature are in all things changed; The womb itself is most unnatural. Look close, and see what impious thing is this: Oh, monstrous! 'tis the unborn progeny Of a heifer still unmated! stranger still, It lies not in the wonted place, assigned By nature's laws, but fills its mother's side. 375 It moves its members with a feeble groan; Its unformed limbs with trembling rigors twitch. Black blood has stained the darkened entrails all; The mangled bodies strive e'en yet to move, Make show to rise, and menace with their horns The priestly hands. The entrails shun the touch. 380 Nor is that lowing which has frightened thee The deep-voiced roar of bulls, nor do the calls Of frightened cattle sound upon our ears: It is the lowing of the altar fires, It is the frightened muttering of the shrine! _Oedipus_: What meaning have these monstrous signs? Declare; And with no timid ears will I attend. 385 For he who has the dregs of fortune drained Fears nothing more. _Tiresias_: The time will come to thee, When these thy ills, for which thou seekest aid, Will blessings seem. _Oedipus_: But tell me then, I pray, The one thing which the gods would have me know: Whose hands are stained with murder of the king?