_Messenger:_ When Oedipus his impious race perceived, 915 And saw the warning fates had been fulfilled; When on a hideous charge he stood condemned; Then, with a deadly purpose in his breast, Did he approach his palace, and in haste Beneath those hated battlements he went. And as a lion rages o'er the sands, And, threat'ning, tosses back his tawny mane; 920 So Oedipus advanced with blazing eyes, And stern, mad face, while hollow groans burst forth, And from his limbs there dripped a chilling sweat. He foams and vents a stream of threat'ning words, And from his heart his mighty grief o'erflows. He in his madness seeks against himself 925 Some heavy penalty and like his fate. "Why do I wait for punishment?" he cries; "Let my guilty heart with hostile sword be pierced, Or overwhelmed with flames or crushing rocks! Oh, for a tiger or some bird of prey, To rend my tender flesh! Do thou thyself, Who hast beheld full many deeds of blood, 930 O cursed Cithaeron, from thy forests send Thy wild beasts 'gainst me or thy greedy dogs. Oh, that Agave were returned to earth! But thou, my soul, why dost thou shrink from death? For death alone can make thee innocent." So spake he, and his impious hand he laid 935 Upon the hilt and drew his glittering sword. "And dost thou, then, with this brief punishment Expect to pay thy mighty debt of guilt, And with one blow wilt balance all thy sins? Thy death would satisfy thy murdered sire; But what to appease thy mother wilt thou do, And those thy children, shamefully begot? What recompense canst make unto thy land, 940 Which for thy sin is smit with pestilence? Such debts as these thou canst not pay by death. Let Nature, who, in Oedipus alone, Strange births devising, hath her laws o'erturned, Subvert herself again to punish him. Let it be mine, in never-ending round, 945 To live and die, and to be born again, That for my crimes by never-ending pain I may atone. Now use thy wit, poor soul. Since by repeated death thou canst not die, Choose then some form of lingering death in life, Some way by which, not numbered with the dead, Nor yet the living, thou mayst linger on. 950 So die, that in thy death thou mayst remain Without the land wherein thy father dwells. O soul, why dost thou hesitate?" And then A sudden stream of tears o'erspread his face, And wet his cheeks. "And can my tears suffice? Too long my eyes these useless showers have poured; 955 Nay, let them follow where the tears have flowed, From out their sockets driven. O gods of wedlock, Is this enough? These eyes must be removed." He spoke with frenzied rage; and all the while His cheeks were flaming with a dangerous light,