758 Jocasta Certainly no; for as soon as he came from that place and strength saw you bearing Laius having been killed he successfully entreated taking my hands to send him to the fields being grazed by sheep, just as the greatest was such out of sight from the town. And I sent him; for worthy is this slave man was to carry this and bigger favors. Oed Could he come back to us in swiftness? Jo It is possible. But to what purpose do you order this? Oed I fear for myself, oh wife, not very much saying it was me, wherefore I am willing to see him. Jo But he will come; it is worth to learn where and I indeed in bearing your heaviness, lord. Oed And indeed you will not be deprived of such forebodings of my standing; for to whom better could I speak than you, being through whom such luck? My father was Polybus the Corinthian, my mother Merope the Dorian. I was brought from a man of the great city there, before the act that placed me here, to marvel at my right, for indeed my speed is not a right; for a man in a banquet being overfilled with strong drink over his wine called me a counterfeit of my father. And I, being oppressed that day, only just held back, the next day going up to my mother and father I questioned them; heavy rebuke was brought on he who let those words loose. And I had delighted in that, still this always irritated me; for it crept upon me greatly. Secretly from my mother and father I prepared to go to Pythia, and I came to Apollo and was sent away unhonored, but wretched and terrible and unfortunate and deprived of words, just as it was necessary for my mother to have intercourse, the race insufferable to men to look upon, I would become killer of the father who sired me. And I heard this, I fled Corinth, henceforth calculating the earth by the stars, where I would never see the shame of the evil prophecy fulfilled. Walking from there I came to these places in which you say this ruler died. And to you, my wife, I will speak the truth; thrice travelling on that road nearby, when both a herald and a man in a horse-drawn chariot trod roughly upon me, just as you said, I met face to face, and the leader and an older man himself drove me from the road by force. And I, turning aside, struck the charioteer in anger, and the older man, just as I saw, watching out as he passed in the carriage, struck down on the middle of my head with a double goad. Indeed he paid for that, but immediately striking the staff from his hands he rolled straight from the middle of the chariot onto his back; I killed the lot of them. If he is a foreigner, or has any relationship to Laius, [Why is this man so wretched?] What man is more hated by the gods since birth whom it is impossible for anyone in the city to receive as a guest, who may not be addressed, who must be thrust from the home? Perhaps it is another who was rather than I myself who has brought this tragedy I have stained the bed of death by my own hands, that killed him. Am I vile? Is everything not defiled?If I must flee and my fleeing is not mine to see and not to inherit the homeland, or rather by my marriage must be yoked to my mother and kill my father, Polybus, he who reared and begot me. Why from these crude gods if separating myself from men may set the law straight? Surely not, surely not, by the holy and revered gods, may I see that day, but from the wound steps invisible before rather than to see these stains on me coming from these events. Chorus As for us, lord, we are timid; until you learn it from he who was present, have hope. And certainly such hope is mine, if only while I wait for this man, this herdsman. Jo And where this willingness when it has been discovered? Oed I will tell you; for it was upon hearing those words from you, that I indeed fled from calamity. Jo What remarkabe words did you hear from me? Oed You spoke describing the robbers as many men that killed him; if he still says the same number, I did not kill him; for it could not have been me unless one is the same as many. If he says the man was clearly alone, then the deed falls to me. Jo But that was the account he gave, he cannot now take it back; for the whole city heard it, and not I alone. If he does turn aside from his previous words, when they, lord, seek the truth of Laius' murder, then what Loxias said about the child from me is dead. And indeed that poor wretched child did not slay him, but he died before then; so the prophecy was not true neither I have seen, nor anyone last.
