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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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OEDIPUS So of some malady he died, poor man. MESSENGER Yes, having measured the full span of years. OEDIPUS Out on it, lady! why should one regard The Pythian hearth or birds that scream i' the air? Did they not point at me as doomed to slay My father? but he's dead and in his grave And here am I who ne'er unsheathed a sword; Unless the longing for his absent son Killed him and so _I_ slew him in a sense. But, as they stand, the oracles are dead-- Dust, ashes, nothing, dead as Polybus. JOCASTA Say, did not I foretell this long ago? OEDIPUS Thou didst: but I was misled by my fear. JOCASTA Then let I no more weigh upon thy soul. OEDIPUS Must I not fear my mother's marriage bed. JOCASTA Why should a mortal man, the sport of chance, With no assured foreknowledge, be afraid? Best live a careless life from hand to mouth. This wedlock with thy mother fear not thou. How oft it chances that in dreams a man Has wed his mother! He who least regards Such brainsick phantasies lives most at ease. OEDIPUS I should have shared in full thy confidence, Were not my mother living; since she lives Though half convinced I still must live in dread. JOCASTA |
