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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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Ah me! ah me! all brought to pass, all true! O light, may I behold thee nevermore! I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed, A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed! [Exit OEDIPUS] CHORUS (Str. 1) Races of mortal man Whose life is but a span, I count ye but the shadow of a shade! For he who most doth know Of bliss, hath but the show; A moment, and the visions pale and fade. Thy fall, O OEDIPUS, thy piteous fall Warns me none born of women blest to call. (Ant. 1) For he of marksmen best, O Zeus, outshot the rest, And won the prize supreme of wealth and power. By him the vulture maid Was quelled, her witchery laid; He rose our savior and the land's strong tower. We hailed thee king and from that day adored Of mighty Thebes the universal lord. (Str. 2) O heavy hand of fate! Who now more desolate, Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire? O OEDIPUS, discrowned head, Thy cradle was thy marriage bed; One harborage sufficed for son and sire. How could the soil thy father eared so long Endure to bear in silence such a wrong? (Ant. 2) All-seeing Time hath caught Guilt, and to justice brought The son and sire commingled in one bed. O child of Laius' ill-starred race Would I had ne'er beheld thy face; I raise for thee a dirge as o'er the dead. Yet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath, |
