Euripides, Phoenician Women 1019–1066: Third choral song: the Sphinx, Oedipus, and praise for Menoeceus

You came, you came, O winged creature, born of earth and hellish viper, to prey upon the sons of Cadmus, full of death, full of sorrow, half a maiden, a murderous monster, with roving wings and ravening claws; you once caught up youths from the haunts of Dirce, with discordant song, and you brought, you brought a murderous grief, a deadly curse to our native land. A deadly god he was who brought all this to pass. Mourning of mothers, mourning of maidens, filled the houses with groans; a lamenting cry, a lamenting song, one after another wailed out, in turn throughout the city. The roar of the groaning was like thunder, whenever the winged maiden bore a man out of sight from the city.

At last came Oedipus, the man of sorrow, sent from Delphi to this land of Thebes, a joy to us then, but afterwards a cause of grief; for, when he guessed the riddle triumphantly, he formed with his mother an unhallowed union, woe to him! polluting the city; and striking down his sons by his curses, he handed them over to loathsome strife, through blood, the wretched man. We admire him, we admire him, who has gone to his death in his country’s cause, leaving tears to Creon, but bringing a crown of victory to our seven fenced towers. May we be mothers in this way, may we have such fair children, dear Pallas, you who with well-aimed stone spilled the serpent’s blood, rousing Cadmus to brood upon the task, from which a demon’s curse swooped upon this land and ravaged it.