Oedipus
Break forth what will! Be my race ever so lowly, I crave to learn it. That woman perhaps—for she is proud with more than a woman’s pride—feels ashamed of my lowly origin. But I, who hold myself son of Fortune that gives good, will not be dishonored. She is the mother from whom I spring, and the months, my kinsmen, have marked me sometimes lowly, sometimes great. Such being my heritage, never more can I prove false to it, or keep from searching out the secret of my birth.
Chorus
If I am a seer or wise of heart, Cithaeron, you will not fail—by heaven, you will not—to know at tomorrow’s full moon that Oedipus honors you as native to him, as his nurse, and his mother, and that you are celebrated in our dance and song, because you are well-pleasing to our prince. O Phoebus to whom we cry, may these things find favor in your sight!
Chorus
Who was it, my son, who of the race whose years are many, that bore you in wedlock with Pan, the mountain-roaming father? Or was it a bride of Loxias that bore you? For dear to him are all the upland pastures. Or perhaps it was Cyllene’s lord, or the Bacchants’ god, dweller on the hill-tops, that received you, a new-born joy, from one of the nymphs of Helicon, with whom he most often sports.
Oedipus Elders, if it is right for me, who have never met the man, to guess, I think I see the herdsman we have been looking for for a long time. In his venerable old age he tallies with this stranger’s years, and moreover I recognize those who bring him, I think, as servants of mine. But perhaps you have an advantage in knowledge over me, if you have seen the herdsman before.
Chorus Yes, I know him, be sure. He was in the service of Laius—trusty as any shepherd.
Oedipus I ask you first, Corinthian stranger, if this is the man you mean.
Messenger He is, the one you are looking at.
Oedipus You, old man—look this way and answer all that I ask—were you once in the service of Laius?
Servant I was—not a bought slave, but reared in his house.
Oedipus Employed in what labor, or what way of life?
Servant For the better part of my life I tended the flocks.
Oedipus And what regions did you most frequently haunt?
Servant Sometimes Cithaeron, sometimes the neighboring ground.
Oedipus Are you aware of ever having seen this man in these parts?
Servant Doing what? What man do you mean?
Oedipus This man here. Have you ever met him before?
Servant Not so that I could speak at once from memory.
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