Laius I protect myself, for whoever slew Laius might turn a hand against me. Come, my children, rise up from the altar steps; lift up these suppliant boughs and let all the children of Cadmus be called hither that I may search out everything and find for all happiness or misery as god wills.
Priest. May Phoebus, sender of the oracle, come with it and be our saviour and deliverer.
(The Chorus enter.)
Chorus. What message comes to famous Thebes from the Golden House?
What message of disaster from that sweet-throated Zeus?
What foul things that our fathers saw, do the seasons bring?
Or what that no man ever saw, what new monstrous thing?
Trembling in every limb I raise my loud importunate cry,
And in a sacred terror wait the Delian god’s reply.
Apollo chase the god of death that leads no shouting men,
Bears no rattling shield and yet consumes this form with pain,
Famine takes what the plague spares, and all the crops are lost;
