Ponder my words; and if thou find them false,
Then say my power is naught in prophecy.
[Exeunt severally
Chorus.
Whom hath the voice from Delphi’s rocky throne I 1
Loudly declared to have done
Horror unnameable with murdering hand?
With speed of storm-swift car
’Tis time he fled afar
With mighty footstep hurrying from the land.
For, armed with lightning brand,
The son of Zeus assails him with fierce bounds,
Hunting with Death’s inevitable hounds.
Late from divine Parnassus’ snow-capped height I 2
This utterance sprang to light,
To track by every path the man unknown.
Through woodland caverns deep
And o’er the rocky steep
Harbouring in caves he roams the wild alone,
With none to share his moan.
Shunning that prophet-voice’s central sound,
Which ever lives, and haunts him, hovering round.
The reverend Seer hath stirred me with strange awe. II 1
Gainsay I cannot, nor yet think him true.
I know not how to speak. My fluttering heart
In wild expectancy sees nothing clear.
Things past and future with the present doubt
Are shrouded in one mist. What quarrel lay
’Twixt Cadmus’ issue and Corinthus’ heir
Was never shown me, from old times till now,
By one on whose sure word I might rely
In running counter to the King’s fair fame,
To wreak for Laius that mysterious death.
Zeus and Apollo scan the ways of men II 2
With perfect vision. But of mortals here
That soothsayers are more inspired than I
What certain proof is given? A man through wit
May pass another’s wisdom in the race.
