Who to the twain allotteth so much ground
To dwell on as they hold when slain,
Stript of all portion in their wide domain. 730
Strophe II.
But when in death they lie,
Spear-mangled, each by other slain;—
When drinks their native dust the gory rain.
Who then with lustral rites may purify?
Who cleanse them from that stain?
O horrors new upon this house that wait,
Blent with the direful ills of earlier date!
Antistrophe II.
For of the crime I tell
On which of old swift vengeance fell, 740
Yet whose dread issue the third age doth wait;
When Laios, 'gainst Apollo's will divine,
From Pythia's central shrine
Who thrice proclaimed the sacred oracle,
"Die without issue wouldst thou save the State,—"
Strophe III.
Yet he, by friends o'erpower'd, perverse of mind,
Begat his proper woe
In Œdipus, the parricide, who dared,
In field unhallow'd whence he sprang, to sow 750
A bloody offshoot. Frenzy blind
In wedlock the infatuate couple paired.
Antistrophe III.
And now a sea of ill leads wave on wave;—
