As the blood flows streaming from his ruptured veins.
Chorus: By fate we're driven; then yield to fate. 980
No anxious, brooding care can change
The thread of destiny that falls
From that grim spindle of the Fates.
Whate'er we mortals suffer here,
Whate'er we do, all hath its birth
In that deep realm of mystery.
Stern Lachesis her distaff whirls, 985
Spinning the threads of mortal men,
But with no backward-turning hand.
All things in ordered pathways go;
And on our natal day was fixed
Our day of death. Not God himself
Can change the current of our lives,
Which bears its own compelling force 990
Within itself. Each life, goes on
In order fixed and absolute,
Unmoved by prayer. Nay fear itself
Has been by many found a bane;
For, while they sought to shun their fate,
They came upon it in their flight.
But now the palace gates resound, and see, 995
The sightless king himself, with none to guide,
Takes hitherward his blind and groping way.
[Enter Oedipus.]
Oedipus: Now all is well and finished; to my sire
I've paid the debt I owed. How sweet these shades!
What god, at length appeased, hath wrapped my head
In a pall of darkness, and my crimes forgiven? 1000
Now have I 'scaped the conscious eye of day;
And nothing dost thou owe, O parricide,
To thine avenging hand. Thy sight is gone,
And such a countenance becomes thee well.
[Enter Jocasta.]
Chorus: See where with hurried step Jocasta comes,
Beside herself and overcome with grief; 1005
As when in maddened rage that Theban dame
Her son's head tore away and realized
