ACT I
Oedipus [to Antigone, who has followed him into exile]: O thou,
who guid'st thy blinded father's steps,
Sole comfort of my weary heart, my child,
Begotten at such heavy cost to me,
Leave thou the unpropitious way I tread.
Why shouldst thou seek to lead my feet aright
Which fain would wander? Let me stumble on. 5
Far better shall I find my way, alone,
The path that from the miseries of life
Shall take me, and the face of heaven and earth
Free from the sight of this ill-omened head.
hand of mine, how little hast thou done!
For, though I do not see the light of day
Which looked upon my crime, still am I seen.
Unclasp thy clinging hand from mine; permit 10
My sightless feet to wander where they will.
I go, I go where my Cithaeron lifts
His rugged crags on high; where to his dogs
Actaeon, speeding through the rocky ways,
Became a booty strange and pitiful;
Where through the dim old woods and dusky glades, 15
By Bacchic frenzy fired, the mother wild
Her sisters led, rejoicing in the crime,
When on the waving thyrsus' point she bore
The gory head of Pentheus; where the bull
Of Zethus rushed along, the mangled corpse
Of Dirce dragging (through the thorny briars 20
The mad beast's flight was traceable in blood);
Or where the cliff of Ino lifts its head
High o'er the heaving sea, into whose depths
The mother leaped, fleeing an unknown crime,
Yet daring other crime, by terror driven
To sink her son with her beneath the waves. 25
Oh, happy they whose better fortune gave
Mothers like these! There is another place
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