But vainly with his wife's desire he strove,
And gave himself to love,
Begetting Oedipus, by whom he died,
The fateful parricide!
The sacred seed-plot, his own mother's womb,
He sowed, his house's doom,
A root of blood! by frenzy lured, they came
Unto their wedded shame.
antistrophe
3
And now the waxing surge, the wave of fate,
Rolls on them, triply great-
One billow sinks, the next towers, high and dark,
Above our city's bark-
Only the narrow barrier of the wal
Totters, as soon to fall;
And, if our chieftains in the storm go down,
What chance can save the town?
strophe
4
Curses, inherited from long ago,
Bring heavy freight of woe:
Rich stores of merchandise o'erload the deck,
Near, nearer comes the wreck-
And all is lost, cast out upon the wave,
Floating, with none to save!
Studies
