Who now am seen owing my birth to those
To whom I ought not, and with whom I ought not
In wedlock living, whom I ought not slaying."

Horrors still thicken in this terrible tragedy. Word is brought
to OEdipus that Jocasta is dead--dead by her own hand! He rushes in:

Then came a sight
Most fearful. Tearing from her robe the clasps,
All chased with gold, with which she decked herself,
He with them struck the pupils of his eyes,
With words like these--"Because they had not seen
What ills he suffered and what ills he did,
They in the dark should look, in time to come,
On those whom they ought never to have seen,
Nor know the dear ones whom he fain had known."
With such-like wails, not once or twice alone,
Raising his eyes, he smote them; and the balls,
All bleeding, stained his cheek, nor poured they forth
Gore drops slow trickling, but the purple shower
Fell fast and full, a pelting storm of blood.

The now blind and wretched OEdipus, bewailing his fate and the
evils he had so unwittingly brought upon Thebes, begs to be cast
forth with all speed from out the land.

OEdipus. Lead me away, my friends, with utmost speed
Lead me away; the foul, polluted one,
Of all men most accursed,
Most hateful to the gods.