Chorus. Ah, wretched one, alike in soul and doom,
I fain could wish that I had never known thee.

OEdipus. Ill fate be his who from the fetters freed
The child upon the hills,
And rescued me from death,
And saved me--thankless boon!
Ah! had I died but then,
Nor to my friends nor me had been such woe.

A touching picture is presented in the farewell of OEdipus, on
departing from Thebes to wander an outcast upon the earth. The
tragedy concludes with the following moral by the chorus:

Chorus. Ye men of Thebes, behold this OEdipus,
Who knew the famous riddle, and was noblest.
Whose fortune who saw not with envious glances?
And lo! in what a sea of direst trouble
He now is plunged! From hence the lesson learn ye,
To reckon no man happy till ye witness
The closing day; until he pass the border
Which Severs life from death unscathed by sorrow.
--Trans. by E. H. PLUMPTRE.


Character of the Works of Sophocles.

The character of the works of Sophocles is well described in the
following extract from an Essay on Greek Poetry, by THOMAS NOON