OEDIPUS I'm so afraid, Lady, that I've said far
too much. That's the reason I wish to see him now.
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OEDIPUS I'll make him come. But I think I've a right
to know what so deeply disturbs you, Lord.
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OEDIPUS So much of what I dreaded has happened,
I will tell you everything I fear.
900 No one has more right than you do,
to know the risks to which I'm now exposed.
Polybos of Corinth was my father.
My mother was Merope, a Dorian.
I was the leading citizen there
until this chance happening
challenged me. Shocking enough
but I took it much too hard.
It was this: a drunk man at a feast swore
that I was not Polybos' real son.
910 Though seething, I said nothing. All that day
I barely held it in. But next morning
I put my question to mother and father.
They were enraged at this man, and the insult
he'd shot at me. Their words reassured me.
Yet, the thing kept pounding in my mind.
It stalked me. So, without telling my parents,
I traveled to the Pythian oracle.
But Apollo would not honor me
with the knowledge I craved.
920 Instead,
his words flashed other things
horror and disgustat me:
that I would be my mother's lover,
that I would show a kind of children to the world
it could not bear to look at, that I
would murder the father whose seed I am.
Once I had heard the god say that, I fled
far from Corinth, measuring my distance
from home by its place in the stars. I ran
930 for someplace where I'd never see come true
outrages like those predicted for me.
But my flight carried me to just the place
where you say that the king was killed.
Oh, woman, here is the truth.
As I strode toward those joining paths
a herald, a colt-drawn wagon, and a man
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