CH.  Thy long since slumbering woe I would not wake again, I 1
But yet I long to learn.

OED. What hidden lore?

CH.  The pain
That sprang against thy life with spirit-mastering force.

OED. Ah, sirs, as ye are kind, re-open not that source
Of unavoided shame.

CH.  Friend, we would hear the tale
Told truly, whose wide voice doth hourly more prevail.

OED. Misery!

CH.  Be not loth!

OED. O bitterness!

CH.  Consent. 
For all thou didst require we gave to thy content.

OED. Oh, strangers, I have borne an all-too-willing brand, I 2
Yet not of mine own choice.

CH.  Whence?  We would understand.

OED. Nought knowing of the curse she fastened on my head
Thebe in evil bands bound me.

CH.  Thy mother’s bed,
Say, didst thou fill? mine ear still echoes to the noise.

OED.  ’Tis death to me to hear, but, these, mine only joys,
Friends, are my curse.

CH.  O Heaven!

OED. The travail of one womb
Hath gendered all you see, one mother, one dark doom.

CH.  How?  Are they both thy race, and—­ II 1

OED. Sister branches too,
Nursed at the self-same place with him from whom they grew.

CH.  O horror!

OED. Ay, not one, ten thousand charged me then!

CH.  O sorrow!

OED. Never done, an ever-sounding strain.

CH.  O crime!

OED. By me ne’er wrought.

CH.  But how?

OED. The guerdon fell. 
Would I had earned it not from those I served too well.

CH.  But, hapless, didst thou slay—­ II 2

OED. What seek ye more to know?

CH.  Thy father?

OED. O dismay!  Ye wound me, blow on blow.

CH.  Thy hand destroyed him.

OED. Yes.  Yet lacks there not herein
A plea for my redress.

CH.  How canst thou clear that sin?

OED. I’ll tell thee.  For the deed, ’twas proved mine,—­Oh ’tis true! 
Yet by Heaven’s law I am freed:—­I wist not whom I slew.

CH.  Enough.  For lo! where Aegeus’ princely son,
Theseus, comes hither, summoned at thy word.

Enter THESEUS.