CRE.  What sayest thou, what word is this thou hast spoken, old man?

TIR.  As circumstances are, thus also oughtest thou to act.

CRE.  O thou, that hast said many evils in a short time!

TIR.  To thee at least; but to thy country great and salutary.

CRE.  I heard not, I attended not; let the city go where it will.

TIR.  This is no longer the same man; he retracts again what he said.

CRE.  Farewell! depart; for I have no need of thy prophecies.

TIR.  Has truth perished, because thou art unfortunate?

CRE.  By thy knees I implore thee, and by thy reverend locks.

TIR.  Why kneel to me? the evils thou askest are hard to be controlled. 
(Note [E].)

CRE.  Keep it secret; and speak not these words to the city.

TIR.  Dost thou command me to be unjust?  I can not be silent.

CRE.  What then wilt thou do to me?  Wilt thou slay my son?

TIR.  These things will be a care to others; but by me will it be spoken.

CRE.  But from whence has this evil come to me, and to my child?

TIR.  Well dost thou ask me, and comest to the drift of my discourse.  It is necessary that he, stabbed in that cave where the earth-born dragon lay, the guardian of Dirce’s fountain, give his gory blood a libation to the earth on account of the ancient wrath of Mars against Cadmus, who avenges the slaughter of the earth-born dragon; and these things done, ye shall obtain Mars as your ally.  But if the earth receive fruit in return for fruit, and mortal blood in return for blood, ye shall have that land propitious, which formerly sent forth a crop of men from seed armed with golden helmets; but there must of this race die one, who is the son of the dragon’s jaw.  But thou art left among us of the race of those sown men, pure in thy descent, both by thy mother’s side and in the male line; and thy children too:  Haemon’s marriage however precludes his being slain, for he is not a youth, [for, although he has not approached her bed, he has yet contracted the marriage.] But this youth, devoted to this city, by dying may preserve his native country.  And he will cause a bitter return to Adrastus and the Argives, casting back death over their eyes, and Thebes will he make illustrious:  of these two fates choose the one; either preserve thy child or the state.  Every information from me thou hast:—­lead me, my child, toward home;—­but whoever exercises the art of divination, is a fool; if indeed he chance to show disagreeable things, he is rendered hateful to those to whom he may prophesy; but speaking falsely to his employers from motives of pity, he is unjust as touching the Gods.—­Phoebus alone should speak in oracles to men, who fears nobody.

CREON, MENOECEUS, CHORUS.

CHOR.  Creon, why art thou mute compressing thy voice in silence, for to me also there is no less consternation.