(Str. 2)
     Ah me, what countless woes are mine! 
     All our host is in decline;
     Weaponless my spirit lies. 
     Earth her gracious fruits denies;
     Women wail in barren throes;
     Life on life downstriken goes,
     Swifter than the wind bird’s flight,
     Swifter than the Fire-God’s might,
     To the westering shores of Night.

(Ant. 2)
     Wasted thus by death on death
     All our city perisheth. 
     Corpses spread infection round;
     None to tend or mourn is found. 
     Wailing on the altar stair
     Wives and grandams rend the air—­
     Long-drawn moans and piercing cries
     Blent with prayers and litanies. 
     Golden child of Zeus, O hear
     Let thine angel face appear!

(Str. 3)
And grant that Ares whose hot breath I feel,
          Though without targe or steel
He stalks, whose voice is as the battle shout,
May turn in sudden rout,
To the unharbored Thracian waters sped,
          Or Amphitrite’s bed. 
     For what night leaves undone,
     Smit by the morrow’s sun
Perisheth.  Father Zeus, whose hand
Doth wield the lightning brand,
Slay him beneath thy levin bold, we pray,
          Slay him, O slay!

(Ant. 3)
O that thine arrows too, Lycean King,
          From that taut bow’s gold string,
Might fly abroad, the champions of our rights;
          Yea, and the flashing lights
Of Artemis, wherewith the huntress sweeps
          Across the Lycian steeps. 
Thee too I call with golden-snooded hair,
          Whose name our land doth bear,
Bacchus to whom thy Maenads Evoe shout;
          Come with thy bright torch, rout,
               Blithe god whom we adore,
               The god whom gods abhor.

[Enter Oedipus.]
Oedipus
Ye pray; ’tis well, but would ye hear my words
And heed them and apply the remedy,
Ye might perchance find comfort and relief. 
Mind you, I speak as one who comes a stranger
To this report, no less than to the crime;
For how unaided could I track it far
Without a clue?  Which lacking (for too late
Was I enrolled a citizen of Thebes)
This proclamation I address to all:—­
Thebans, if any knows the man by whom
Laius, son of Labdacus, was slain,
I summon him to make clean shrift to me. 
And if he shrinks, let him reflect that thus
Confessing he shall ’scape the capital charge;
For the worst penalty that shall befall him
Is banishment—­unscathed he shall depart. 
But if an alien from a foreign land
Be known to any as the murderer,
Let him who knows speak out, and he shall have
Due recompense from me and thanks to boot. 
But if ye still keep silence, if through fear
For self or friends ye disregard my hest,
Hear what I then resolve; I lay my ban
On the assassin whosoe’er he be.