How does the Chorus react to what has happened?

CHORUS

Oh, generations of men, Your lives add up to nothing.

What happiness

Man thinks he has

Is only an illusion. It glitters for a moment And then fades away.

I count no man happy, Oedipus, When I see you and your suffering, You and your fate.

You stretched your bow and hit the mark!

Yes, by God, no one more successful and fortunate Than when you slew the riddle-singing siren

Of the curved claws.

You protected our country,

And stood like a wall against death!

That’s why you are called my king, Honored with the greatest honors, Ruler over mighty Thebes.

What can be worse than what followed?

A life overturned,

Companion to suffering and wild destruction?

One generous harbor

Received both child and father

When they entered their marriage bed.

How long, how long could the field Plowed by your father Bear it all in silence?

Time, the all-seeing,

Has found you out, all unwilling,

And judged you of old,

Indicting that marriage that was no marriage, Father, not father, and child, not child, But both one and the same.

O son of Laius, How I wish, how I wish, Never to have seen you.

Streaming from my lips Is sorrow, bitter sorrow.

If I speak truly,

You gave me life again,

Only to close my eyes in their final sleep.