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Oedipus Tyrannus (988-1022)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0011.tlg004.perseus-eng2:988-1022
Refs {'start': {'reference': '988', 'human_reference': 'Line 988'}, 'end': {'reference': '1022', 'human_reference': 'Line 1022'}}
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Great, I know. But my fear is of her who lives.
Messenger
And who is the woman about whom you fear?
Oedipus
Merope, old man, the consort of Polybus.
Messenger
And what is it in her that moves your fear?
Oedipus
A divine oracle of dread import, stranger.
Messenger
Proper, or improper, for another to know?
Oedipus
Proper, surely. Loxias once said that I was
doomed to marry my own mother, and to shed with my own hands my father’s blood. For which reasons I long shirked my home in Corinth—with a happy outcome, to be sure, but still it is sweet to see the face of one’s parents.
999
Messenger
Was it really for fear of this that you became an exile from that city?
Oedipus
And because I did not wish, old man, to be the murderer of my father.
Messenger
Why have I not relieved you of this second fear, my lord, since I came to give you pleasure?
Oedipus
And indeed you will have worthy thanks from me.
Messenger
And indeed I came specially for this, that
I might profit from your returning home.
Oedipus
But by no means will I ever go near my parents again.
Messenger
My son, it is crystal clear that you do not know what you are doing.
Oedipus
How so, old man? In the name of the gods, tell me.
Messenger
If on account of this you are fleeing from returning home.
Oedipus
Fearing indeed lest Apollo’s prophecy come true in me.
Messenger
Lest you acquire some pollution from your parents?
Oedipus
This very thing, old man, this constantly frightens me.
Messenger
Do you know, then, that your fears are wholly in vain?
Oedipus
⋯How so, if I was born of those parents?
Messenger
Because you had no blood in common with Polybus.
Oedipus
What are you saying? Was Polybus not my father?
Messenger
Just as much, and no more, than he who speaks to you.
Oedipus
And how can my father be equal to him who is as though nothing to me?
Messenger
But he did not father you, any more than I did.
Oedipus
How, then, did he call me his son?
Messenger
Long ago he received you as a gift from my hands.

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