JOCASTA Old man, are you saying that Polybos has died?
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MESSENGER Kill me if that's not the truth.
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(Jocasta turns to a servant girl, who runs inside.)
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JOCASTA Girl, run to your master with this news.
1100 You oracles of the gods! Where are you now?
The man Oedipus feared he would kill,
the man he ran from, that man's dead.
Chance killed him, not Oedipus. Chance!
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(Oedipus enters quickly from the palace.)
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OEDIPUS Darling Jocasta, my loving wife,
why did you ask me to come out?
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JOCASTA Listen to what this man has to say.
See what it does to god's proud oracle.
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OEDIPUS Where is he from? What is the news he has?
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JOCASTA From Corinth. He says Polybos your father is dead.
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1110 OEDIPUS Say it, old man. I want to hear it from your mouth.
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MESSENGER If the plain tact is what you want first,
have no doubt he is dead and gone.
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OEDIPUS Was it treason, or did disease bring him down?
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MESSENGER A slight push tips an old man into stillness.
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OEDIPUS Then it was some sickness that killed him?
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MESSENGER That, and the long years he had lived.
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OEDIPUS Oh yes, wife, why should we search Pythian smoke
or be terrorized by birds screaming up there?
If signs like these had been telling the truth
1120 I would have killed my father. But he's dead.
He's safely in the ground, and I'm here,
who never raised a spear. Unless
he died of longing for me, and that
is what my killing him means. No more than that.
This time, Polybos' death has swept
those worthless oracles with him to Hades.
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JOCASTA Didn't I promise you before they were worthless?
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OEDIPUS You did. But I was too worried to believe you.
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JOCASTA It's time to stop caring about all this.
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