Jocasta, in Œdipus the King of Sophocles, is a very real woman. Moreover, though she is a splendidly dramatic figure, she is not heroic in anything save her death. True, she is a queen, deriving royalty through several generations from Cadmus himself; and possessing the throne of Thebes so surely that when the king her husband died she had perforce to marry with his successor in order to establish him in the kingship. But despite her special royalty, which makes her, as Professor Murray has pointed out, like one of the consecrated queens of early times: despite the extreme deference which is paid to her, the weight that attaches to her counsel, and the sense of brooding fate that clings about her, she is before all an appealing and convincing human creature.

This vivid reality is a new fact in our study of Greek heroines, and the reason for it is that we have come now to the Drama of Sophocles. We have seen, so far, the women of Homer and those of Æschylus; and we have observed one or two characteristics which distinguish them.

The Homeric women are gracious and beautiful, glowing as it were with romantic charm. With one notable exception, Penelope, they appear rarely in the movement of the epic; and then only to form the central figure in a picturesque group. Reality has never touched them. Generous as their emotions are, the extremes of passion have not for an instant distorted their loveliness. When they are called upon to act, they seem always to move with grace and gentleness; and even in their sorrow they are serene. If they share in the great stern things of life, its aspiration and its struggle, they give no sign of the penalty exacted. They are always young, fresh and fair; except again Penelope, and she has only gained from age, not lost. A wise maturity has been added to her early charms. And thus these Homeric women, with their delicate infrangible bloom, seem to belong to a region just over the boundary-line of our common humanity.

The women of Æschylus are much greater figures. Clytemnestra is colossal: Cassandra, Electra and Io are all conceived majestically. Unlike the Epic women, they are capable of strenuous action: strong passions sway them, and they are much concerned with the great issues of life. We know little or nothing about their appearance, and it does not seem to matter. They do not live in our mental vision pictorially, in soft, warm tints; but remotely grand, they appeal to a more austere sense of wonder, awe and reverence. Surrounded by an atmosphere of myth, and sharing in the elevation of the poet’s spirit, they seem to be creatures of an older and a bigger world.

There is indeed one woman in the Æschylean Drama, Orestes’ nurse, who is of ordinary stature and might belong to any age. But she is of minor importance in the story, and does not move on the heroic plane. She is therefore beyond the range of that sublimating power of the poetic spirit which magnified the heroes and heroines to immense proportions. And as she stands in the clear daylight outside the enchanted circle she is just an old grey woman taken straight out of common life. But for that very reason there is a hearty, homely breath about her which is very refreshing. She is but a nurse: she is quaint and querulous in her talk, inept, wordy and reminiscent; and peevishly loyal. Yet in her very weakness and foolishness she is precious, for is she not a flash from the eyes of the Comic Spirit, naÏvely unconscious of its august surroundings? We feel that we can actually see and hear her, as she gabbles about Orestes’ babyhood and how she tended him; being nurse, cook, foster-mother and washerwoman all combined. But she is unique among Æschylean women, and when we turn to look again on the figures of his heroines, a thought is suggested by the extreme contrast. Here is creative genius so strong that it has evoked on the one hand the grandeur of a Clytemnestra; and on the other, the biting reality of this old slave. But there does not seem to have been an equivalent artistic power which, controlling the fervid idealism and combining it with his keen insight, would have produced types more fully and completely human.

Such types we find first when we come to the Drama of Sophocles. With Æschylus the ruling passion had been spiritual fervour. In Sophocles the artist reigned paramount. All the advance which his drama made, in plot, incident and character-building, was in the direction of a more perfect art. And although there was some inevitable loss—as for instance the curtailment of the lyrics by modifying the part of the Chorus; and their lower poetic flight—on the whole the gain is very great. In the matter of characterization, with which we are chiefly concerned, the change is one which brings us out of the region of demi-gods into the world of men and women.

When we say that the persons of Sophocles’s drama are real people, that is not to say that they are ‘realistic’ in the narrow sense of the word which conveys only what is average and actual. But it does mean that with all their splendour and dignity and fine achievement they are subject to our common humanity. They are not immune from the defects of their virtues. The passions which have led them to great deeds are potent agents of their downfall. It is the flaw within which helps to betray them.

For this reason, and also because the poet shows his characters moving in intimate human relationships, the women of Sophocles are intensely living creatures. Electra in her conflict with Chrysothomis, and Antigone with Ismene, are of the stuff of life; and the situations thus created are pure drama. Here two great natures clash. Closely bound by the ties of blood and affection, but at the opposite poles of temperament, the struggle between them is all the more bitter from the intimacy of their relationship. Both claim our esteem and both are sincerely confident in the purity of their intentions. But each mistrusts the other, believing her to be fatally misguided or wilfully blind. It is by this faculty of seeing all sides of an issue, or, as Matthew Arnold expressed it, “to see life steadily and see it whole,” that Sophocles has heightened and deepened the dramatic values of a story. Out of that, too, he has made Jocasta, with all her state and despite the unnatural horror with which she is touched, a pitiable figure.

Here again two noble natures, near and very dear to each other, are brought into conflict. In this case, however, there is an added element of tragic irony which increases the dramatic power threefold. For we know, as we watch the tender comradeship of Œdipus and Jocasta, that there is this sinister thing in the background, ready to flame out at any instant and make them loathsome in each other’s eyes. And the moment when the shameful truth is revealed, literally dragged to light by Œdipus to his own undoing, is perhaps the most awful in Greek tragedy.

The story belongs to the Theban cycle, of which we have already heard. It is older than Homer, who calls Jocasta Epicasta; and it had many variants. In the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey there is the quaint epitome of it which the hero gives when he is describing his visit to the World of the Dead. Among the shades which throng there he sees Jocasta.

This version agrees in the main with that of Sophocles, and points to the antiquity of the story. Even in those early times the fate of Jocasta and Œdipus was part of an ancient myth. Like the story of Io, remote ancestress of the founder of their city, it is a tale of wrong wrought upon mortals by a god. Perhaps it is not so primitive as the Io legend. There is nothing in it quite so naÏve as the idea of the heifer-maiden loved by the supreme god and mercilessly hunted by his jealous queen. The Olympian hierarchy is now established, with its system of greater and lesser gods, and Zeus at their head has grown, in accordance with the theory of Æschylus, wiser with age. Apollo is now the persecutor. And with the development in the divine order goes a corresponding complexity in the human elements of the story. The actors in it are the instruments of their own suffering. The inimical power is not now frank tyranny. Its victims even believe it to be friendly, or at least placable; and it is by their own deeds that the decree against them is brought to pass. Yet this apparent advance still leaves the story in a dark past, far behind the poets. And there are some aspects of it—the curse fulfilled by Œdipus of parricide and incest; and the stark unreason with which it was regarded—which make us feel that the primitive age has only just given place to one of gross superstition.

The essence of the tragedy lies in the double fact of Apollo’s hostility to Œdipus and Jocasta and their ignorance of it. When Laius and Jocasta were young upon the throne of Thebes they prayed to Apollo to give them a son. The oracle at Delphi replied to Laius, “I will give thee a son, but it is doomed that thou leave the sunlight by the hands of thy child.” Thus the decree was launched.

Laius and Jocasta trembled at the doom, and considered how it might be averted. When their son was born, they took a cruel and desperate means to save its father’s life. Three days after his birth they handed over the babe to a herdsman, to be exposed on Mt. Kithairon. And first they pierced his heels, to ensure his death. So Jocasta, out of love for her husband and fear of the oracle, brought herself to a deed which poisoned all her life. Yet it was of no avail against fate. For the man who took her babe had pity on it; and meeting a friendly herdsman who was in the service of Polybus, king of Corinth, he gave the child to him. Polybus and his queen Merope were childless; and the herdsman believed that they would welcome the little foundling. He was not mistaken: calling him Œdipus from his swelled feet, they brought him up as their son.

All went well until the boy had grown into manhood. Then one day a young companion, heated with wine, flung out a taunt about his birth. Œdipus, fully believing himself to be the son of Polybus and Merope, went to them with the story. They chastised the offender, but their replies to Œdipus’ questions left a doubt of his parentage rankling in his mind. He determined to satisfy himself once for all by an appeal to Apollo; and he travelled to Delphi to inquire of the oracle in person. The reply was terrible, and, unlike most oracular utterances, seemed only too clear. He was doomed, it said, to slay his father and marry with his mother. But the most vital point, the names of his parents, was not revealed; and Œdipus, still believing them to be Polybus and Merope, vowed never again to set foot in Corinth while they were living. So he hoped to avoid his doom; and he set out alone, along the road to Boeotia, and Thebes.

Now it happened that just about that time Thebes was afflicted by a strange monster. It was the Sphinx, sent by Hera to prey upon the city. Sitting upon a neighbouring hill, she claimed the life of every man who could not read her riddle—“What is the creature which is two-footed, three-footed and four-footed; and weakest when it has most feet?” No one could find the answer; and Thebes daily paid the toll of life to the monster. The people were in despair, when Laius the king set out to seek counsel at Delphi. Thus the unknown father and son were hourly approaching each other from east and west. Laius was accompanied by only four attendants. When his party came to a narrow pass in Phokis, at a place where three roads met, a young man appeared in the path before them. The slaves of Laius were insolent, and the young man’s blood was hot. A quarrel ensued. Three of the attendants were struck down; and Laius himself, aiming at the stranger from his chariot, was killed by a single blow. Œdipus had unwittingly slain his father; and the first part of the curse had fallen.

The fourth attendant of Laius, the very man who had given away Jocasta’s babe years before to the Corinthian herdsman, fled for his life. Arrived at Thebes, he reported the death of the king. But he feared to tell the whole truth: he dared not admit that he and his fellows had been overcome by one man; and he gave out that Laius had been slain by a band of robbers.

Meantime, Œdipus continued his wanderings; and some time afterward he came to Thebes. He found the city still harassed by the Sphinx, who seized her victims daily from among the Theban people. He learned too that their king had been killed by robbers whilst on a journey; and that the old prophet Tiresias, who should have been able to advise the people at such a crisis, was helpless. The young stranger seized his opportunity. He faced the Sphinx and solved her riddle, triumphantly naming the creature of her question to be Man. Whereupon she flung herself down from the hill on which she was stationed; and the people of Thebes at last had rest from their tormentor. They hailed Œdipus with joy; and in their gratitude they named him king in succession to Laius.

But the new king could not put aside the queen who already occupied the throne. Indeed, by a custom of those old times, he could not rightly become the king unless she married him. He had proved himself to the Theban people brave and wise, a ruler to be desired. Consideration for her people inclined Jocasta to him, and besides, he seemed to her just and kind. But more than all, there hung about him, in his carriage or his manner, something which brought a fleeting memory of Laius, and warmed her heart to him. So she consented that he should be her husband.

The curse on Œdipus was now complete. In perfect innocence, and though he had striven to keep his hands clean from the horror, he had slain his father and married with his mother. Yet no shadow of the truth fell on him. There were in Thebes two persons to whom it was known, or partly known. One was that slave born in Laius’s household who had given the infant prince to the herdsman from Corinth; and who had fled for his life when his master was killed at the cross-roads in Phokis. The other was the blind old prophet Tiresias. But neither spoke of what they knew. The slave kept silence from loyalty; and coming to the queen soon after her marriage, he besought her earnestly to send him back to serve in outland parts. Tiresias was merely prudent; and thought it best to bide the time of the god.

For many years no sign came. Jocasta and Œdipus, loving each other and beloved by their people, reigned happily in Thebes; Creon, Jocasta’s brother, sharing equally in the honour which was paid to them. Four children were born to the king and queen: two sons, named Eteocles and Polynices; and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. Life flowed so smoothly now that painful memories grew faint. Œdipus had almost forgotten the menace that rang in his ears at Delphi twelve years before; and Jocasta, though she would never forget that early act of cruelty, was not haunted so persistently now by the thought of her first-born. It seemed almost that Apollo had relented; that having fulfilled the letter of the doom, he had taken pity on the victims, and would leave them in happy ignorance. But he, too, was only waiting for a fitting moment—till Thebes should be most flourishing and Œdipus should have reached the top of fame. Then the blow fell. A sudden plague was sent upon the city, which ravaged all life like a blight. Flocks sickened; the harvest failed; and human creatures died in thousands, while Œdipus looked on, sore at heart for their misery, but powerless to help.

At this point of the story, Sophocles has opened the Œdipus, King of Thebes. The scene is before the royal palace, where a crowd of suppliants has gathered to implore the aid of the king. Œdipus comes out in person to receive them, and listens patiently while the old priest petitions him on their behalf. They have pathetic faith in him. There can be no doubt that he has power to succour them, for did he not of old save Thebes from the Sphinx? Perhaps too there is a touch of deeper meaning in their act, a hint of that duty laid on early kings, to die for their people in case of need. They come to lay on him the burden of the whole land’s sorrow. Œdipus answers them pityingly.

There has appeared to him only one hope; and days before he had grasped at it. He had sent Creon to Apollo’s House in Delphi, to inquire of the god what great thing the king must do to save his people. When the answer comes, he vows that he will not flinch. Whatever task Apollo may command, no matter how bitter, it shall be performed.

Even while Œdipus speaks shouts are heard announcing Creon’s return; and presently he delivers before them all the answer of the god.

But what is the unclean thing that is polluting the city? Œdipus does not know that it is himself; and he questions Creon until the oracular command seems clear to him—to hunt out and banish the murderers of Laius. The task seems hopeless. How is it possible, after all these years, to find the men who slew the king? But the oracle has said explicitly that it must be done; that they are still alive within the city; and Œdipus unhesitatingly takes the task upon him.

An assembly of the people is commanded, and Œdipus publicly makes known to them his purpose of tracking the murderers. In a great speech, full of tragic irony, he claims their help in his search. They are Thebans born; but he, a stranger to their town in those days when Laius was killed, had never seen the king. It is for them to seek and render up the men who murdered him. He calls upon them solemnly to reveal what they may know. They need not fear that harm will come to them, for he will promise to befriend the man who does this service to the State. He pauses. But there is of course no answer. Again he appeals to them, growing indignant now, because he believes that they are wilfully shielding the guilty. Will they not speak out, and save their city? Then he will make a decree against them. For those who refuse to denounce the murderers, they shall be outcast and shelterless, and none shall succour them in living or in dying. For those who will not lend him their active aid in his search, Nature herself shall frown upon them and deny them every blessing; whilst on the man himself who slew the king, the most awful curse shall fall.

As Œdipus, unconscious of what he is doing, invokes this terrible curse upon himself, a blind old man is slowly led in. He is the prophet Tiresias, for whom Œdipus has sent at the suggestion of Creon. He is the only mortal being who knows all the truth; and under peril of the ban that Œdipus has just proclaimed: in virtue of his office, he must needs proclaim it. How will he strike the blow at the great good king? By his sacred calling, and his great age, and his knowledge of the mesh of fate in which Œdipus has been caught, he should be merciful. But as we watch him we have strange doubts. It is not so much that he is unshorn, ragged and unclean; we have learned to be familiar with such things in these hermit-seers of an early age. But there is something in the lowering brow and twitching mouth that hints of an untamed soul in the unkempt body; and knowing the passionate heart of Œdipus himself, we tremble for the issue.

At first it would seem that our fears are groundless. Œdipus, who is calmer now, greets the prophet with profound respect; and laying bare the oracle, he begs most humbly for Tiresias’s help.

The prophet is calm too, awed by the thought of all that is impending. He answers hesitatingly at first, almost with a touch of pity and regret. He does know who is the murderer of Laius, but—he dare not, he cannot tell. Such a reply could only have one effect upon the tremendous anxiety of the king. Rendered helpless by his ignorance, his own keen wit cannot avail him one iota. He has perforce to ask and ask of these ineffectual creatures around him, only to be thrown back baffled again and again. For one moment he puts a curb upon his rising anger, as he tells Tiresias that his answer is not kind; and casting away all pride and dignity, he kneels at the prophet’s feet. But when in sullen words which give no light Tiresias doggedly replies that he will not speak, Œdipus’s wrath leaps out at him. Surely this man who knows God’s truth and will not declare it is no prophet, but a devil. And is it not probable therefore that he himself has had some hand in the murder of Laius? As the words fall, there is a sudden and malign change in Tiresias; and the dreadful truth which could not be won from him by entreaty, flashes out pitilessly in anger.

But such a wild utterance, smiting through a tempest of passion, carries no shade of conviction to Œdipus. It is but a horrible insult, which this old man, because he is feeble, thinks he may launch with impunity. Not until it has been thrice repeated does the full significance of it break upon him. Then a suspicion flashes into his mind. This is doubtless some conspiracy against him, prompted by Creon, the brother of his queen, to gain the throne. The foolish improbability of such a plot will not bear reflection for a moment; but the king’s impulsive nature is goaded by rage and mistrust. He turns fiercely upon Tiresias and roundly charges him with conspiring against his life.

The prophet retorts with an emphatic denial, but he is not content to stop there. In cold malignance, he repeats his foul accusation against the king, seeming to gloat over every word of the hideous charge and the penalty which his prophetic vision sees that the gods will exact from Œdipus—

To the infuriated king this frightful menace, like the crimes of which he is accused, seems to be the mere raving of madness; and he deigns no answer. The old man is led away; Œdipus enters the palace; and in the pause that follows the Chorus muse over the scene. They are bewildered and torn by doubt. They may not disbelieve the seer, but they cannot and will not believe that their beloved king has been guilty of deeds so vile. As they sing, Creon rushes on indignant; and he is followed a moment afterward by Œdipus. Here at last is an opportunity to strike out against the deadly thing which seems closing in around him. Creon is no old and blind opponent, before whose weakness his hands are tied; but a man of equal strength and rank whom, in his rashness, he believes to be his bitter enemy. Without a word of prelude or explanation, Œdipus flings down the gauntlet; and declares Creon, his comrade and the brother of his wife, to be a traitor. The charge is false and foolish, to every mind but that of the overwrought king. But reason cannot sway him now; Creon’s protests are futile, and his proofs of innocence mere words bereft of meaning. This knave who has plotted against him must die, and quickly, before his schemes can take effect. In vain Creon pleads for justice: in vain the leader of the Chorus tries to stem the king’s anger, With a rallying cry to his guards, Œdipus draws his sword upon Creon. But as he springs to the blow there suddenly appears in the doorway of the palace, Jocasta the queen. An immediate silence falls: weapons are lowered; and the queen advances slowly to the top of the palace steps. The Chorus move back, leaving Œdipus and Creon standing alone before her. She looks reproachfully into one shamed face after another and then, with gentle dignity, she speaks:

There is authority in her tone and in her words, none the less compelling because of the tender humanity below them. It calms the disputants: and as they recount to her the cause of the quarrel, emotions ebb and leave the cold facts, hard and ugly. It is clear that Œdipus has been rash in his accusations; and Jocasta counsels him to accept the oath of loyalty that Creon offers. Then, when the peace is made, and she and Œdipus remain alone, she begs him to tell her all that has happened. Œdipus sums the cause of the brawl in a few words—he believes that Creon is plotting against his life, by accusing him, through the instrumentality of Tiresias the seer, of the murder of Laius. At the mention of the seer there is a flash of scorn in Jocasta’s eyes, followed by a shadow of pain, as memory brings back the time when she trusted in the vain words of a prophet to her sorrow.

She recounts the story of the oracle that came to Laius, declaring that he should die by the hand of his son; and of the terrible means that they had taken to frustrate it, casting out their child to die upon the mountain.

As Jocasta speaks, we feel that time has not yet healed her wound. The thought of that unnatural deed of her young motherhood, is still so horrible to her that though she tries she cannot tell all the truth about it. She says that Laius gave the baby to the slave, whereas it was she herself. Remorse sweeps over her, and the bitterness which lies just below the surface of her life rises in revolt against the oracle which could tempt to such a deed. There is no impiety in her words. Her voice is reverent when she names the god. But for his corrupt interpreters her acute perception has nothing but contempt. Œdipus will do well to despise them too.

But the king has not observed her emotion. Something that she has said about the manner of Laius’ death has startled him. He asks her to repeat it. Yes, it was in Phokis, at a place where three roads met; and it happened just before the stranger Œdipus arrived. Œdipus is recalling fearfully his own encounter on such a spot. But what was Laius like?

In growing dread, hurried questions are put and answered; and all the details save one Œdipus finds to correspond with that old event. But that one may save him yet. For the attendant who returned had said that a band of robbers slew the king. He must be sent for instantly. Jocasta promises to do so; but may she not know all that is troubling him, and whither his questions tend?

Then, partly because he is instinctively seeking relief from the thoughts that oppress him: partly to refresh Jocasta’s memory and to clarify his own mind, he recounts all the story of his early life; of his parents Polybus and Merope, of his visit to Delphi, of his flight from the oracular decree, of the fierce encounter at the cross-roads in Phokis, and of how he slew the unknown rider in the chariot. At this point his voice falters:

He has one shred of hope, however. If the herdsman who returned spoke truth, clearly Œdipus was not the murderer. Jocasta repeats her promise to send for him, and as she leads the king into the palace she tries to soothe him. The herdsman certainly told the story exactly so:

The awful irony underlying her words prepares us for the next step of the revelation. Œdipus sees only one thing yet—that he may be the unwitting murderer. But what need to fear, says the queen, to comfort him, since the God had said that Laius should be slain at the hands of that poor dead babe? She is not really confident however. The king’s apprehension has secretly seized on her too; and presently she returns from the palace with her maidens, to pray at the altar of Apollo. She lays her husband’s grief before the god.

The answer to her prayer is very near; but bringing desolation in the guise of joy. Even as she kneels before the altar there comes a voice calling on the name of the king, as though it were the voice of the god himself. It is a stranger from Corinth; and the queen rises to receive his greeting.

He is the bearer of good news, he says; a message from the people of Corinth, to Œdipus. They have declared him to be their king, in the place of Polybus, who is dead. It seems good news indeed. Polybus dead, there is no need now for the anxious king to fear that oracular menace from Delphi; and Jocasta’s heart bounds at the thought.

Œdipus is hurriedly sent for, and, hearing the news confirmed from the lips of the messenger, is caught up suddenly on a wave of exultation. In the violent reaction from his lifelong terror there is a rush of joy which has something sinister in it, by its very excess. Jocasta was right. It was a lying oracle which said he should slay his father; and in the first sense of relief he vows that never again will he trust in seer-craft. But the words are hardly cold upon his lips, when he remembers that he has still one other thing to fear. The curse had been, “To slay his father and marry with his mother”; and while Queen Merope lives he must therefore always be an exile from Corinth. But Jocasta is not daunted. Possessed by her conviction that all oracles are false and evil, she tries to reason away his fear.

The Corinthian messenger, too, has caught at Œdipus’s words. Does the king fear Merope, believing her to be his mother? And is that the reason why he has never come to Corinth? Then let him set his mind at rest, for he, the herdsman of Polybus, happens to have sure knowledge that Œdipus is not the son of Merope. Œdipus and Jocasta stand amazed; and Œdipus presses the stranger for all that he knows. But at first he will not say more. He repeats that Œdipus is not the son of Polybus and Merope; but he shrinks from disclosing to the great king that he was an unknown foundling. He answers reluctantly to the eager questioning of Œdipus, who is now hot upon the scent of his mysterious parentage. Blindly, almost feverishly, with no hint of where each step is leading him, he stumbles on. But fear is awakening in Jocasta, as bit by bit the stranger reveals that he himself had given the infant to Polybus. But how came the child to him? And whence? Thus pursues the excited king, while Jocasta stands in silent suspense. The answer of the stranger smites her with a sudden prescience of what is coming. He says he found the babe in a high glen of Kithairon; and as, in rapid answer to the king, he tells of its poor maimed feet and of the Theban herdsman from whom he received it, the full truth falls upon Jocasta with a shattering blow. This man, the king, her husband, is none other than that outcast child, her son. But Œdipus does not see the horror yet; and as she stands rigid at his side one thought and one prayer fill her mind—that he may never know. But some frenzy seems to possess him, driving him to destroy himself. He turns to an officer of the Court. Where is the Theban herdsman of whom the stranger speaks? He must be sought, and made to say whence came the child that he gave to this stranger from Corinth. The officer replies hesitatingly; he thinks he must be the same man who was king Laius’ attendant, and who has already been sent for. But only the queen can tell of his whereabouts. Œdipus turns quickly on Jocasta, and then for the first time sees her anguish. But he has no clue to its cause. He cannot know that there has fallen on her misery worse than death; and that with all the strength of body and soul she is trying to shield him from it. He can see only a fear, which seems to him contemptible, that he may prove to be base-born. Impatience leaps to anger as she tries to evade his questions; and he replies with a taunt at what he believes to be her pride.

It seems at this word that all Jocasta’s strength breaks down. The malign power that is driving Œdipus onward is too great for her, and she cannot strive against it any longer. She can only wail in answer:

And then, as Œdipus turns roughly from her, all his tenderness shrivelled to scorn and wrath, the last link snaps. In another moment he will know the truth; and knowing it, she will be loathsome and abhorrent in his eyes. The thought brings intolerable pain. She craves relief, escape, and, swiftly—before Œdipus can learn what he is seeking, before his accusing eyes can meet her own—annihilation. With an imploring gesture, she takes one step toward him.

But Œdipus does not heed her; and with wild eyes, she flies into the palace, to die by her own hand. And when the great king, brought at last to see the truth which casts him lower than the meanest slave, thinks to avenge his wrongs on her, he finds that she has taken vengeance on herself. Before her pitiful dead body his wrath is turned to loathing of himself; and the hand that was raised against her, smites the light for ever from his own eyes.