the other in mutual slaughter, and the earth’s dust has swallowed the black streams of their blood, who could offer sacrifice that might make purification? Who could cleanse them of their pollution?O, the new troubles of this house mixed with its evils of before!

ChorusIndeed I speak of the ancient transgression, now swift in its retribution. It remains even into the third generation,ever since Laius—in defiance of Apollo who, at his Pythian oracle at the earth’s center, said three times that the king would save his city if he died without offspring—