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—

ChorusEver since he, overcome by the thoughtlessness of his longing, fathered his own death, the parricide Oedipus, who sowed his mother’s sacred field, where he was nurtured,and endured a bloody crop. Madness united the frenzied bridal pair.

ChorusNow it is as if a sea of evils pushes its swell onward. As one wave sinks, the sea raises up another,triple-crested, which crashes around the city’s stern. In between a narrow defense stretches—no wider than a wall. I fear that the city will be overthrown along with its kings.

ChorusFor the compensation is heavy when curses uttered long ago are fulfilled, and once the deadly curse has come into existence, it does not pass away. When the fortune of seafaring merchants has grown too great,