Messenger
Good for thy consort and the royal house.
Jocasta
What may it be? Whose messenger art thou?
Messenger
From Corinth I. The message wherewithal
I stand entrusted thou shalt hear anon.
’Twill please thee surely, yet perchance offend.
Jocasta
Declare it and explain this double sense.
Messenger
The Isthmian commons have resolved to make
Thy husband king—so ’twas reported there.
Jocasta
What! is not aged Polybus still king?
Messenger
No, verily; he’s dead and in his grave.
Jocasta
What! is he dead, the sire of Oedipus?
Messenger
If I speak falsely, may I die myself.
Jocasta
Ye god-sent oracles, where stand ye now!
This is the man whom Oedipus long shunned,
In dread to prove his murderer; and now
He dies in nature’s course, not by his hand.