Jocasta. What news? From whence have you come?
Messenger. From Corinth, and you will rejoice at the message I am about to give you; yet, maybe, it will grieve you.
Jocasta. What is it? How can it have this double power?
Messenger. The people of Corinth, they say, will take him for king.
Jocasta. How then? Is old Polybius no longer on the throne?
Messenger. No. He is in his tomb.
Jocasta. What do you say? Is Polybius dead, old man?
Messenger. May I drop dead if it is not the truth.
Jocasta. Away! Hurry to your master with this news. O oracle of the gods, where are you now? This is the man whom Oedipus feared and shunned lest he should murder him, and now this man has died a natural death, and not by the hand of Oedipus.
(Enter Oedipus.)
Oedipus. Jocasta, dearest wife, why have you called me from the house?
Jocasta. Listen to this man, and judge to what the oracles of the gods have come.
Oedipus. And he—who may he be? And what news has he?
