And so may Merope, my mother, know

The marriage of her Polybus alone,

As from my grasp no favoring power shall snatch

That guilty one, who basely slew the king.

But tell me, where was that foul murder done?

In open fight, or was he basely snared?275

Creon: In quest of cool Castalia's sacred fount

And leafy woods, along the way he fared,

On either side with tangled thickets hedged.

'Twas where the road, three-forked, spreads to the plain.