CHAPTER III.
ŒDIPUS AT COLONUS.
Years are supposed to have passed away since the curtain fell on the horrors of the preceding tragedy. In the first burst of his despair, the one wish of Œdipus had been to leave Thebes with all its associations of guilt and misery, and to bury himself far from the haunts of men in the solitude of the desert. But an oracle forced him to remain on the scene of his crimes. Time gradually cooled his passion, and taught him resignation. Life once more gave him a taste of pleasure in the tender affection of his daughters; and it seemed as if the gods themselves had relented, and would allow him to die in peace. But Creon (his successor on the throne), with the consent, if not at the suggestion, of his own sons, Eteocles and Polynices, drove the aged king forth from Thebes, to be a wanderer on the face of the earth. Their excuse for this unnatural cruelty was, that they feared lest he should bring pollution on the land; but why (as Œdipus himself asks) had they waited these many years before they discovered the danger?
