to the goddesses, and so obtain at their hands rest and pardon.
But Œdipus has not the strength for this ceremonial, and he deputes his daughters to pour the libations in his stead—giving as his reason what seems an unconscious prophecy of One whose life was offered as "a ransom for many"—
"For one soul working in the strength of love
Is mightier than ten thousand to atone."[1]
Perhaps, too, there was mingled with this reluctance the same feeling which made David shrink from consecrating the Temple. The offering to the Virgin Goddesses would surely be more acceptable from the pure hands of his daughters than from his, who had been "a man of war from his youth." So Horace afterwards declared that the flowers and meal-cakes of his village maiden had a sweeter savour than all the burnt-offerings of the rich.
"The costliest sacrifice that wealth can make,
From the incensed Penates less commands
A soft response, than doth the poorest cake,
If on the altar laid with spotless hands."[2]
Scarcely have Antigone and Ismene left the scene to make the offering in their father's stead, when Theseus, the king of Athens, enters, and his chivalrous demeanour strikingly contrasts with the garrulous importunities of the Chorus.
He will not cause fresh pain to Œdipus, he says, by recalling his sorrows. This "abject garb and aspect of
- ↑ Plumptre's Introd., lxxxv.
- ↑ Ode iii. 23 (Martin's Transl.)
