ŒDIPUS AT COLONUS.
69
woods a voice, that drew like gravitation, that sucked in like a vortex, far off, yet near—in some distant world, yet close at hand—cried, 'Hark, Œdipus! King Œdipus! come hither; thou art wanted!' Wanted! for what? Was it for death? was it for judgment? was it for some wilderness of pariah eternities? No man ever knew. Chasms opened in the earth; dark gigantic arms stretched out to receive the king; clouds and vapour settled over the penal abyss; and of him only, though the neighbourhood of his disappearance was known, no trace or visible record survived—neither bones, nor grave, nor dust, nor epitaph."—The Theban Sphinx (Works, ix. 250).
