"O dread and awful beings, since to halt
On your ground first I bent my wearied limbs,
Be ye not harsh to Phœbus and to me!
For he, when he proclaimed my many woes,
Told of this respite after many years,
That I should claim a stranger's place, and sit
A suppliant at the shrine of dreaded gods,
And then should near the goal of woe-worn life,—
To those who should receive me bringing gain;
To those who sent me—yea, who drove me—evil;
And that sure signs should give me pledge of this,
Earthquake, or thunder, or the flash of Zeus.
*******
Come, ye sweet daughters of the Darkness old!
Come, O thou city bearing Pallas' name,
O Athens, of all cities most renowned!
Have pity on this wasted spectral form
That once was Œdipus."—(P.)
The aged citizens of Colonus, who form the Chorus, now enter, in a fever of indignation that any stranger should have ventured to set foot within the holy grove of the "Virgin Goddesses;" and at last Œdipus, taught by his adversity not to "war with fate" or to offend pious scruples, allows Antigone to lead him from the precinct. The Chorus, with an undignified curiosity which contrasts with the simple yet refined courtesy of the Homeric times, ask a string of questions as to the stranger's name and birth. When Œdipus reluctantly confesses that he is "the son of Laius," they bid him instantly depart from their coasts, lest he bring the same pollution upon Attica which he had brought on Thebes; and not even the piteous entreaties of Antigone can prevail on them to change this decision.
