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Around thine altars; some as yet too weak
For distant flight, and some weighed down with age,
Priest, I, of Zeus, and these the chosen youth:
And in the market-places of the town
The people sit and wail, with wreath in hand,
By the two shrines of Pallas,^[1] or the grave, 20
Where still the seer Ismenos prophesies.
For this our city, as thine eyes may see,
Is sorely tempest-tossed, nor lifts its head
From out the surging sea of blood-flecked waves,
All smitten in the ripening blooms of earth,
All smitten in the herds that graze the fields,
Yea, and in timeless births of woman's fruit;
And still the God, fire-darting Pestilence,
As deadliest foe, upon our city swoops,
And desolates the home where Cadmos dwelt,
And Hades dark grows rich in sighs and groans. 30
It is not that we deem of thee as one
Equalled with Gods in power, that we sit here,
These little ones and I, as suppliants prone;
But, judging thee, in all life's shifting scenes,
Chiefest of men, yea, and of chiefest skill
In communings with Heaven. For thou did'st come
And freed'st this city, named of Cadmos old,
From the sad tribute which of yore we paid
To that stern songstress,^[2] all untaught of us,
And all unprompted; but by gift of God,
Men think and say, thou did'st our life upraise.
And now, dear Œdipus, most honoured lord, 40
We pray thee, we thy suppliants, find for us

1. Probably, as at Athens Athena had two temples as Polias and Parthenos, so also at Thebes there were two shrines dedicated to her under different names, as Onkæa and Ismenia.
2. The tribute of human victims paid to the Sphinx, the "Muse of the slaughtered," till her riddle was solved by Œdipus.