OEDIPUS.
Fortune befriend thee for their presence here,
Heaven guard thee better than it guarded me.
Daughters, where are ye? Come unto these arms,
These arms that issued from one womb with you,
Which on the father that begot you brought
This darkness for the light he had before.
Blindly, my children, and unwittingly,
Offspring I got in an incestuous bed.
See you I cannot, but I weep for you,
When I bethink me of the bitter life
That ye must live, marks for the scorn of men.
To what assembly, to what festival,
Will ye e'er go and not be driven home
In tears, excluded from the spectacle?
And when your marriageable hour has come,
Where will be found the man so venturesome
To take upon him the reproach that falls
Upon my parents and from them on you?
What stain is lacking when your father slew
His father, her that bore him took to wife
'Gainst nature's law, and had you born to him
From the same womb from which himself was born?
In face of such reproaches who will wed?
No one will dare. Daughters, to waste away
Lonely and childless is your certain doom.
Son of Menoeceus, thou alone art left
As father to these children, in one day
Bereft of both their parents; let them not
Go forth to roam famished and desolate,
Nor let them be confounded with my crimes.
Have pity on them, seeing them so young,
Deprived of all saving thy charity.
Reach forth thy hand in token of assent.
Children, were ye of age to understand,
I had much counsel giv'n ye; but now pray
That you may dwell where it is best to dwell,
And yours may be a happier lot than mine.
OEDIPUS AT COLONUS.
After the day of horrors the blind Oedipus is cast forth from Thebes, and becomes a wanderer over the face of the earth, guided and tended by his faithful daughter, Antigone. He comes at last to Colonus, a rural district near Athens, and one of the holy places of Attica. Here he is destined to end his life, to be buried, and by the presence of his remains to confer a blessing on the country which has given him a last resting-place and a tomb. The dark cloud of involuntary guilt, which has hitherto overshadowed him, lifts at the end, and is succeeded by a calm evening light.
* * * * *
OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE ARRIVE AT COLONUS AND ENTER THE CONSECRATED GROUND.
LINES 1-110
OEDIPUS.
Child of a blind old man, Antigone,
Unto what land, whose city, have we come?
Who is there for this day to entertain
With scanty fare the wanderer, Oedipus,
Who asks but little and still less receives,
Yet with his dole is fain to be content—
For time and suffering and a noble heart
Have taught me how to bear adversity.
But, daughter, if thou seest a resting-place,
Either in common ground or hallowed grove,
There guide me to a seat, that we may ask
What place is this: strangers, we come to learn
Of citizens and what they bid us do.