But should run up like flax, all blazing fire.
Stand from this spot, I wish you as my friends,
And come not near me, lest the gaping earth
Swallow you too.'"
Sophocles.
In the depth of his anguish he deprived himself of sight, as unworthy ever more to behold the light, and banished himself from Thebes for the good of his country; or as many assert, he was banished from thence by his sons.
He retired towards Attica, led by his daughter Antigone, and came to a place sacred to the Furies. Here the remembrance flashed across his mind, that he was to die in a place like this, that such had been the decree of the oracle, and that he was to become the great source of prosperity to the country in which his bones should be laid. He sent therefore to Theseus, king of the place, to inform him, that on his arrival he would make known to him the resolution which he had made. Theseus came, and found Œdipus with his face covered by a black veil, a knife in one hand, and a vessel containing the blood of a sacrifice in the other. With a prophetic voice he exclaimed:—
"Lo! the immortal gods have called—the ground on which we stand, shall be my grave!"