Theseus: Then were thy presence here a boon indeed.
Oedipus: Such shall it prove, if thou fulfil’st thy pledge.
Theseus: Fear not for me; I shall not play thee false.
Oedipus: No need to back thy promise with an oath.
Theseus: An oath would be no surer than my word.
Oedipus: How wilt thou act then?
Theseus: What is it thou fear’st?
Oedipus: My foes will come—
Theseus: Our friends will look to that.
Oedipus: But if thou leave me?
Theseus: Teach me not my duty.
Oedipus: ’Tis fear constrains me.
Theseus: My soul knows no fear!
Oedipus: Thou knowest not what threats—
Theseus: I know that none Shall hale thee hence in my despite. Such threats Vented in anger oft, are blusterers, An idle breath, forgot when sense returns. And for thy foemen, though their words were brave, Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find The seas between us wide and hard to sail. Such my firm purpose, but in any case Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here. My name, Though I be distant, warrants thee from harm.
Chorus: Strophe 1
Thou hast come to a steed-famed land for rest, O stranger worn with toil, To a land of all lands the goodliest Colonus’ glistening soil. ’Tis the haunt of the clear-voiced nightingale, Who hid in her bower, among The wine-dark ivy that wreathes the vale, Trilleth her ceaseless song; And she loves, where the clustering berries nod O’er a sunless, windless glade, The spot by no mortal footstep trod, The pleasance kept for the Bacchic god, Where he holds each night his revels wild With the nymphs who fostered the lusty child.
Antistrophe 1
And fed each morn by the pearly dew The starred narcissi shine, And a wreath with the crocus’ golden hue For the Mother and Daughter twine. And never the sleepless fountains cease That feed Cephisus’ stream, But they swell earth’s bosom with quick increase, And their wave hath a crystal gleam. And the Muses’ choir will never disdain To visit this heaven-favoured plain, Nor the Cyprian queen of the golden rein.
Strophe 2
And here there grows, unpruned, untamed, Terror to foemen’s spear, A tree in Asian soil unnamed, By Pelops’ Dorian isle unclaimed, Self-nurtured year by year; ’Tis the grey-leaved olive that feeds our boys; Nor youth nor withering age destroys The plant that the Olive Planter tends And the Grey-eyed Goddess herself defends.
Antistrophe 2
Yet another gift, of all gifts the most Prized by our fatherland, we boast— The might of the horse, the might of the sea; Our fame, Poseidon, we owe to thee, Son of Kronos, our king divine, Who in these highways first didst fit For the mouth of horses the iron bit; Thou too hast taught us to fashion meet For the arm of the rower the oar-blade fleet, Swift as the Nereids’ hundred feet As they dance along the brine.
Antigone: O land extolled above all lands, ’tis now For thee to make these glorious titles good.
Oedipus: Why this appeal, my daughter?