Stranger: Ask; your request shall not be scorned by me.
Oedipus: How call you then the place wherein we bide?
Stranger: Whate’er I know thou too shalt know; the place Is all to great Poseidon consecrate. Hard by, the Titan, he who bears the torch, Prometheus, has his worship; but the spot Thou treadest, the Brass-footed Threshold named, Is Athens’ bastion, and the neighbouring lands Claim as their chief and patron yonder knight Colonus, and in common bear his name. Such, stranger, is the spot, to fame unknown, But dear to us its native worshippers.
Oedipus: Thou sayest there are dwellers in these parts?
Stranger: Surely; they bear the name of yonder god.
Oedipus: Ruled by a king or by the general voice?
Stranger: The lord of Athens is our over-lord.
Oedipus: Who is this monarch, great in word and might?
Stranger: Theseus, the son of Aegeus our late king.
Oedipus: Might one be sent from you to summon him?
Stranger: Wherefore? To tell him aught or urge his coming?
Oedipus: Say a slight service may avail him much.
Stranger: How can he profit from a sightless man?
Oedipus: The blind man’s words will be instinct with sight.
Stranger: Heed then; I fain would see thee out of harm; For by the looks, marred though they be by fate, I judge thee noble: tarry where thou art, While I go seek the burghers—those at hand, Not in the city. They will soon decide Whether thou art to rest or go thy way. Exit Stranger.
Oedipus: Tell me, my daughter, has the stranger gone?
Antigone: Yes, he has gone; now we are all alone, And thou may’st speak, dear father, without fear.
Oedipus: Stern-visaged queens, since coming to this land First in your sanctuary I bent the knee, Frown not on me or Phoebus, who, when erst He told me all my miseries to come, Spake of this respite after many years, Some haven in a far-off land, a rest Vouchsafed at last by dread divinities. “There,” said he, “shalt thou round thy weary life, A blessing to the land wherein thou dwell’st,
But to the land that cast thee forth, a curse.” And of my weird he promised signs should come, Earthquake, or thunderclap, or lightning flash. And now I recognise as yours the sign That led my wanderings to this your grove; Else had I never lighted on you first, A wineless man on you loathe the grape, Or set me on your seat of native rock. O goddesses, fulfil Apollo’s word,
Grant me some consummation of my life, If haply I appear not all too vile, A thrall to sorrow worse than any slave. Hear, gentle daughters of primeval Night, Hear, namesake of great Pallas; Athens, first Of cities, pity this dishonoured shade, The ghost of him who once was Oedipus.
Antigone: Hush! for I see some grey-beards on their way, Their errand to spy out our resting-place.
Oedipus: I will be mute, and thou shalt guide my steps Into the covert from the public road, Till I have learned their drift. A prudent man Will ever shape his course by what he learns.
Enter Chorus.
Chorus: Strophe 1
Ha! Where is he? Look around! Every nook and corner scan! He the all-presumptuous man, Whither vanished? search the ground! A wayfarer, I ween, A wayfarer, no countryman of ours, That old man must have been; Never had native dared to tempt the Powers, Or enter their demesne,