OEDIPUS AT COLONUS
Stranger
Heed then; I fain would see thee out of harm;
For by thy 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.
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 who loathe the grape,
Or set me on your seat of native rock.
O goddesses, fulfil Apollo’s word,
