OEDIPUS AT COLONUS
Enter Theseus.
Theseus
Dry your tears; when grace is shed
On the quick and on the dead
By dark Powers beneficent,
Over-grief they would resent.
Antigone
Aegeus’ child, to thee we pray.
Theseus
What the boon, my children, say.
Antigone
With our own eyes we fain would see
Our father’s tomb.
Theseus
That may not be.
Antigone
What say’st thou. King?
Theseus
My children, he
Charged me straitly that no mortal
Should approach the sacred portal,
Or greet with funeral litanies
The hidden tomb wherein he lies;
Saying, “If thou keep’st my hest
Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest.”
The God of Oaths this promise heard,
And to Zeus I pledged my word.
Antigone
Well, if he would have it so,
We must yield. Then let us go
Back to Thebes, if yet we may
Heal this mortal feud and stay
The self-wrought doom
That drives our brothers to their tomb.
