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CTS Library / Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus at Colonus (1545-1580)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0011.tlg007.perseus-eng2:1545-1580
Refs {'start': {'reference': '1545', 'human_reference': 'Line 1545'}, 'end': {'reference': '1580', 'human_reference': 'Line 1580'}}
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allow me unaided to find the sacred tomb where it is my fate to be buried in this land.
This way, here—come this way! Hermes the Conductor and the goddess of the dead lead me in this direction.
Light of day, no light to me, once you were mine,
but now my body feels you for the last time! For now I go to hide the end of my life in the house of Hades. But you, dearest of strangers, may you yourself be prosperous, and this land, and your followers. In your prosperity,
remember me in my death, and be fortunate evermore. He exits, followed by his daughters, Theseus, and attendants.
1556
Chorus
If it is right for me with prayer to adore the Unseen Goddess and you, Lord of the Dead, then hear me, Aidoneus, Aidoneus!
Grant that without pain, without a fate arousing heavy grief, the stranger may pass to the all-concealing fields of the dead below, and to the Stygian house.
Many were the sorrows that came to him without cause, but a just divinity will lift him up again.
1568
Chorus
Goddesses of the nether world and unconquered beast
whose lair lies in the gates of many guests, you untamable Watcher of Hades, snarling from the cavern’s jaws, as rumor has always told! Hear me, Death, son of Earth and Tartarus!
May that Watcher leave a clear path for the stranger on his way to the nether fields of the dead! To you I call, giver of the eternal sleep.
1579
Messenger
Citizens, my news might be summed up most briefly thus: Oedipus is dead.
But the story of the happening cannot be told in brief words, as the deeds done there were not brief.

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