Oedipus at Colonus (50-113)

the honor of the knowledge for which I beg you.

Tell me, and you will not be without honor from me.

What, then, is the place that we have entered?

All that I myself know, you will hear and learn. This whole place is sacred;

august Poseidon holds it, and in it lives the fire-bearing god, the Titan Prometheus. But as for the spot on which you tread, it is called the bronze threshold of this land, the support of Athens. And the neighboring fields claim Colonus, the horse-rider, for their ancient ruler;

and all the people bear his name in common as their own. Such, you see, stranger, are these haunts. They receive their honor not through story, but rather through our living with them.

Are there indeed dwellers in this region?

Yes indeed, the namesakes of that god there Colonus.

Have they a king? Or does speaking in assembly rest with the masses?

These parts are ruled by the king in the city.

And who is he that is sovereign in counsel and in might?

Theseus he is called, son of Aegeus who was before him.

Could a messenger go to him from among you?

With what aim? To speak, or to prepare his coming?

So that by a small service he may find a great gain.

And what help can come from one who cannot see?

In all that I speak there will be vision.

Take care now, stranger, that you come to no harm; for you are noble, if I may judge by your looks, leaving your ill-fortune aside. Stay here, where I found you, until I go and tell these things to the people of this district—not in the city.

They will decide for you whether you should stay or go back. Stranger exits.

My child, has the stranger left us?

He is gone, and so you can speak what you wish, father, fully at ease, knowing that I alone am near.

Ladies of dread aspect, since your seat is

the first in this land at which I have bent my knee, show yourselves not ungracious to Phoebus or to myself; who, when he proclaimed that doom of many woes, spoke to me of this rest after long years: on reaching my goal in a land where I should find a seat of the Awful Goddesses

and a shelter for foreigners, there I should close my weary life, with profit, through my having fixed my abode there, for those who received me, but ruin for those who sent me forth, who drove me away. And he went on to warn me that signs of these things would come,

in earthquake, or in thunder, or in the lightning of Zeus. Now I perceive that in this journey some trusty omen from you has surely led me home to this grove; never otherwise could I have met with you, first of all, in my wanderings—I, in my sobriety, with you who touch no wine,

—or taken this august seat not shaped by men. Then, goddesses, according to the word of Apollo, give me at last some way to accomplish and close my course—unless, perhaps, I seem too lowly,

enslaved as I am evermore to woes the sorest on the earth. Hear, sweet daughters of primeval Darkness! Hear, you that are called the city of great Pallas, Athens, given most honor of all cities! Pity this poor ghost of the man Oedipus!

For in truth it is the former living body no more.

Hush! Here come some aged men to spy out your resting-place.

I will be mute. But hide me in the grove, apart from the road, till I learn