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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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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 recognize as yours the sign That led my wanderings to this your grove; Else had I never lighted on you first, A wineless man on your seat of native rock. O goddesses, fulfill 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 dishonored 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. |
