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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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As they dance along the brine. ANTIGONE Oh land extolled above all lands, 'tis now For thee to make these glorious titles good. OEDIPUS Why this appeal, my daughter? ANTIGONE Father, lo! CREON approaches with his company. OEDIPUS Fear not, it shall be so; if we are old, This country's vigor has no touch of age. [Enter CREON with attendants] CREON Burghers, my noble friends, ye take alarm At my approach (I read it in your eyes), Fear nothing and refrain from angry words. I come with no ill purpose; I am old, And know the city whither I am come, Without a peer amongst the powers of Greece. It was by reason of my years that I Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring Him back to Thebes; not the delegate Of one man, but commissioned by the State, Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed, Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes. O listen to me, luckless OEDIPUS, Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim With right to have thee back, I most of all, For most of all (else were I vile indeed) I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee An aged outcast, wandering on and on, A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay. Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall To such a depth of misery as this, To tend in penury thy stricken frame, A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed, A prey for any wanton ravisher? Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast On thee and on myself and all the race? |
