Classic Poem

" O IDIPOUS AT C OLONOS . "

Oidipous . The dawn which breaks not on my sightless eyes
Salutes my forehead with reviving warmth:
Here let us rest awhile, Antigone,
From this brief travel stolen by fear from night.
But know you whither it had led us, and
Among what strangers, who from charity
Shall with sufficient for the day provide
For one with less than little satisfied?
Antigone . I know from one who crost us in the dusk,
With steps as hurried as our own, the land
Is Attica.
Oidipous . Ay, I remember now.
Antigone . And not far off I see the shining walls
And marble temple-fronts, and citadel,
As of some stately city: and the place
We stand on, as for some peculiar use
Sequestered from the daily track of men,
Where a pure rill of water rambles through
Untrampled herbage, overshaded all
With laurel, and with olive, poplar-topt,
As you may guess from many a nightingale
About us warbling, well assured of home.
Oidipous . And might not, haply, some poor hunted thing,
With but a sorry burden for his song,
Here, too, some breathing-while of refuge find?
Antigone . And in good time comes of the country one
Who shall advise us, lest, as strangers here,
We trespass on the usages of those
To whom we look for shelter and support.

Enter an A THENIAN .

O stranger —
Athenian . Hush! Before another word —
Where even a word unlawful — how much more
With the soiled foot of Travel trespassing
On consecrated ground!
Oidipous . I yet dare ask
Whether to Deity or Demigod,
Thus consecrate?
Anthenian . To Deity, and such
As least of all will Men's intrusion brook
Within their hallowed precincts.
Oidipous . Who be they?
Athenian . None other but those awful Sisters Three,
Daughters of Earth and Darkness.
Oidipous . By what name
Invoked of men?
Athenian . By whatsoever name
Elsewhere invoked, here, with averted eyes,
And with an inward whisper — " The Benign. "
Oidipous . Benign then, as their name and nature is
To those who suffer and who do no wrong,
May they receive the sightless suppliant, who,
By no false Insight, howbeit unaware,
Within their Sanctuary first setting foot,
Alive shall never leave it but to die.
Athenian . Your words I understand not; but I know,
Whether to live or die, depart you must.
Oidipous . But what, if rather fearing unjust Man
Than the just God, and those same awful Three,
If stern to guilt, not unbenign to me,
I leave their hallowed refuge?
Athenian . Nay, for that
The land itself is dedicated all
To God or Demigod, who, Just themselves,
Protect and vindicate the Just; for here
Poseidon rules, the Master of the Seas,
And there Prometheus, with his torch of Life;
The ground about us glories in the name
Of King Colonos of the Horse; and this
Same highway running by the Sacred Grove
Leads to the City and the Citadel
Surnamed of Her who keeps them for her own.
Oidipous . As such I do salute her! — And the King
That, under her, her chosen people rules —
Athenian . Theseus, the son of Aigeus, and, like him,
Though mortal yet, almost the Demigod.
Oidipous . Theseus, the son of Aigeus, — ay, I know
And know indeed that no delusive light
Led me to him with whom I have to do.
Shall one among your fellow-citizens
Bear your King word from one who once was King,
And who, unkinglike as his presence now,
Can tell him that which, if he hearken to,
Shall, for a little service done to me,
Do to his kingdom and himself much more?
Athenian . Strange as the message from so strange a man,
Yet shall King Theseus hear of it. Meanwhile,
If in despite of warning and advice
You still refuse to leave this holy ground,
I, that am but a simple citizen,
Dare not enforce; but forthwith shall apprize
Those of the City who shall deal with you,
As in their wisdom best they shall advise.
Oidipous . Is he departed?
Antigone . We are all alone.
Oidipous . Daughters of Earth and Darkness! In whose womb
Unborn till Sovereign Order the new World
From Chaos woke, yourselves you still secrete,
With those three Fatal Sisters who the thread
Of Human Life do spin among the Dead,
While you the scourge of human Wrong prepare;
If peradventure with unlicensed feet
The consecrated earth I have profaned,
That veils your Presence from this upper air,
Renounce me not: no, nor in me the God
Who destined, nor the God who prophesied,
That, after drifting the blind wreck I am
About the world, a Horror to Mankind,
Within the Temple of that Triple wrath
That Nemesis unyoked to scourge me down,
At last the haven of my rest should find;
If satisfied at last be wrath Divine,
And men err not who name its ministers,
Tho not without a shudder — " The Benign, "
Let your avenging Justice, that so long
Hath chased the guiltless instrument of Wrong,
Here grant him rest until the Power whose throne
You dwell beside in Darkness give the sign.

Enter Chorus .

Chorus . These are the strangers — this the sightless man,
And this the maiden that he told us of,
Who impiously this consecrated ground
Have ventured to profane.
Oidipous . Not impiously,
But ignorantly, who first setting foot
Upon this alien soil —
Chorus . But impiously,
When warned upon what consecrated ground,
With honey-flowing waters running through
The inviolable herbage, still persist —
A stranger too, where no Athenian born,
Not only dares not enter, but pass by
Save with averted eyes, and inward prayer,
That holy lips scarce dare articulate.
Antigone . We must obey them, Father, as we should.
Oidipous . You will not, if I quit the Sanctuary,
Do, nor let others do me violence?
Chorus . Fear not the wrath of men, but that of those
Who watch you thro the soil which you profane.
Oidipous . But who, if of their counsel more you knew,
As sooner than you look for know you may,
Would not resent, as you, the wrong I do them.
Meanwhile, on no worse usage than from them
Relying when committed to your hands —
Lead me, Antigone.
Chorus . Till you have past
The bound of sequestration — further yet —
And yet a little further — so, enough.
There, travel-wearied, and, perchance, in years
Well stricken, rest upon the bank awhile.
But, ere I bid you welcome to the land
Whose sanctity your foot at first profaned,
Tell who you are, and whence.
Oidipous . To tell you " Who "
Would tell you all: and if I hesitate —
Chorus . Not to declare your country and your name
Augurs but evil for yourself or it.
Oidipous . You of that City have heard tell, whose walls
To Music rose, and whose Inhabitants,
From the sown Dragon's teeth sprung up armed men?
Chorus . Of Thebes? Ay, much of olden times, and of
The worse than Dragon Sphinx that in our day
The Dragon seed devoured.
Oidipous . And of the man
Who slew that worse than Dragon —
Chorus . Oidipous!
As by the signal of those sightless eyes,
And lingering self-avowal, I divine —
Oidipous . Revolt not from me.
Chorus . And for You! for You —
May be, the monster most unnatural —
To set your foot upon the holiest spot
Of this all-consecrated Athens! You!
Who, were your very presence not enow
Contamination to the land, and shame,
May bring on us the plague you left at Thebes!
I should not wrong a promise half implied
If with these hands I tore you from the Land
Your impious presence doubly violates,
Where e'en the guiltless dare not enter — Hence!
Begone! Pollute our land no more! Begone!
Antigone . O men of Athens! if you will not hear
My Father pleading for himself, hear me,
Not for myself, but for my Father pleading,
As to a Father, by the love you bear
The Daughter by yon Altar-hearth at home,
And by the Gods we worship as yourselves.
Chorus . Daughter, the Gods whom you adjure us by,
Repudiating Oidipous from Thebes,
From Athens also do repudiate.
Oidipous . O then of Fame that blows about the world
The praise of men and nations, what the worth,
If Athens — Athens, through the world renowned
For hospitable generosity —
Athens, who boasts the power as much as will
To save and succour the misfortunate —
If she that honour forfeit at your hands,
Who, from the very horror of my name,
And shapeless rumour of the terrible things
Which I have suffered, rather than have done,
Would thrust me from the Sanctuary forth
Of those whose law you violate no less
By broken Faith, than with unwary foot
Did I their consecrated soil transgress?
One, too, that howsoe'er you know it not,
Even with the Ban that drives him from his own
Carries a Blessing with him to the Land
That shall accept him, and a Curse to those
Who, being his, henceforth shall be their foes.
All which, unto my inward eye as clear
As yonder Sun that shines in Heaven to yours,
I shall reveal to him who governs here,
If hearing he deny me not. Meanwhile,
I do adjure you, by those Deities
Whose Sanctuary you have drawn me from,
Do me no violence; remembering
That, if Benign they be, Avengers too,
As of all outraged Law, so not the less
Of violated hospitality.
Chorus . We have discharged ourselves in warning you,
And to King Theseus, whom you summoned here,
Your cause and self henceforward we commit
To deal with, and adjudge as seems him fit.

Enter T HESEUS .

Theseus . I have been hither summoned at the call
Of one from whom, 't was said, the light of Day
Together with his Kingdom past away;
And, knowing of one such, and one alone,
Reported in the roll of living men,
Nor uninstructed in the destiny
Which from the glory it had raised him to
Precipitated to a depth so low,
Amid the ruin of this fallen man
I know that Oidipous of Thebes is he.
I too remember when like him forlorn,
I wandered friendless in a foreign land,
And with an alien people much endured:
And, had I always been what now I am,
Yet none the less by what myself have known
Than by the records of Mankind, aware
That, howsoever great a King To-day,
No surer of To-morrow than yourself;
Therefore whatever Athens or her King
Of hospitable service can supply,
Let him demand: for much indeed it were
For Oidipous to ask and me withhold.
Oidipous . O Theseus, if indeed the King I was
Look thro the ruin of the wretch I am,
No less doth full assurance of a King,
Altho to these quencht eyes insensible,
Breathe thro the generous welcome of your word,
And ere of my necessities I tell,
Assure me of the boom as yet unaskt.
For the detested story of my life,
Unaskt, you know it — whence, and what I was,
To what catastrophe reserved you see —
Yet not so ignominious to myself,
No, nor to Athens so unprofitable,
Will you but listen, and do that for me,
Which, howsoever strange from lips like mine,
Is sure as Fate itself, as Fate it is.
Theseus . Doubt not, however strange, whether or not
To Athens profitable, if to you,
What Oidipous demands shall Theseus do.
Oidipous . But profitable shall it be to both,
Unless the Spokesman of Futurity
From Delphi shall have prophesied a lie:
For this unsightly remnant of a king —
Tho while it breathes a burden to us both,
But when the breath is out of it, to be
More serviceable to you than good looks —
I do consign to you for sepulture
Under the walls that, as they sheltered me
While living, after death will I defend.