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ANT.
O land exalted thus in blessing and praise,
Now is thy time to prove these brave words true.

OED.
What hath befallen, my daughter?

ANT.
Here at hand,
Not unaccompanied, is Creon, father.

OED.
Dear aged friends, be it yours now to provide
My safety and the goal of my desire!

CH.
It shall be so. Fear nought. I am old and weak,
But Athens in her might is ever young.

[Enter CREON.]

CREON.
Noble inhabiters of Attic ground
I see as ’twere conceived within your eyes
At mine approach some new engendered fear
Nay, shrink not, nor let fall one fretful word.
I bring no menace with me, for mine age
Is feeble, and the state whereto I come
Is mighty,–none in Hellas mightier,–
That know I well. But I am sent to bring
By fair persuasion to our Theban plain
The reverend form of him now present here.
Nor came this mission from one single will,
But the commands of all my citizens
Are on me, seeing that it becomes my birth
To mourn his sorrows most of all the state
Thou, then, poor sufferer, lend thine ear to me
And come. All Cadmus’ people rightfully
Invite thee with one voice unto thy home,
I before all,–since I were worst of men,
Were I not pained at thy misfortunes, sir,
–To see thee wandering in the stranger’s land
Aged and miserable, unhoused, unfed,
Singly attended by this girl, whose fall
To such a depth of undeserved woe
I could not have imagined! Hapless maid!
Evermore caring for thy poor blind head,
Roving in beggary, so young, with no man
To marry her,–a mark for all mischance.
O misery, what deep reproach I have laid
On thee and me and our whole ill-starred race!
But who can hide evil that courts the day?
Thou, therefore, Oedipus, without constraint,
(By all the Gods of Cadmus’ race I pray thee)
Remove this horror from the sight of men
By coming to the ancestral city and home
Of thy great sires,–bidding a kind farewell
To worthiest Athens, as is meet. But Thebes,
Thy native land, yet more deserves thy love.

OED.
Thou unabashed in knavery, who canst frame
For every cause the semblance of a plea
Pranked up with righteous seeming, why again
Would’st thou contrive my ruin, and attempt
To catch me where I most were grieved being caught?
Beforetime, when my self-procured woes
Were plaguing me, and I would fain have rushed
To instant banishment, thou wouldst not then
Grant this indulgence to my keen desire.
But when I had fed my passion to the full,
And all my pleasure was to live at home,
Then ’twas thy cue to expel and banish me,
Nor was this name of kindred then so dear.
Now once again, when thou behold’st this city
And people joined in friendly bands with me,
Thou wouldst drag me from my promised resting-place,
Hiding hard policy with courtly show.
Strange kindness, to love men against their will!
Suppose, when thou wert eager in some suit,
No grace were granted thee, but all denied,
And when thy soul was sated, then the boon
Were offered, when such grace were graceless now;
–Poor satisfaction then were thine, I ween!
Even such a gift thou profferest me to-day,
Kind in pretence, but really full of evil.
These men shall hear me tell thy wickedness.
Thou comest to take me, not unto my home,
But to dwell outlawed at your gate, that so
Your Thebe may come off untouched of harm
From her encounter with Athenian men.
Ye shall not have me thus. But you shall have
My vengeful spirit ever in your land
Abiding for destruction,–and my sons
Shall have this portion in their father’s ground,
To die thereon. Know I not things in Thebes
Better than thou? Yea, for ’tis mine to hear
Safer intelligencers,–Zeus himself,
And Phoebus, high interpreter of Heaven.
Thou bring’st a tongue suborned with false pretence,
Sharpened with insolence;–but in shrewd speech
Thou shalt find less of profit than of bane.
This thou wilt ne’er believe. Therefore begone!
Let me live here. For even such life as mine
Were not amiss, might I but have my will.