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(From Œdipus Coloneus)
Translated by T. Francklin
ŒDIPUSWHERE are we now, my dear Antigone? | |
| Know’st thou the place? Will any here afford | |
| Their scanty alms to a poor wanderer, | |
| The banished Œdipus? I ask not much, | |
| Yet less receive; but I am satisfied: | 5 |
| Long time hath made my woes familiar to me, | |
| And I have learned to bear calamity. | |
| But tell me, daughter, if thou seest a place, | |
| Or sacred or profane, where I may rest, | |
| There set me down, from some inhabitant | 10 |
| A chance but we may learn where now we are, | |
| And act, so strangers ought, as he directs us. | |
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ANTIGONE O Œdipus! my poor, unhappy father! | |
| Far as my eyes can reach, I see a city | |
| With lofty turrets crowned, and, if I err not, | 15 |
| This place is sacred, by the laurel shade | |
| Olive and vine thick planted, and the songs | |
| Of nightingales sweet-warbling through the grove; | |
| Here set thee down, and rest thy wearied limbs | |
| On this rude stone; ’t is a long way for age | 20 |
| Like thine to travel. * * * * *
ATHENIAN I ’ll tell thee what I know. | |
| This place is sacred all: great Neptune here | |
| Presides, and he who bears the living fire, | |
| Titan Prometheus; where thou tread’st is called | |
| The brazen way, the bulwark of our state: | 25 |
| From this equestrian hill, their safest guard, | |
| The neighboring villagers their general name | |
| Derive, thence called Colonians all. | |
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