Oedipus at Colonus
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 2: The Oedipus at Colonus. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889.
- Ground inviolable, on which no one may dwell. The dread
- goddesses hold it, the daughters of Earth and Darkness.
- Who are they? Whose awful name might I hear and invoke in prayer?
- The all-seeing Eumenides the people here would call them: but other names please elsewhere.
- Then graciously may they receive their suppliant!
- Nevermore will I depart from my seat in this land.
- What does this mean?
- The watchword of my fate.
- I dare not remove you without warrant from the city, until I report what I am doing.
- Now by the gods, stranger, do not deny me, hapless wanderer as you see,
- the honor of the knowledge for which I beg you.
- Tell me, and you will not be without honor from me.
- What, then, is the place that we have entered?
- All that I myself know, you will hear and learn. This whole place is sacred;
- august Poseidon holds it, and in it lives the fire-bearing god, the Titan Prometheus. But as for the spot on which you tread, it is called the bronze threshold of this land, the support of Athens. And the neighboring fields claim Colonus, the horse-rider, for their ancient ruler;
- and all the people bear his name in common as their own. Such, you see, stranger, are these haunts. They receive their honor not through story, but rather through our living with them.
- Are there indeed dwellers in this region?
- Yes indeed, the namesakes of that god there Colonus.
- Have they a king? Or does speaking in assembly rest with the masses?
- These parts are ruled by the king in the city.