Kolonos of the Horses is always an uneasy place to me, for all its prettiness; and that day, as I have said, there was a lour about it, a brooding in the ground. Suddenly my anger swelled so that my body felt quite light with it. I turned to the snarling crowd and shouted, “Silence! What are you—men? Or boars, wolves, rock-jackals? I tell you it is the law of Zeus to spare the suppliant. And if you will not do it for fear of heaven, by the head of my father Poseidon, you shall do it for fear of me!”
There was a hush then, and the headman came forward whining something. What with my anger and the awe of the place, I felt strange, as if the god’s finger brushed my neck. “I stand here for this man,” I said. “Lay hand or stone to him, and you may well fear Poseidon’s anger. For I will curse you in his name.” And it was as if a shudder flowed up into me from the earth beneath my feet; I felt I had the Power.
Now there was really silence. Only a bird cheeped somewhere, and even he spoke softly. “Stand further off,” I said, “and in good time I will ask his mercy for you. Now leave this man and woman for me to deal with.”
They drew away. I could not look yet at the girl. I had been going to say, “This man and his daughter,” when I remembered she was his sister, too, out of the one womb.
She took her head-scarf and wiped his face where a stone had grazed it; I saw she was daughter in her heart, keeping faith with her childhood. It was time to greet him in some words fitting to his birth. But one could not well say, “Oedipus, son of Laios,” when he had killed Laios with his own hand.
So I said to him, “Be welcome, guest of the land. Men should walk softly, where the gods have struck before them. Forgive me for these people, that I have not taught them better. I will make amends. But first I must make sacrifice, for the omen will not wait.” I was thinking I should have to bathe beforehand, to take off the pollution.
Now for the first time he spoke. His voice was deep, stronger and younger than his body. “I feel the touch of the god-begotten, the promised guide.”
“Rest first and eat,” I said. “Then we will lead you on your way, and see you safe through Attica.”
“Rest is here,” he said.
I looked at him, and snapped my fingers to the men who carried the wine for sacrifice. He had turned as pale as clay; I thought that he was dying. My cupbearer fumbled and held back so long, I had to snatch the cup from his hand. After the wine, the old man looked a little better, but I had to hold him up. Some of my men offered to help; but their faces were pinched as if they must touch a snake or a spider, so I waved them off. There was a big slab of stone hard by, some boundary of old-time men, and I set him there beside me.
He fetched a great sigh, and sat up straighter. “A fine, full wine. Thebes cannot match the wine of Attica.” It was the speech of feasting kings. I had been too awed for tears till then. “God-begotten,” he said, “let me know your face.”
When he raised his hand, he felt the blood and dust upon it, and wiped it on his tunic-hem before he reached it out to me. “The tamer of bulls, the slayer of the Minotaur. And the shape of a young dancer. Truly the gods are here.” His hand traced upwards to my face, and touched my eyelids. “The god’s child weeps,” he said. I did not answer. My men were near and I had to keep some seemliness.
“Son of Poseidon, no grief is here, but a blessing. The sign long waited has come at last. I am here to give you my death.”
It found me silent. How could one wish him longer life, or a better fortune? Done was done. And though I pitied him, as any man must not made of stone, I did not want his bones in Attica. The Furies follow such men in a travelling swarm, like flies after bleeding meat.
Just as if he had seen me look over my shoulder, he said, “They are here. But they come in peace with me.”
Certainly the air was gentle there; you could smell the ripening grapes. It was from the earth the tingling came, and I knew that of old; at Kolonos, Earth-Shaker seems always close beneath the ground. Without doubt he was angry, and might lose patience any time. It seemed to me this was no gift to please him.
“Why speak of death?” I said. “In spite of what these oafs have done to you, you have no mortal hurt. Is it a sickness; or have you had it foretold; or do you mean to call it to you? Truly, you out of all men have the right. But such blood puts bad luck into a place, not good. Come, let your heart endure; it has borne worse things.”
He shook his head, and paused as if thinking, “Will he understand?” I thought of his great sorrows, and waited humbly, as a boy before a man.
At last he said, “To you I can speak. You went to the bulls of Crete for the Athenians. Surely, you had the sign of sacrifice?”
I nodded, then remembered and said, “Yes.”
He put his hand to his grazed brow, and held up the wet fingers. “This blood comes down from Kadmos and Harmonia: the line of Zeus, the line of Aphrodite. I too know the virtue of the given death. When the plague struck Thebes, I waited only for the omen. I sent envoys to Delphi, sure in my heart the oracle would say, ‘The King must die.’ But Apollo’s word came back to seek the unclean thing. So I began to seek step after step into the darkness, on the path that led me to myself.”
He was still, as a well without bottom when you drop a stone. “Past is past,” I said. “Do not grieve in vain.”
He laid his hand on mine and leaned forward, as if he would tell a secret. “When I had wealth and fortune, I would have died consenting. Yet after, I lived on. I have been hunted with dogs from villages. I have smelled on the dews of night the dog-fox running to his earth, and lain down with a stone for pillow, where Night’s Daughters hounded me from dream to dream. Yet I, who would have died for the Thebans, would not do it for myself. Why, Theseus, why?”
I did not say that beggars often love life more than kings. “All things pass; and patience brings a better day.”
“I know, why now. I waited for the Gentle Ones. When the score is paid, they take no more. The rest they hold in trust for you. All this last year, the sorrow has been like water caught in a deep cistern; not the beating rain that leaves you dry. I thought I should die at last like a winter sparrow, that falls in darkness from the bough and is nothing, save to the ants that pick it clean. But the store has grown. The kingly power is here again. I have a death to give.”
The girl, meanwhile, had been straightening her dress and hair; now, coming nearer, she sat upon the ground. I knew she wanted to overhear him; but he had dropped his voice, so I did not beckon her.
“Did you know, Theseus, that in dreams the blind can see? Oh, yes, yes; never forget it; it is a thing the young don’t know. Remember, when you take up the brooch-pin, that at night your eyes will see again, and neither fire nor bronze will serve you then. There is a place the Solemn Ones would bring me to, where I saw what I must see. I came again to it; but all was stillness. They swept the floor with brooms of alder; then they sat down, like gray cobwebbed stones. First there was mist; then a clear darkness, with a little prick of windless flame. It burned up bright and tall; and in it stood the Lord Apollo, naked as a core of light, looking down at me with his great blue eyes like the sky that looks upon the sea. I thought, being unclean, I should avoid his presence; but pure in his fire he showed no anger, and I felt no fear. He raised his hand; the Solemn Ones slept fast, as ancient rocks do though the sun streams into their cave. And then he spoke, saying, ‘Oedipus, know yourself, and tell me what you are.’
“I stood in thought. It came to me that I had stood just so, puzzling a hard question, in the Place of Ordeal sacred to the Sphinx. And then remembering, I knew the answer was the same. I said, “My lord—only a man.”
“The Slayer of Darkness smiled at me. His light went through me, as if I had turned to crystal. ‘Come then,’ he said. ‘Since you have come at last to manhood, do what is fit, and make the offering.’