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Rh the purple clusters of the vine. Colonus was, besides, rich in sacred associations; all around it lay "holy ground." Not only had Poseidon, the god of horses, and the Titan Prometheus, made the place their own, but there was here also a grove dedicated to the "Gentle Goddesses" (as those whom we otherwise know as the Furies were called, by one of those pious euphemisms common in Greek speech), within whose precincts no profane foot might tread, whose awful name no mortal might presume to utter, and by whose shrine their very worshippers pass "in silence and with averted eyes."

But Œdipus and his daughter know nothing of the sacred character of the spot to which they have wandered; and Antigone cannot even tell her father the name of the stately city, whose "diadem of towers" is seen in the distance. The aged king, wearied by his journey, sits down to rest his limbs on a rough unhewn stone within the sacred precinct of the goddesses. Then there enters a wayfarer from Athens, who, horror-struck at the apparent profanation, bids him leave a spot where "man neither comes nor dwells." But Œdipus, who has caught the name of the dread goddesses, recognises the "sign of his fate," and will not move; and at length the Athenian, impressed by the dignified earnestness of his tone and manner, leaves the stage to summon his townsmen of Colonus.

Then Œdipus, left alone with his daughter, addresses a solemn prayer to the dread powers at whose shrine he is a suppliant:—