So she and OEdipus set out upon their wanderings. At first OEdipus was filled with shame and bitterness, and cursed the day of his birth and his evil fate; but as time went on he remembered the words of Teiresias--how at his death he should be a blessing to the land of his last resting-place; and the hope sprang up in his heart that the gods had not forsaken him, but would wipe out the stain of his sin, and make his name once more glorious among men. Daily this hope grew stronger and brighter, and he felt that the days of wandering and expiation were drawing to a close, and a mysterious power guided his steps he knew not whither, except that it was towards the goal of his release. So they wandered on across the Theban plain and over dim Cithæron, till they came to the torch-lit strand of Eleusis and Demeter's sacred shrine, and the broad plain of Rarus, where Triptolemus first taught men to drive a furrow and sow the golden grain. And they went along the Sacred Way which leads to Athens, with the circling mountains on their left, and to the right the blue Saronic Gulf and the peaks of sea-girt Salamis. And many a hero's grave did they pass and many a sacred shrine, for all along that road men of old raised monuments to the undying glory of the dead and the heritage of honour which they left to unborn generations. And always Antigone tended the old man's feeble steps, and lent him the light of her young eyes, till at length they came to white Colonus and the grove of the Eumenides. There she set him on a rock to rest his weary limbs. And the soft spring breezes played about them, and the clear waters of Cephisus flowed sparkling at their feet to the fertile plain below. In the dark coverts and green glades the nightingale trilled her sweet song, and the grass was bright with many a golden crocus and white narcissus bloom. As he sat there a great calm filled the old man's heart, for he felt that the days of his wandering were done. But while they were resting a man from the village happened to pass, and when he saw them he shouted out, "Ho! there, impious wanderers, know ye not that ye sit on sacred land and trespass on hallowed ground?" Then OEdipus knew more surely than ever that the day of his release had come. "Oh, stranger!" he cried, "welcome is that which thou sayest. For here shall the words of the prophet be fulfilled, when he said that in a grove of sacred trees my spirit should find rest." But the man was not satisfied, and he called to a band of his countrymen who were in the fields close by. And they came up and spoke roughly to OEdipus, and asked his name and business. When he told them they were filled with horror, for all men had heard of the slaying of Laius, and they would have turned him out by force. But OEdipus raised himself from the rock on which he was seated, and in spite of his beggar's rags and sightless eyes, there was a majesty about his face and form that marked him as no common man.