ŒDIPUS.—Cast me with all thy speed from out this land, Where never more a man may look on me! CREON.—Be sure I would have done so, but I wished To learn what now the God will bid us do. ŒDIPUS.—The oracle was surely clear enough That I, the parricide, the pest, should die. CREON.—So ran the words. But in our present need ’Tis better to learn surely what to do. ŒDIPUS.—And will ye ask for one so vile as I? CREON.—Yea, now thou too would’st trust the voice of God. ŒDIPUS.—And this I charge thee, yea, and supplicate: For her within, provide what tomb thou wilt, For for thine own most meetly thou wilt care. But never let this city of my fathers Be sentenced to receive me as its guest; But suffer me on yon lone hills to dwell, Where stands Cithæron, chosen as my tomb While still I lived, by mother and by sire, That I may die by those who sought to kill. And for my boys, O Creon, lay no charge Of them upon me. They are grown, nor need, Where’er they be, feel lack of means to live. But for my two poor girls, all desolate, To whom their table never brought a meal Without my presence, but whate’er I touched They still partook of with me—these I care for. Yea, let me touch them with my hands, and weep To them my sorrows. Grant it, O my prince! O born of noble nature! Could I but touch them with my hands, I feel Still I should have them mine, as when I saw. [_Enter Antigone and Ismene._] What say I? What is this? Do I not hear, ye gods! their dear, loved tones, Broken with sobs, and Creon, pitying me, Hath sent the dearest of my children to me? Is it not so? CREON.—It is so. I am he who gives thee this, Knowing the joy thou hadst in them of old.