The music to "Oedipus" was written at the command of the King of Prussia in 1843, and was first produced at Potsdam, Nov. 1, 1845. It contains a short introduction and nine choral numbers. The first and second choruses describe the entrance of Oedipus and Antigone into the grove of the Eumenides, their discovery by the people, the story of his sorrows which he relates to them, his meeting with his daughter Ismene, and the arrival of Theseus the King. The third number is the gem of the work, and is often given on the concert-stage. The free translation of the text for this beautiful double chorus is as follows:-- "_Strophe_.--Thou hast come, O stranger, to the seats of this land, renowned for the steed; to seats the fairest on earth, the chalky Colonos; where the vocal nightingale, chief abounding, trills her plaintive note in the green dells, tenanting the dark-hued ivy and the leafy grove of the god, untrodden, teeming with fruits, impervious to the sun, and unshaken by the winds of every storm; where Bacchus, the reveller, ever roams attending his divine nurses. "_Antistrophe_.--And ever day by day the narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, bursts into bloom by heaven's dew, the ancient coronet of the mighty goddesses, and the saffron with golden ray; nor do the sleepless founts of Cephisus that wander through the fields fail, but ever each day it rushes o'er the plains with its limpid wave, fertilizing the bosom of the earth; nor have the choirs of the muses loathed this clime; nor Venus, too, of the golden reign. "_Strophe_.--And there is a tree, such as I hear not to have ever sprung in the land of Asia, nor in the mighty Doric island of Pelops, a tree unplanted by hand, of spontaneous growth, terror of the hostile spear, which flourishes chiefly in this region, the leaf of the pale gray olive that nourishes our young. This shall neither any one in youth nor in old age, marking for destruction, and having laid it waste with his hand, bring to nought; for the eye that never closes of Morian Jove regards it, and the blue-eyed Minerva. "_Antistrophe_.--And I have other praise for this mother-city to tell, the noblest gift of the mighty divinity, the highest vaunt, that she is the great of chivalry, renowned for the steed and famous on the main; for thou, O sovereign Neptune, son of Saturn, hast raised her to this glory, having first, in these fields, founded the bit to tame the horse; and the well-rowed boat, dashed forth by the hand, bounds marvellously through the brine, tracking on the hundred-footed daughters of Nereus."