Oedipus
How wilt thou act then?

Theseus
                         What is it thou fear’st?

Oedipus
My foes will come—­

Theseus
                    Our friends will look to that.

Oedipus
But if thou leave me?

Theseus
                    Teach me not my duty.

Oedipus
’Tis fear constrains me.

Theseus
                         My soul knows no fear!

Oedipus
Thou knowest not what threats—­

Theseus
                              I know that none
Shall hale thee hence in my despite.  Such threats
Vented in anger oft, are blusterers,
An idle breath, forgot when sense returns. 
And for thy foemen, though their words were brave,
Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find
The seas between us wide and hard to sail. 
Such my firm purpose, but in any case
Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here.  My name,
Though I be distant, warrants thee from harm.

Chorus
(Str. 1)
     Thou hast come to a steed-famed land for rest,
          O stranger worn with toil,
     To a land of all lands the goodliest
          Colonus’ glistening soil. 
     ’Tis the haunt of the clear-voiced nightingale,
          Who hid in her bower, among
     The wine-dark ivy that wreathes the vale,
          Trilleth her ceaseless song;
     And she loves, where the clustering berries nod
          O’er a sunless, windless glade,
     The spot by no mortal footstep trod,
     The pleasance kept for the Bacchic god,
     Where he holds each night his revels wild
     With the nymphs who fostered the lusty child.

(Ant. 1)
     And fed each morn by the pearly dew
          The starred narcissi shine,
     And a wreath with the crocus’ golden hue
          For the Mother and Daughter twine. 
     And never the sleepless fountains cease
          That feed Cephisus’ stream,
     But they swell earth’s bosom with quick increase,
          And their wave hath a crystal gleam. 
     And the Muses’ quire will never disdain
     To visit this heaven-favored plain,
     Nor the Cyprian queen of the golden rein.

(Str. 2)
     And here there grows, unpruned, untamed,
          Terror to foemen’s spear,
     A tree in Asian soil unnamed,
     By Pelops’ Dorian isle unclaimed,
          Self-nurtured year by year;
     ’Tis the grey-leaved olive that feeds our boys;
     Nor youth nor withering age destroys
     The plant that the Olive Planter tends
     And the Grey-eyed Goddess herself defends.