before whom he was
accused of dotage, seems to paint a home more fit for the graces than
the furies. The chorus inform the stranger that he has come to "the
white Coloneus;"

"Where ever and aye, through the greenest vale
Gush the wailing notes of the nightingale
From her home where the dark-hued ivy weaves
With the grove of the god a night of leaves;
And the vines blossom out from the lonely glade,
And the suns of the summer are dim in the shade,
And the storms of the winter have never a breeze,
That can shiver a leaf from the charmed trees;
For there, oh ever there,
With that fair mountain throng,
Who his sweet nurses were, [the nymphs of Nisa]
Wild Bacchus holds his court, the conscious woods among!
Daintily, ever there,
Crown of the mighty goddesses of old,
Clustering Narcissus with his glorious hues
Springs from his bath of heaven's delicious dews,
And the gay crocus sheds his rays of gold.
And wandering there for ever
The fountains are at play,
And Cephisus feeds his river
From their sweet urns, day by day.
The river knows no dearth;
Adown the vale the lapsing waters glide,
And the pure rain of that pellucid tide
Calls the rife beauty from the heart of earth.
While by the banks the muses' choral train
Are duly heard--and there, Love checks her golden rein."

[349] Geronta dorthoun, phlauron, os neos pesae.
Oedip. Col., 396.

Thus, though his daughter had only grown up from childhood to early
womanhood, Oedipus has passed from youth to age since the date of the
Oedipus Tyrannus.

[350] See his self-justification, 960-1000.

[351] As each poet had but three actors allowed him, the song of the
chorus probably gave time for the representative of Theseus to change
his dress, and reappear as Polynices.

[352] The imagery in the last two lines has been amplified from the
original in order to bring before the reader what the representation
would have brought before the spectator.

[353] Mercury.

[354] Proserpine.

[355] Autonamos.--Antig., 821.

[356] Ou toi synechthein, alla symphilein ephun.
Antig., 523.

[357] Ceres.

[358] Hyper dilophon petras--viz., Parnassus. The Bacchanalian light
on t