hat I have
suffered!

ANT. What suffered! what suffered![51] Vengeance sees not the wicked, nor
repays the foolishness of mortals.

OED. That man am I, who mounted aloft to the victorious heavenly song,
having solved the dark enigma of the virgin Sphinx.

ANT. Dost thou bring up again the glory of the Sphinx? Forbear from
speaking of thy former successes. These wretched sufferings awaited thee, O
father, being an exile from thy country to die any where. Leaving with my
dear virgins tears for my loss, I depart far from my country, wandering in
state not like a virgin's.

OED. Oh! the excellency of thy mind!

ANT. In the calamities of a father at least it will make me glorious.
Wretched am I, on account of the insults offered to thee and to my brother,
who has perished from the family, a corse denied sepulture, unhappy, whom,
even if I must die, my father, I will cover with secret earth.

OED. Go, show thyself to thy companions.

ANT. They have enough of my lamentations.

OED. But make thy supplications at the altars.

ANT. They have a satiety of my woes.

OED. Go then, where stands the fane of Bacchus unapproached, on the
mountains of the Maenades.

ANT. To whom I formerly, clad in the skin of the Theban fawn, danced the
sacred step of Semele on the mountains, conferring a thankless favor on the
Gods?

OED. O ye inhabitants of my illustrious country, behold, I, this Oedipus,
who alone stayed the violence of the bloodthirsty Sphinx, now, dishonored,
forsaken, miserable, am banished from the land. Yet why do I bewail these
things, and lament in vain? For the necessity of fate proceeding from the
Gods a mortal must endure.

CRE. [O greatly glorious Victory, mayest thou uphold my life, and cease not
from crowning me!] (See note [H].)

* * * * *

NOTES ON THE PHOENICIAN VIRGINS

* * * *

[1] That is, through the signs of the zodiac: [Greek: aster] differs from
[Greek: astron], the former signifying a single star, the latter many.

[2] The preposition [Greek: syn] is omitted, as in Homer,

[Greek: Autei ken gaiei erysaimi.]

The same omission occurs in the Bacchae, [Greek: auteisin elatais], and
again in the Hippolytus. It is an Atticism.

[3] See note on Hecuba, 478.

[4] The word [Greek: tounoma] must be supplied after [Greek: touto], which
is implied in the verb [Greek: kalousin].

[5] The [Greek: zaros] is a bird of prey of the vulture