Then at last the people, in their sorrow and despair, turn—as the plague-stricken Athenians turned to Pericles—to him who seemed to be the favourite of fortune, to the prince whose sagacity had once rescued them from the talons of the Sphinx; and in the opening scene of the play, a throng of citizens—young men and elders, priests and boys—are seated before the palace-doors of Œdipus, with boughs of laurel and olive, the emblems of supplication, in their hands. When the prince asks them the reason of their coming, they tell him of the plague and pestilence which "desolate the house of Cadmus," and implore him to lend his aid in this hour of their dire distress. Whether he be inspired by heaven, or trust to the "might of unassisted genius," let him repeat his former good work, and earn a second time the title of "Saviour of the State."
The answer of Œdipus is generous and dignified, and has all the complacency of gratified patriotism. Upon none (he says) have these evil days weighed more heavily than on himself: they have caused him many tearful and restless hours. He has long pondered over all possible modes of deliverance; and he has done what piety suggested—has laid his case before the gods, and is hourly expecting an answer from Delphi, whither Creon had been sent. Even as he speaks, Creon is seen approaching, with joy beaming from his eyes, and with his brows bound with a wreath of "Apollo's bays"—a badge which then bore the same sacred import as the palm-branch in the middle ages, for it marked the happy return of the pilgrim
