BOOK II the life of the being whom they had loved and lost. Here again Antigone, betrothed to the youthful Haimon, dies in the dark cave, like the bright clouds which Vritra shuts up in his horrid dungeons. But before this last catastrophe is brought about, there is a time of brief respite in which Oidipous reposes after all the griefs and sorrows which have come upon him, some at the rising of the sun or its setting, some at noonday or when the stars twinkled out in the sky. All these had burst as in a deluge on his devoted head ; ^ but now he draws nigh to the haven of rest. His feet tread the grass-grown pathway; over his head the branches sigh in the evening breeze; and when an Athenian in holy horror bids him begone from the sacred grove of the Eumenides, Oidipous replies that their sanctuary can never be violated by him. He is not merely their suppliant, but their friend ; and they it is who will guide him peacefully through the dark valley of the shadow of death. One prayer only he has to make, and this is that some one will bring Theseus, the Athenian king, to his side before he dies. The wish is realised; and we see before us perhaps the most striking of all mythical groups, — the blinded Oidipous sinking peacefully into his last sleep, as he listens to the voice of the man who rules in the city of the dawn-goddess Athene, and feels the gentle touch of his daughter's hand, while over him wave the branches in the grove of the Eumenides, benignant always to him, and now reflecting more than ever the loveliness of the Eastern Saranyu. Then comes the signal of departure, that voice of the divine thunder which now, as before, when he encountered the Sphinx, Oidipous alone can understand. Without a murmur he prepares to obey the summons, and with Theseus alone, the son of the sea and air, by his side, calmly awaits the end. With wonder- ful fidelity to the old mythical phrases, the poet tells us of the hero who has passed away, by no touch of disease, for sickness could not fasten on his glorious form, by no thunderstroke or sea-roused whirlwind, but guided by some heaven-sent messenger, or descending into the kindly earth where pain and grief may never afflict him more. Well may the poet speak as though he were scarcely telling the story of the death of mortal man.^
> Soph. Oid. Kol. 1248.
^ Ibid. 1665. We have here the image of the wise and beneficent king smitten by the stroke of an unutterable woe, yet going down blinded to his grave with incommunicable dignity and majesty. But there might be another side to the picture. The exquisite tints of evening twilight are seen to spread themselves languishingly across the blue heaven, which, growing darker every moment, seems to be lulled in the profoundest slumber. Here the sky is passive, while the twilight with its lovely clouds is active; but when we remember that the twilight is the daughter of the heaven, we have, Dr. Gokkiher insists (Mytholoiy among the Hebravs, p. 1S9, et scq.), the framework of the story of Lot and his
