II - SOPHOCLES

Summary

LESS than a mile and a half from Athens stood the hill of Colonus. Its beauties have been sung by its own poet.

O stranger, thou hast reached the dwellings of a land

Where noble steeds are bred, — earth has no better homes —

Colonus, with a gleaming altar crowned. Here, too,

The clear-toned nightingale pours forth her plaintive note

Down in green glades where purple ivy grows,

The ivy which she loves, and where the thicket grows

Sunless, untrodden, shaken by no winds, a fruit

Of myriad berries bearing, sacred to the God.

There joyous Dionysus wanders ever

In happy frolic with the Nymphs who care for him;

And nourished by the falling dews of heaven each day

The clustering narcissus blooms, the ancient crown

Of mighty Goddesses; and there its golden head.

The crocus shows. The sleepless rills which flow

To feed Cephissus’ streams are never dry, but with

Each day their quickening waters o'er earth's bosom flow.

The chorus of the Muses does not shun the spot,

And Aphrodite with her golden reins is there.

It is no wonder that the dwellers in this favored place were proud to call themselves Coloniatae, as well as Athenians. And another distinction was added to Colonus, which was destined to outlast all the rest; a voice which should ring out for ages after the sacred groves had changed to “cold, bare, ruin'd choirs”; a power which should live on “to better and convert mankind” when Dionysus had become a dream and Athena but a vision. It was the birthplace of Sophocles.