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hand the wand wherewith he was wont to dispel or call again sweet slumber, wherewith to enter the gates of gloomy Tartarus or summon back dead souls to life. Then down he leapt, and shuddered^[1] as the frail air received him; delaying not, he wings his speedy flight through the void on high, and draws a mighty curve upon the clouds.

Meanwhile the son of Oedipus, long time a wandering outlaw from his father’s lands, traverses by stealth the waste places of Aonia. Already he broods on the lost realm that was his due, and cries that the long year stands motionless in its tardy constellations. One thought recurring night and day holds him, could he ever but behold his kinsman degraded from the throne, and himself master of Thebes and all its power; a lifetime would he bargain for that day. Now he complains that his exile is but time consumed in idleness, but soon the gust of princely pride swells high, and he fancies his brother already cast down and himself seated proudly in his place; fretful hope keeps his mind busy, and in far-reaching prayers he tastes all his heart’s desire. Then he resolves to journey undismayed to the Inachian cities and Danaan lands and to Mycenae dark with the sun’s withdrawal,^[2] whether it were the Fury piloting his steps, or the chance direction of the road, or the summoning of resistless Fate. He leaves the Ogygian glades that resound with frenzied howlings, and the hills that drink deep of Bacchic gore,^[3] then passes the region where long Cithaeron settles gently to the plain and stoops his weary height to the sea.