ence between his own shrewdness and the divine intelligence: he is cured of his rash presumption, of his hasty suspicions, of his doubts and cares: he has now a sure test of Creon's sincerity, and he finds that it will stand the trial. Creon's moderation, discretion, and equanimity, are beautifully contrasted in this scene, as in that of the altercation, with the vehement passion of Œdipus. The mutual relation of the two characters so exactly resembles that between Tasso and Antonio in Goethe's Tasso, that the German play may serve as a commentary on this part of the Greek one. And here it may be proper to remark that Sophocles has rendered sufficiently clear for an attentive reader, what has nevertheless been too commonly overlooked, and has greatly disturbed many in the enjoyment of this play: that Œdipus, though unfortunate enough to excite our sympathy, is not so perfectly innocent as to appear the victim of a cruel and malignant power. The particular acts indeed which constitute his calamity were involuntarily committed: and hence in the sequel he can vindicate himself from the attack of Creon, and represent himself to the villagers of Colonus as a man more sinned against than sinning[1]. But still it is no less evident that all the events of his life have arisen out of his headstrong, impetuous character, and could not have happened if he had not neglected the warning of the god. His blindness, both the inward and the outward, has been self-inflicted! Now, as soon as the first paroxysm of grief has subsided, he appears chastened, sobered, humbled: the first and most painful step to true knowledge and inward peace, has been taken; and he already feels an assurance, that he is henceforward an especial object of divine protection, which will shield him from all ordinary ills and dangers.
Here, where the main theme of the poet's irony is the contrast between the appearance of good and the reality of evil, these intimations of the opposite contrast are sufficient. But in Œdipus at Colonus this new aspect of the subject becomes the groundwork of the play. It is not indeed so strikingly exhibited as the former, because the fate of Œdipus is not the sole, nor even the principal object of attention, but
- ↑ 266. τά γ᾽ ἔργα μου Πεπονθότ᾽ ἐστὶ μᾶλλον ἤ δεδρακότα.
