The arrival at the grove

The play opens on a road outside Athens, in the morning. Oedipus, blind, in rags, leaning on his daughter Antigone, asks her where they are. She does not yet know the village. She recognizes the country — they are in Attica — but the particular place is unfamiliar. She settles him on a stone at the edge of a wooded grove, dense with laurel and olive and vine, a chorus of nightingales singing in it.

A local stranger comes through the field. His first words are an order: get up. The spot is holy ground. Oedipus, courteously, asks what god is honored here. The stranger names them — the Gracious Ones, the dread daughters of Earth and Darkness, whom others call the Eumenides. At the name Oedipus quietly recognizes the prophecy he has carried for twenty years. Apollo, when he had pronounced his crimes long ago, had also told him this: when you reach a grove of these goddesses, you will have reached the place of your rest. Oedipus says, formally, that he will not leave the sanctuary. He asks the stranger to send for the king of Athens — he has a small service to offer that may bring great gain. The stranger goes.

Alone with his daughter, Oedipus turns to the goddesses themselves. He prays. He calls them stern-faced queens. He recalls what Apollo had said. He asks them to receive him. He is, he says, a man taught by long suffering, come at last to ask their grace. Antigone hears voices on the path. The local elders are coming, drawn by the news that a stranger is in the grove. Oedipus tells her to lead him off the road, into the cover of the grove, until he learns what they intend. A prudent man, he says, shapes his course by what he learns.