The death

Theseus arrives. Oedipus, in the firmest voice he has used in the play, tells him what is about to happen. The thunder is the herald. The gods are calling him. He has a treasure to give the city — a thing time cannot corrupt. The location must be kept secret; the secret of where he lies will, generation after generation, defend Athens better than any wall. He embraces his daughters and tells them they will not see him again. Then, blind as he is, he walks unaided into the grove, the king and the daughters following at a distance.

What happens next is reported. Oedipus had led them to the Earth-rooted Threshold, the bronze stairs at the cleft above which the path forked. He had bathed himself; he had put on clean clothes; he had said his goodbyes. A voice had called his name out of the air. The girls wept; he told them, gently, to go. Only Theseus had been allowed to remain. The messenger turns back to look — Oedipus is gone. Theseus is standing alone, his hand over his eyes, as if the brightness of what he had seen were unbearable. The earth, he says, had opened gently and taken him in. There had been no cry.

The girls return. They beg Theseus to let them see their father's tomb. He refuses; Oedipus had charged him strictly that no mortal should approach the place. Antigone accepts. She turns to a different errand. If she cannot see the grave, she will go back to Thebes with her sister and try to stop their brothers. The audience knows what is coming. The chorus, in the last line of the play and the last play of Sophocles's life, says only this: wail no more; let sorrow rest; all is ordered for the best.