The daughters returned, and Polyneices refused

Theseus rides back into the grove with Antigone and Ismene. Oedipus, hearing their voices, calls them. They run to him. He embraces them and says he could die now, with them near, and not call death bitter. Theseus, modest, says only that he kept his oath. Then he turns to a second matter. A suppliant has taken sanctuary at the altar of Poseidon and is begging for one word with Oedipus. He will not do anything else.

Oedipus, after a few questions, knows who it is. It is his son. The voice he has come to loathe most. He does not want to hear him. Theseus presses gently — the suppliant has taken sanctuary, the god protects him; you can refuse what he asks but cannot refuse to hear him. Antigone presses too. Let our brother come. If what he asks is not right, you can refuse; what harm is there in hearing him? Oedipus relents.

Polyneices enters in tears, weeping over the figure on the stone — his father in rags, sightless. He has gone to Argos, married the king's daughter, gathered an army; the seven champions are at his back. He has come to ask his father's blessing. The oracle says the side that has Oedipus on it will win. Oedipus answers in the play's most terrible speech. You stood by, he says, while your father was driven into exile. You come to me now because the oracle has told you what my body is worth. I will not bless you. I curse you both. You and your brother will fall by each other's hands. Polyneices accepts the curse. He begs his sisters to bury him when he falls. Antigone — knowing what the audience knows — promises. She begs him to turn the army back. He cannot. A general who flinches loses his men. He goes.