What means this? (OEDIPUS: Thou hast heard my tale of wrongs.) Ho! hasten to the altars, one of you. Command my liegemen leave the sacrifice And hurry, foot and horse, with rein unchecked, To where the paths that packmen use diverge, Lest the two maidens slip away, and I Become a mockery to this my guest, As one despoiled by force. Quick, as I bid. As for this stranger, had I let my rage, Justly provoked, have play, he had not ’scaped Scathless and uncorrected at my hands. But now the laws to which himself appealed, These and none others shall adjudicate. Thou shalt not quit this land, till thou hast fetched The maidens and produced them in my sight. Thou hast offended both against myself And thine own race and country. Having come Unto a State that champions right and asks For every action warranty of law, Thou hast set aside the custom of the land, And like some freebooter art carrying off What plunder pleases thee, as if forsooth Thou thoughtest this a city without men, Or manned by slaves, and me a thing of naught. Yet not from Thebes this villainy was learnt; Thebes is not wont to breed unrighteous sons, Nor would she praise thee, if she learnt that thou Wert robbing me—aye and the gods to boot, Haling by force their suppliants, poor maids. Were I on Theban soil, to prosecute The justest claim imaginable, I Would never wrest by violence my own Without sanction of your State or King; I should behave as fits an outlander Living amongst a foreign folk, but thou Shamest a city that deserves it not, Even thine own, and plentitude of years Have made of thee an old man and a fool. Therefore again I charge thee as before, See that the maidens are restored at once, Unless thou would’st continue here by force And not by choice a sojourner; so much I tell thee home and what I say, I mean.

Theseus Monologue from Oedipus at Colonus

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