Excerpt from The Oedipus Tyrannus, Vol. 3 As a free-will gift from the grateful city, which he has rescued from destruction, he receives, together with the throne left vacant by La'i'us'e death, the widow of the king as his wife. And now as king in Thebes passes many years in undisturbed prosperity. J ocasta bears hiin four children the city, with one voice, honours him as the greatest and best of men as the man, who, not without the special favour of the gods, overcame the Sphinx, 33 ff. But suddenly, after long years the happiness which the gods awarded him is disturbed by a blight upon the fruits of the earth, and a pestilence on man and beast, -the punishment sent by Apollo because of the yet unexpiated guilt of the old murder. In his vigilant care for the city, (edipus has sent the man who stands next to himself and to the throne, his wife's brother Creon, with whom he has ever lived in unalloyed mutual friendship, 583 ii, to Delphi, for the purpose of invoking, in this trying emergency likewise, the aid of the Pythian god. At this point begins the action of the tragedy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.