holy wood
Near Colonus, where Sophocles was born. In that wood the gods grant Oedipus his death; beyond it he vanishes. Theseus, who accepted him, tells us that the grave where Oedipus is buried, in a place no man knows, will have an infallible protective power between Athens and its borders. But when this play was produced the Spartans and their allies were all round the walls of Athens; they were visible, very close to the sacred wood of Colonus. Sophocles was dead by then, the play was posthumous. And of course the trees were cut down in the end. (Boardman, 1986)