My children, latest generation born from cadmus, why are you sitting here with wreathed sticks in supplication to me, while the city fills with incense, chants and cries of pain? … so i have come in person—i, oedipus, whose fame all men acknowledge. … i shall assist you willingly in every way. i would be a hard-hearted man indeed, if i did not pity suppliants like these. based on its context, what is a suppliant?