My life and ask no other sacrifice!May thy Jocaste save her Œdipus!
œdipus.
And wouldest thou die! are there not woes enough
Heaped on this head? O cease, my loved Jocaste,
This mournful language, I am sunk already
Too deep in grief without new miseries,
Without thy death to fill my cup of sorrow.
Let us go in: I must clear up a doubt
Too justly formed, I fear: but follow me.
jocaste.
How couldst thou ever, my lord—
œdipus.
No more: come in,
And there confirm my terrors, or remove them.
The End of the Third Act.
ACT IV.
SCENE I.
œdipus, jocaste.
œdipus.
Jocaste, ’tis in vain: say what thou wilt,
These terrible suspicions haunt me still;
The priest affrights me; I acquit him now,
And even, in secret, am my own accuser.
O! I have asked myself some dreadful questions;
A thousand strange events, which form my mind
Were long effaced, now rush in crowds upon me,
And harrow up my soul; the past obstructs,
The present but confounds me, and the future
Is big with horrid truths; on every side
Guilt waits my footsteps.
jocaste.
Will not virtue guard thee?
Art thou not sure that thou art innocent?
œdipus.
We’re oft more guilty than we think we are.
jocaste.
Disdain the madness of a talking priest,
Nor thus excuse him with unmanly fears.
œdipus.
Now in the name of the unhappy king,
And angry heaven, let me entreat thee, say,
When Laius undertook that fatal journey,
Did guards attend him?
jocaste.
I’ve already told thee,
One followed him alone.
œdipus.
And only one?
jocaste.
Superior even to the rank he bore.
He was a king, who, like thyself, disdained
All irksome pomp, and never would permit
An idle train of slaves to march before him.
Amidst his happy subjects fearless still,
And still unguarded lived in peace and safety,
And thought his people’s love his best defence.
œdipus.
Thou best of kings, sent by indulgent heaven
To mortals here; thou exemplary greatness!
Could ever Œdipus his barbarous hand
Lift against thee? but if thou canst, Jocaste,
Describe him to me.
jocaste.
Since thou wilt recall
The sad remembrance, hear what Laius was:
Spite of the frost which hoary age had spread
O’er his fair temples in declining age,
Which yet was vigorous, his eyes sparkled still
With all the fire of youth, his wrinkled forehead
Beneath, his silver locks attracted awe
And reverence from mankind: if I may dare
To say it, Laius much resembled thee;
With pleasure I behold in Œdipus
His virtues and his features thus united.
What have I said to alarm thee thus?—
œdipus.
I see
Some strange misfortune will o’ertake me soon;
The priest, I fear, was by the gods inspired,
And but too truly hath foretold my fate:
Could I do this, and was it possible?
jocaste.
Are then these holy instruments of heaven
Infallible? Their ministry indeed
Binds them to the altar, they approach the gods,
But they are mortals still; and thinkest thou then
Truth is dependent on the flight of birds?
Thinkest thou, expiring by the sacred knife,
The groaning heifer shall for them alone
Remove the veil of dark futurity?
Or the gay victims, crowned with flowery garlands,
Within their entrails bear the fates of men?
O no! to search for truth by ways like these
Is to usurp the rights of power supreme;
