Would think even infamy, the worst of ills,
Were cheaply purchased, were thy love the price.
Uncrowned, a captive, nothing left but honour,--
'Tis the last thing a prince should throw away;
But when the storm grows loud, and threatens love,
Throw even that o'er-board; for love's the jewel,
And last it must be kept.

_Cre._ [_To_ DIOC.] Work him, be sure,
To rage; he is passionate;
Make him the aggressor.

_Dioc._ O false love, false honour!

_Cre._ Dissembled both, and false!

_Adr._ Darest thou say this to me?

_Cre._ To you! why what are you, that I should fear you?
I am not Laius. Hear me, prince of Argos;
You give what's nothing, when you give your honour:
'Tis gone; 'tis lost in battle. For your love,
Vows made in wine are not so false as that:
You killed her father; you confessed you did:
A mighty argument to prove your passion to the daughter!

_Adr._ [_Aside._]
Gods, must I bear this brand, and not retort
The lye to his foul throat!

_Dioc._ Basely you killed him.

_Adr._ [_Aside._]
O, I burn inward: my blood's all on fire!
Alcides, when the poisoned shirt sate closest,
Had but an ague-fit to this my fever.
Yet, for Eurydice, even this I'll suffer,
To free my love.--Well then, I killed him basely.

_Cre._ Fairly, I'm sure, you could not.

_Dioc._ Nor alone.

_Cre._ You had your fellow thieves about you, prince;
They conquered, and you killed.

_Adr._ [_Aside._] Down, swelling heart!
'Tis for thy princess all:--O my Eurydice!--                [_To her._

_Eur._ [_To him._]
Reproach not thus the weakness of my sex,
As if I could not bear a shameful death,
Rather than see you burdened with a crime
Of which I know you free.

_Cre._ You do ill, madam,
To let your head-long love triumph o'er nature:
Dare you defend your father's murderer?

_Eur._ You know he killed him not.

_Cre._ Let him say so.

_Dioc._ See, he stands mute.

_Cre._ O power of conscience, even in wicked men!
It works, it stings, it will not let him utter
One syllable, one,--no, to clear himself
From the most base, detested, horrid act
That ere could stain a villain,--not a prince.

_Adr._ Ha! villain!

_Dioc._ Echo to him, groves: cry villain.

_Adr._ Let me consider--did I murder Laius,
Thus, like a villain?

_Cre._ Best revoke your words,
And say you killed him not.

_Adr._ Not like a villain; pr'ythee, change me that
For any other lye.

_Dioc._ No, villain, villain.

_Cre._ You killed him not! proclaim your innocence,
Accuse the princess: So I knew 'twould be.

_Adr._ I thank thee, thou instructest me:
No matter how I killed him.

_Cre._ [_Aside._] Cooled again!

_Eur._ Thou, who usurp'st the sacred name of conscience,
Did not thy own declare him innocent?
To me declare him so? The king shall know it.

_Cre._ You will not be believed, for I'll forswear it.

_Eur._ What's now thy conscience?

_Cre._ 'Tis my slave, my drudge, my supple glove,
My upper garment, to put on, throw off,
As I think best: 'Tis my obedient conscience.

_Adr._ Infamous wretch!

_Cre._ My conscience shall not do me the ill office
To save a rival's life; when thou art dead,
(As dead thou shalt be, or be yet more base
Than thou think'st me,
By forfeiting her life, to save thy own,--)
Know this,--and let it grate thy very soul,--
She shall be mine: (she is, if vows were binding;)
Mark me, the fruit of all thy faith and passion,
Even of thy foolish death, shall all be mine.

_Adr._ Thine, say'st thou, monster! shall my love be thine?
O, I can bear no more!
Thy cunning engines have with labour raised
My heavy anger, like a mighty weight,
To fall and pash thee dead.
See here thy nuptials; see, thou rash Ixion,                 [_Draws._
Thy promised Juno vanished in a cloud;
And in her room avenging thunder rolls,
To blast thee thus!--Come both!--                        [_Both draw._

_Cre._ 'Tis what I wished.
Now see whose arm can launch the surer bolt,
And who's the better Jove!                                   [_Fight._

_Eur._ Help; murther, help!

  _Enter_ HÆMON _and guards, run betwixt them, and
  beat down their swords._

_Hæm._ Hold, hold your impious hands! I think the furies,
To whom this grove is hallowed, have inspired you:
Now, by my soul, the holiest earth of Thebes
You have profaned with war. Nor tree, nor plant
Grows here, but what is fed with magick juice;
All full of human souls, that cleave their barks
To dance at midnight by the moon's pale beams:
At least two hundred years these reverend shades
Have known no blood, but of black sheep and oxen,
Shed by the priest's own hand to Proserpine.

_Adr._ Forgive a stranger's ignorance: I knew not
The honours of the place.

_Hæm._ Thou, Creon, didst.
Not OEdipus, were all his foes here lodged,
Durst violate the religion of these groves,
To touch one single hair; but must, unarmed,
Parle as in truce, or surlily avoid
What most he longed to kill[8].

_Cre._ I drew not first,
But in my own defence.

_Adr._ I was provoked
Beyond man's patience; all reproach could urge
Was used to kindle one, not apt to bear.

_Hæm._ 'Tis OEdipus, not I, must judge this act.--
Lord Creon, you and Diocles retire:
Tiresias, and the brother-hood of priests,
Approach the place: None at these rites assist,
But you the accused, who by the mouth of Laius
Must be absolved or doomed.

_Adr._ I bear my fortune.

_Eur._ And I provoke my trial.

_Hæm._ 'Tis at hand.
For see, the prophet comes, with vervain crowned;
The priests with yew, a venerable band;
We leave you to the gods.    [_Exit_ HÆMON _with_ CREON _and_ DIOCLES.

  _Enter_ TIRESIAS, _led by_ MANTO: _The Priests follow; all cloathed
  in long black habits._

_Tir._ Approach, ye lovers;
Ill-fated pair! whom, seeing not, I know,
This day your kindly stars in heaven were joined;
When lo, an envious planet interposed,
And threatened both with death: I fear, I fear!--

_Eur._ Is there no God so much a friend to love,
Who can controul the malice of our fate?
Are they all deaf; or have the giants heaven?

_Tir._ The gods are just;
But how can finite measure infinite?
Reason! alas, it does not know itself!
Yet man, vain man, would with this short-lined plummet,
Fathom the vast abyss of heavenly justice.
Whatever is, is in its causes just;
Since all things are by fate. But purblind man
Sees but a part o'the chain; the nearest links;
His eyes not carrying to that equal beam,
That poises all above.

_Eur._ Then we must die!

_Tir._ The danger's imminent this day.

_Adr._ Why then there's one day less for human ills;
And who would moan himself, for suffering that,
Which in a day must pass? something, or nothing;--
I shall be what I was again, before
I was Adrastus.--
Penurious heaven, can'st thou not add a night
To our one day? give me a night with her,
And I'll give all the rest.

_Tir._ She broke her vow,
First made to Creon: But the time calls on;
And Laius' death must now be made more plain.
How loth I am to have recourse to rites
So full of horror, that I once rejoice
I want the use of sight!--

_1 Pr._ The ceremonies stay.

_Tir._ _Chuse the darkest part o'the grove:
Such as ghosts at noon-day love.
Dig a trench, and dig it nigh_
_Where the bones of Laius lie;
Altars, raised of turf or stone,
Will the infernal powers have none.
Answer me, if this be done?_

_All Pr._ _'Tis done._

_Tir._ _Is the sacrifice made fit?
Draw her backward to the pit:
Draw the barren heifer back;
Barren let her be, and black.
Cut the curled hair, that grows
Full betwixt her horns and brows:
And turn your faces from the sun:
Answer me, if this be done?_

_All Pr._ _'Tis done._

_Tir._ _Pour in blood, and blood like wine,
To mother Earth and Proserpine:
Mingle milk into the stream;
Feast the ghosts that love the steam;
Snatch a brand from funeral pile;
Toss it in to make them boil:
And turn your faces from the sun:
Answer me, if all be done?_

_All Pr._ _All is done._  [_Peal of Thunder; and flashes of Lightning;
                           then groaning below the stage._

_Man._ O, what laments are those?

_Tir._ The groans of ghosts, that cleave the heart with pain,
And heave it up: they pant and stick half-way.
                                         [_The Stage wholly darkened._

_Man._ And now a sudden darkness covers all,
True genuine night, night added to the groves;
The fogs are blown full in the face of heaven.

_Tir._ Am I but half obeyed? infernal gods,
Must you have musick too? then tune your voices,
And let them have such sounds as hell ne'er heard,
Since Orpheus bribed the shades.

  _Musick First. Then Song._

_1. Hear, ye sullen powers below:
     Hear, ye taskers of the dead.
2. You that boiling cauldrons blow,
     You that scum the molten lead.
3. You that pinch with red-hot tongs;
1. You that drive the trembling hosts
     Of poor, poor ghosts,
   With your sharpened prongs;
2. You that thrust them off the brim;
3. You that plunge them when they swim:
1. Till they drown;
     Till they go
     On a row,
   Down, down, down:
   Ten thousand, thousand, thousand fathoms low._

_Chorus._ _Till they drown, &c._

_1. Musick for awhile
   Shall your cares beguile:
   Wondering how your pains were eased;
2. And disdaining to be pleas'd;
1. Till Alecto free the dead
     From their eternal bands;
   Till the snakes drop from her head,
     And whip from out her hands.
1. Come away,
     Do not stay,
     But obey,
     While we play,
     For hell's broke up, and ghosts have holiday._

_Chorus._ _Come away, &c._   [_A flash of Lightning: The Stage is made
                              bright, and the Ghosts are seen passing
                              betwixt the Trees._

_1. Laius! 2. Laius! 3. Laius!_

_1. Hear! 2. Hear! 3. Hear!_

_Tir._ _Hear and appear!
By the Fates that spun thy thread!_

_Cho._ _Which are three._

_Tir._ _By the furies fierce and dread!_

_Cho._ _Which are three._

_Tir._ _By the judges of the dead!_

_Cho._ _Which are three.
       Three times three!_

_Tir._ _By hell's blue flame:
       By the Stygian Lake:
     And by Demogorgon's name,
       At which ghosts quake,
     Hear and appear!_
                      [_The Ghost of Laius rises armed in his chariot,
                       as he was slain. And behind his Chariot,
                       sit the three who were murdered with him._

_Ghost of Laius._ Why hast thou drawn me from my pain below,
To suffer worse above? to see the day,
And Thebes, more hated? Hell is heaven to Thebes.
For pity send me back, where I may hide,
In willing night, this ignominious head:
In hell I shun the public scorn; and then
They hunt me for their sport, and hoot me as I fly:
Behold even now they grin at my gored side,
And chatter at my wounds.

_Tir._ I pity thee:
Tell but why Thebes is for thy death accurst,
And I'll unbind the charm.

_Ghost._ O spare my shame!

_Tir._ Are these two innocent?

_Ghost._ Of my death they are.
But he who holds my crown,--Oh, must I speak!--
Was doomed to do what nature most abhors.
The Gods foresaw it; and forbade his being,
Before he yet was born. I broke their laws,
And clothed with flesh his pre-existing soul.
Some kinder power, too weak for destiny,
Took pity, and endued his new-formed mass
With temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude,
And every kingly virtue: But in vain.
For fate, that sent him hood-winked to the world,
Performed its work by his mistaking hands.
Ask'st thou who murdered me? 'twas OEdipus:
Who stains my bed with incest? OEdipus:
For whom then are you curst, but OEdipus!
He comes, the parricide! I cannot bear him:
My wounds ake at him: Oh, his murderous breath
Venoms my airy substance! hence with him,
Banish him; sweep him out; the plague he bears
Will blast your fields, and mark his way with ruin.
From Thebes, my throne, my bed, let him be driven:
Do you forbid him earth, and I'll forbid him heaven.
                                                    [_Ghost descends._

  _Enter_ OEDIPUS, CREON, HÆMON, &c.

_OEdip._ What's this! methought some pestilential blast
Struck me, just entering; and some unseen hand
Struggled to push me backward! tell me why
My hair stands bristling up, why my flesh trembles?
You stare at me! then hell has been among ye,
And some lag fiend yet lingers in the grove.

_Tir._ What omen sawest thou, entering?

_OEdip._ A young stork,
That bore his aged parent on his back;
Till weary with the weight, he shook him off,
And pecked out both his eyes.

_Adr._ Oh, OEdipus!

_Eur._ Oh, wretched OEdipus!

_Tir._ Oh, fatal king!

_OEdip._ What mean these exclamations on my name?
I thank the gods, no secret thoughts reproach me:
No: I dare challenge heaven to turn me outward,
And shake my soul quite empty in your sight.
Then wonder not that I can bear unmoved
These fixed regards, and silent threats of eyes.
A generous fierceness dwells with innocence;
And conscious virtue is allowed some pride.

_Tir._ Thou knowest not what thou sayest.

_OEdip._ What mutters he? tell me, Eurydice:
Thou shak'st: Thy soul's a woman;--speak, Adrastus,
And boldly, as thou met'st my arms in fight:--
Dar'st thou not speak? why then 'tis bad indeed.--
Tiresias, thee I summon by thy priesthood,
Tell me what news from hell; where Laius points,
And whose the guilty head!

_Tir._ Let me not answer.

_OEdip._ Be dumb then, and betray thy native soil
To farther plagues.

_Tir._ I dare not name him to thee.

_OEdip._ Dar'st thou converse with hell, and canst thou fear
An human name?

_Tir._ Urge me no more to tell a thing, which, known,
Would make thee more unhappy: 'Twill be found,
Though I am silent.

_OEdip._ Old and obstinate! Then thou thyself
Art author or accomplice of this murther,
And shun'st the justice, which by public ban
Thou hast incurred.

_Tir._ O, if the guilt were mine,
It were not half so great: Know, wretched man,
Thou only, thou art guilty! thy own curse
Falls heavy on thyself.

_OEdip._ Speak this again:
But speak it to the winds, when they are loudest,
Or to the raging seas; they'll hear as soon,
And sooner will believe.

_Tir._ Then hear me, heaven!
For, blushing, thou hast seen it; hear me, earth,
Whose hollow womb could not contain this murder,
But sent it back to light! And thou, hell, hear me!
Whose own black seal has 'firmed this horrid truth,
OEdipus murthered Laius!

_OEdip._ Rot the tongue,
And blasted be the mouth that spoke that lie!
Thou blind of sight, but thou more blind of soul!

_Tir._ Thy parents thought not so.

_OEdip._ Who were my parents?

_Tir._ Thou shalt know too soon.

_OEdip._ Why seek I truth from thee?
The smiles of courtiers, and the harlot's tears,
The tradesman's oaths, and mourning of an heir,
Are truths to what priests tell.
O why has priest-hood privilege to lie,
And yet to be believed!--thy age protects thee.

_Tir._ Thou canst not kill me; 'tis not in thy fate,
As 'twas to kill thy father, wed thy mother,
And beget sons, thy brothers[9].

_OEdip._ Riddles, riddles!

_Tir._ Thou art thyself a riddle; a perplext
Obscure enigma, which when thou unty'st,
Thou shalt be found and lost.

_OEdip._ Impossible!--
Adrastus, speak; and, as thou art a king,
Whose royal word is sacred, clear my fame.

_Adr._ Would I could!

_OEdip._ Ha, wilt thou not? Can that plebeian vice
Of lying mount to kings? Can they be tainted?
Then truth is lost on earth.

_Cre._ The cheat's too gross.
Adrastus is his oracle, and he,
The pious juggler, but Adrastus' organ.

_OEdip._ 'Tis plain, the priest's suborned to free the prisoner.

_Cre._ And turn the guilt, on you.

_OEdip._ O, honest Creon, how hast thou been belied!

_Eur._ Hear me.

_Cre._ She's bribed to save her lover's life.

_Adr._ If, OEdipus, thou think'st--

_Cre._ Hear him not speak.

_Adr._ Then hear these holy men.

_Cre._ Priests, priests; all bribed, all priests.

_OEdip._ Adrastus, I have found thee:
The malice of a vanquished man has seized thee!

_Adr._ If envy and not truth--

_OEdip._ I'll hear no more: Away with him.
                          [HÆMON _takes him off by force:_ CREON _and_
                           EURYDICE _follow._

[_To_ TIR.] Why stand'st thou here, impostor?
So old, and yet so wicked,--Lie for gain?
And gain so short as age can promise thee!

_Tir._ So short a time as I have yet to live,
Exceeds thy 'pointed hour;--remember Laius!
No more; if e'er we meet again, 'twill be
In mutual darkness; we shall feel before us
To reach each other's hand;--remember Laius!
                                   [_Exit_ TIRESIAS: _Priests follow._

  OEDIPUS _solus._

Remember Laius! that's the burden still:
Murther and incest! but to hear them named
My soul starts in me: The good sentinel
Stands to her weapons, takes the first alarm
To guard me from such crimes.--Did I kill Laius?
Then I walked sleeping, in some frightful dream;
My soul then stole my body out by night;
And brought me back to bed ere morning-wake
It cannot be even this remotest way,
But some dark hint would justle forward now,
And goad my memory.--Oh my Jocasta!

  _Enter_ JOCASTA.

_Joc._ Why are you thus disturbed?

_OEdip._ Why, would'st thou think it?
No less than murder.

_Joc._ Murder! what of murder?

_OEdip._ Is murder then no more? add parricide,
And incest; bear not these a frightful sound?

_Joc._ Alas!

_OEdip._ How poor a pity is alas,
For two such crimes!--was Laius us'd to lie?

_Joc._ Oh no: The most sincere, plain, honest man;
One who abhorred a lie.

_OEdip._ Then he has got that quality in hell.
He charges me--but why accuse I him?
I did not hear him speak it: They accuse me,--
The priest, Adrastus and Eurydice,--
Of murdering Laius!--Tell me, while I think on't,
Has old Tiresias practised long this trade?

_Joc._ What trade?

_OEdip._ Why, this foretelling trade.

_Joc._ For many years.

_OEdip._ Has he before this day accused me?

_Joc._ Never.

_OEdip._ Have you ere this inquired who did this murder?

_Joc._ Often; but still in vain.

_OEdip._ I am satisfied.
Then 'tis an infant-lye; but one day old.
The oracle takes place before the priest;
The blood of Laius was to murder Laius:
I'm not of Laius' blood.

_Joc._ Even oracles
Are always doubtful, and are often forged:
Laius had one, which never was fulfilled,
Nor ever can be now.

_OEdip._ And what foretold it?

_Joc._ That he should have a son by me, foredoomed
The murderer of his father: True, indeed,
A son was born; but, to prevent that crime,
The wretched infant of a guilty fate,
Bored through his untried feet, and bound with cords,
On a bleak mountain naked was exposed:
The king himself lived many, many years,
And found a different fate; by robbers murdered,
Where three ways met: Yet these are oracles,
And this the faith we owe them.

_OEdip._ Sayest thou, woman?
By heaven, thou hast awakened somewhat in me,
That shakes my very soul!

_Joc._ What new disturbance?

_OEdip._ Methought thou said'st--(or do I dream thou said'st it!)
This murder was on Laius' person done,
Where three ways meet?

_Joc._ So common fame reports.

_OEdip._ Would it had lied!

_Joc._ Why, good my lord?

_OEdip._ No questions.
'Tis busy time with me; despatch mine first;
Say where, where was it done!

_Joc._ Mean you the murder?

_OEdip._ Could'st thou not answer without naming murder?

_Joc._ They say in Phocide; on the verge that parts it
From Daulia, and from Delphos.

_OEdip._ So!--How long? when happened this?

_Joc._ Some little time before you came to Thebes.

_OEdip._ What will the gods do with me!

_Joc._ What means that thought?

_OEdip._ Something: But 'tis not yet your turn to ask:
How old was Laius, what his shape, his stature,
His action, and his mien? quick, quick, your answer!--

_Joc._ Big made he was, and tall: His port was fierce,
Erect his countenance: Manly majesty
Sate in his front, and darted from his eyes,
Commanding all he viewed: His hair just grizzled,
As in a green old age: Bate but his years,
You are his picture.

_OEdip._ [_Aside._] Pray heaven he drew me not!--
Am I his picture?

_Joc._ So I have often told you.

_OEdip._ True, you have;
Add that unto the rest:--How was the king
Attended, when he travelled?

_Joc._ By four servants:
He went out private.

_OEdip._ Well counted still:--
One 'scaped, I hear; what since became of him?

_Joc._ When he beheld you first, as king in Thebes,
He kneeled, and trembling begged I would dismiss him:
He had my leave; and now he lives retired.

_OEdip._ This man must be produced: he must, Jocasta.

_Joc._ He shall--yet have I leave to ask you why?

_OEdip._ Yes, you shall know: For where should I repose
The anguish of my soul, but in your breast!
I need not tell you Corinth claims my birth;
My parents, Polybus and Merope,
Two royal names; their only child am I.
It happened once,--'twas at a bridal feast,--
One, warm with wine, told me I was a foundling,
Not the king's son; I, stung with this reproach,
Struck him: My father heard of it: The man
Was made ask pardon; and the business hushed.

_Joc._ 'Twas somewhat odd.

_OEdip._ And strangely it perplexed me.
I stole away to Delphos, and implored
The god, to tell my certain parentage.
He bade me seek no farther:--'Twas my fate
To kill my father, and pollute his bed,
By marrying her who bore me.

_Joc._ Vain, vain oracles!

_OEdip._ But yet they frighted me;
I looked on Corinth as a place accurst,
Resolved my destiny should wait in vain,
And never catch me there.

_Joc._ Too nice a fear.

_OEdip._ Suspend your thoughts; and flatter not too soon.
Just in the place you named, where three ways met.
And near that time, five persons I encountered;
One was too like, (heaven grant it prove not him!)
Whom you describe for Laius: insolent,
And fierce they were, as men who lived on spoil.
I judged them robbers, and by force repelled
The force they used: In short, four men I slew:
The fifth upon his knees demanding life,
My mercy gave it;--Bring me comfort now.
If I slew Laius, what can be more wretched!
From Thebes, and you, my curse has banished me:
From Corinth, fate.

_Joc._ Perplex not thus your mind.
My husband fell by multitudes opprest;
So Phorbas said: This band you chanced to meet:
And murdered not my Laius, but revenged him.

_OEdip._ There's all my hope: Let Phorbas tell me this,
And I shall live again.--
To you, good gods, I make my last appeal;
Or clear my virtue, or my crime reveal:
If wandering in the maze of fate I run,
And backward trod the paths I sought to shun,
Impute my errors to your own decree;
My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.                  [_Exeunt._

ACT IV. SCENE I.

  _Enter_ PYRACMON _and_ CREON.

_Pyr._ Some business of import, that triumph wears,
You seem to go with; nor is it hard to guess
When you are pleased, by a malicious joy,
Whose red and fiery beams cast through your visage
A glowing pleasure. Sure you smile revenge,
And I could gladly hear.

_Cre._ Would'st thou believe!
This giddy hair-brained king, whom old Tiresias
Has thunder-struck with heavy accusation,
Though conscious of no inward guilt, yet fears:
He fears Jocasta, fears himself, his shadow;
He fears the multitude; and,--which is worth
An age of laughter,--out of all mankind,
He chuses me to be his orator;
Swears that Adrastus, and the lean-looked prophet[10],
Are joint conspirators; and wished me to
Appease the raving Thebans; which I swore
To do.

_Pyr._ A dangerous undertaking;
Directly opposite to your own interest.

_Cre._ No, dull Pyracmon; when I left his presence
With all the wings, with which revenge could aid
My flight, I gained the midst o'the city;
There, standing on a pile of dead and dying,
I to the mad and sickly multitude,
With interrupting sobs, cry'd out,--O Thebes!
O wretched Thebes, thy king, thy OEdipus,
This barbarous stranger, this usurper, monster,
Is by the oracle, the wise Tiresias,
Proclaimed the murderer of thy royal Laius:
Jocasta too, no longer now my sister,
Is found complotter in the horrid deed.
Here I renounce all tie of blood and nature,
For thee, O Thebes, dear Thebes, poor bleeding Thebes!--
And there I wept, and then the rabble howled.
And roared, and with a thousand antic mouths
Gabbled revenge! revenge was all the cry.

_Pyr._ This cannot fail: I see you on the throne:
And OEdipus cast out.

_Cre._ Then strait came on
Alcander, with a wild and bellowing crowd,
Whom he had wrought; I whispered him to join.
And head the forces while the heat was in them.
So to the palace I returned, to meet
The king, and greet him with another story.--
But see, he enters.

  _Enter_ OEDIPUS _and_ JOCASTA, _attended._

_OEdip._ Said you that Phorbas is returned, and yet
Intreats he may return, without being asked
Of aught concerning what we have discovered?

_Joc._ He started when I told him your intent,
Replying, what he knew of that affair
Would give no satisfaction to the king;
Then, falling on his knees, begged, as for life,
To be dismissed from court: He trembled too,
As if convulsive death had seized upon him,
And stammered in his abrupt prayer so wildly,
That had he been the murderer of Laius,
Guilt and distraction could not have shook him more.

_OEdip._ By your description, sure as plagues and death
Lay waste our Thebes, some deed that shuns the light
Begot those fears; if thou respect'st my peace,
Secure him, dear Jocasta; for my genius
Shrinks at his name.

_Joc._ Rather let him go:
So my poor boding heart would have it be,
Without a reason.

_OEdip._ Hark, the Thebans come!
Therefore retire: And, once more, if thou lovest me,
Let Phorbas be retained.

_Joc._ You shall, while I
Have life, be still obeyed.
In vain you sooth me with your soft endearments,
And set the fairest countenance to view;
Your gloomy eyes, my lord, betray a deadness
And inward languishing: That oracle
Eats like a subtle worm its venomed way,
Preys on your heart, and rots the noble core,
Howe'er the beauteous out-side shews so lovely.

_OEdip._ O, thou wilt kill me with thy love's excess!
All, all is well; retire, the Thebans come.               [_Exit_ JOC.

_Ghost._ OEdipus!

_OEdip._ Ha! again that scream of woe!
Thrice have I heard, thrice, since the morning dawned,
It hollowed loud, as if my guardian spirit
Called from some vaulted mansion, OEdipus!
Or is it but the work of melancholy?
When the sun sets, shadows, that shewed at noon
But small, appear most long and terrible;
So, when we think fate hovers o'er our heads,
Our apprehensions shoot beyond all bounds;
Owls, ravens, crickets seem the watch of death;
Nature's worst vermin scare her godlike sons;
Echoes, the very leavings of a voice,
Grow babbling ghosts, and call us to our graves;
Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus;
While we fantastic dreamers heave and puff,
And sweat with an imagination's weight;
As if, like Atlas, with these mortal shoulders
We could sustain the burden of the world.      [CREON _comes forward._

_Cre._ O, sacred sir, my royal lord--

_OEdip._ What now?
Thou seem'st affrighted at some dreadful action;
Thy breath comes short, thy darted eyes are fixt
On me for aid, as if thou wert pursued:
I sent thee to the Thebans; speak thy wonder:
Fear not; this palace is a sanctuary,
The king himself's thy guard.

_Cre._ For me, alas,
My life's not worth a thought, when weighed with yours!
But fly, my lord; fly as your life is sacred.
Your fate is precious to your faithful Creon,
Who therefore, on his knees, thus prostrate begs
You would remove from Thebes, that vows your ruin.
When I but offered at your innocence,
They gathered stones, and menaced me with death,
And drove me through the streets, with imprecations
Against your sacred person, and those traitors
Who justified your guilt, which cursed Tiresias
Told, as from heaven, was cause of their destruction.

_OEdip._ Rise, worthy Creon; haste and take our guard,
Rank them in equal part upon the square,
Then open every gate of this our palace,
And let the torrent in. Hark, it comes.                      [_Shout._
I hear them roar: Begone, and break down all
The dams, that would oppose their furious passage.
                                          [_Exit_ CREON _with Guards._

  _Enter_ ADRASTUS, _his sword drawn._

_Adr._ Your city
Is all in arms, all bent to your destruction:
I heard but now, where I was close confined,
A thundering shout, which made my jailors vanish,
Cry,--fire the palace! where is the cruel king?
Yet, by the infernal Gods, those awful powers
That have accused you, which these ears have heard,
And these eyes seen, I must believe you guiltless;
For, since I knew the royal OEdipus,
I have observed in all his acts such truth,
And god-like clearness, that, to the last gush
Of blood and spirits, I'll defend his life,
And here have sworn to perish by his side.

_OEdip._ Be witness, Gods, how near this touches me. [_Embracing him._
O what, what recompence can glory make?

_Adr._ Defend your innocence, speak like yourself,
And awe the rebels with your dauntless virtue.
But hark! the storm comes nearer.

_OEdip._ Let it come.
The force of majesty is never known
But in a general wreck: Then, then is seen
The difference 'twixt a threshold and a throne.

  _Enter_ CREON, PYRACMON, ALCANDER, TIRESIAS, _Thebans._

_Alc._ Where, where's this cruel king?--Thebans, behold,
There stands your plague, the ruin, desolation
Of this unhappy--speak; shall I kill him?
Or shall he be cast out to banishment?

_All Theb._ To banishment, away with him!

_OEdip._ Hence, you barbarians, to your slavish distance!
Fix to the earth your sordid looks; for he,
Who stirs, dares more than madmen, fiends, or furies.
Who dares to face me, by the Gods, as well
May brave the majesty of thundering Jove.
Did I for this relieve you, when besieged
By this fierce prince, when cooped within your walls,
And to the very brink of fate reduced;
When lean-jawed famine made more havock of you,
Than does the plague? But I rejoice I know you,
Know the base stuff that tempered your vile souls:
The Gods be praised, I needed not your empire,
Born to a greater, nobler, of my own;
Nor shall the sceptre of the earth now win me
To rule such brutes, so barbarous a people.

_Adr._ Methinks, my lord, I see a sad repentance,
A general consternation spread among them.

_OEdip._ My reign is at an end; yet, ere I finish,
I'll do a justice that becomes a monarch;
A monarch, who, in the midst of swords and javelins,
Dares act as on his throne, encompast round
With nations for his guard. Alcander, you
Are nobly born, therefore shall lose your head:         [_Seizes him._
Here, Hæmon, take him: but for this, and this,
Let cords dispatch them. Hence, away with them!

_Tir._ O sacred prince, pardon distracted Thebes,
Pardon her, if she acts by heaven's award;
If that the infernal spirits have declared
The depth of fate; and if our oracles
May speak, O do not too severely deal!
But let thy wretched Thebes at least complain.
If thou art guilty, heaven will make it known;
If innocent, then let Tiresias die.

_OEdip._ I take thee at thy word.--Run, haste, and save Alcander:
I swear, the prophet, or the king shall die.
Be witness, all you Thebans, of my oath;
And Phorbas be the umpire.

_Tir._ I submit.                                    [_Trumpet sounds._

_OEdip._ What mean those trumpets?

  _Enter_ HÆMON _with_ ALCANDER, _&c._

_Hæm._ From your native country,
Great sir, the famed Ægeon is arrived,
That renowned favourite of the king your father:
He comes as an ambassador from Corinth,
And sues for audience.

_OEdip._ Haste, Hæmon, fly, and tell him that I burn
To embrace him.

_Hæm._ The queen, my lord, at present holds him
In private conference; but behold her here.

  _Enter_ JOCASTA, EURYDICE, _&c._

_Joc._ Hail, happy OEdipus, happiest of kings!
Henceforth be blest, blest as thou canst desire;
Sleep without fears the blackest nights away;
Let furies haunt thy palace, thou shalt sleep
Secure, thy slumbers shall be soft and gentle
As infants' dreams.

_OEdip._ What does the soul of all my joys intend?
And whither would this rapture?

_Joc._ O, I could rave,
Pull down those lying fanes, and burn that vault,
From whence resounded those false oracles,
That robbed my love of rest: If we must pray,
Rear in the streets bright altars to the Gods,
Let virgins' hands adorn the sacrifice;
And not a grey-beard forging priest come near,
To pry into the bowels of the victim,
And with his dotage mad the gaping world.
But see, the oracle that I will trust,
True as the Gods, and affable as men.

  _Enter_ ÆGEON. _Kneels._

_OEdip._ O, to my arms, welcome, my dear Ægeon;
Ten thousand welcomes! O, my foster-father,
Welcome as mercy to a man condemned!
Welcome to me, as, to a sinking mariner,
The lucky plank that bears him to the shore!
But speak, O tell me what so mighty joy
Is this thou bring'st, which so transports Jocasta?

_Joc._ Peace, peace, Ægeon, let Jocasta tell him!--
O that I could for ever charm, as now,
My dearest OEdipus! Thy royal father,
Polybus, king of Corinth, is no more.

_OEdip._ Ha! can it be? Ægeon, answer me;
And speak in short, what my Jocasta's transport
May over-do.

_Æge._ Since in few words, my royal lord, you ask
To know the truth,--king Polybus is dead.

_OEdip._ O all you powers, is't possible? what, dead!
But that the tempest of my joy may rise
By just degrees, and hit at last the stars,
Say, how, how died he? ha! by sword, by fire,
Or water? by assassinates, or poison? speak:
Or did he languish under some disease?

_Æge._ Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn-fruit that mellowed long;
Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more:
Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

_OEdip._ O, let me press thee in my youthful arms,
And smother thy old age in my embraces.
Yes, Thebans, yes, Jocasta, yes, Adrastus,
Old Polybus, the king my father's dead!
Fires shall be kindled in the midst of Thebes;
In the midst of tumult, wars, and pestilence,
I will rejoice for Polybus's death.
Know, be it known to the limits of the world;
Yet farther, let it pass yon dazzling roof,
The mansion of the Gods, and strike them deaf
With everlasting peals of thundering joy.

_Tir._ Fate! Nature! Fortune! what is all this world?

_OEdip._ Now, dotard; now, thou blind old wizard prophet,
Where are your boding ghosts, your altars now;
Your birds of knowledge, that in dusky air
Chatter futurity? And where are now
Your oracles, that called me parricide?
Is he not dead? deep laid in his monument?
And was not I in Thebes when fate attacked him?
Avaunt, begone, you vizors of the Gods!
Were I as other sons, now I should weep;
But, as I am, I have reason to rejoice:
And will, though his cold shade should rise and blast me.
O, for this death, let waters break their bounds;
Rocks, valleys, hills, with splitting Io's ring:
Io, Jocasta, Io pæan sing!

_Tir._ Who would not now conclude a happy end!
But all fate's turns are swift and unexpected.

_Æge._ Your royal mother Merope, as if
She had no soul since you forsook the land,
Waves all the neighbouring princes that adore her.

_OEdip._ Waves all the princes! poor heart! for what?
O speak.

_Æge._ She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,
Grows cold, even in the summer of her age,
And, for your sake, has sworn to die unmarried.

_OEdip._ How! for my sake, die and not marry! O
My fit returns.

_Æge._ This diamond, with a thousand kisses blest,
With thousand sighs and wishes for your safety,
She charged me give you, with the general homage
Of our Corinthian lords.

_OEdip._ There's magic in it, take it from my sight;
There's not a beam it darts, but carries hell,
Hot flashing lust, and necromantic incest:
Take it from these sick eyes, oh hide it from me!--
No, my Jocasta, though Thebes cast me out,
While Merope's alive, I'll ne'er return.
O, rather let me walk round the wide world
A beggar, than accept a diadem
On such abhorred conditions.

_Joc._ You make, my lord, your own unhappiness,
By these extravagant and needless fears.

_OEdip._ Needless! O, all you Gods! By heaven, I would rather
Embrue my arms, up to my very shoulders,
In the dear entrails of the best of fathers,
Than offer at the execrable act
Of damned incest: therefore no more of her.

_Æge._ And why, O sacred sir, if subjects may
Presume to look into their monarch's breast,
Why should the chaste and spotless Merope
Infuse such thoughts, as I must blush to name?

_OEdip._ Because the god of Delphos did forewarn me,
With thundering oracles.

_Æge._ May I entreat to know them?

_OEdip._ Yes, my Ægeon; but the sad remembrance
Quite blasts my soul: See then the swelling priest!
Methinks, I have his image now in view!--
He mounts the tripos in a minute's space,
His clouded head knocks at the temple-roof;
While from his mouth,
These dismal words are heard:
"Fly, wretch, whom fate has doomed thy father's blood to spill,
And with preposterous births thy mother's womb to fill!"

_Æge._ Is this the cause,
Why you refuse the diadem of Corinth?

_OEdip._ The cause! why, is it not a monstrous one!

_Æge._ Great sir, you may return; and though you should
Enjoy the queen, (which all the Gods forbid!)
The act would prove no incest.

_OEdip._ How, Ægeon?
Though I enjoy my mother, not incestuous!
Thou ravest, and so do I; and these all catch
My madness; look, they're dead with deep distraction:
Not incest! what, not incest with my mother?

_Æge._ My lord, queen Merope is not your mother.

_OEdip._ Ha! did I hear thee right? not Merope
My mother!

_Æge._ Nor was Polybus your father.

_OEdip._ Then all my days and nights must now be spent
In curious search, to find out those dark parents
Who gave me to the world; speak then, Ægeon.
By all the Gods celestial and infernal,
By all the ties of nature, blood and friendship,
Conceal not from this racked despairing king,
A point or smallest grain of what thou knowest:
Speak then, O answer to my doubts directly,
If royal Polybus was not my father,
Why was I called his son?
_Æge._ He from my arms
Received you, as the fairest gift of nature.
Not but you were adorned with all the riches
That empire could bestow, in costly mantles,
Upon its infant heir.

_OEdip._ But was I made the heir of Corinth's crown,
Because Ægeon's hands presented me?

_Æge._ By my advice,
Being past all hope of children,
He took, embraced, and owned you for his son.

_OEdip._ Perhaps I then am yours; instruct me, sir;
If it be so, I'll kneel and weep before you.
With all the obedience of a penitent child,
Imploring pardon.
Kill me, if you please;
I will not writhe my body at the wound,
But sink upon your feet with a last sigh,
And ask forgiveness with my dying hands.

_Æge._ O rise, and call not to this aged cheek
The little blood which should keep warm my heart;
You are not mine, nor ought I to be blest
With such a god-like offspring. Sir, I found you
Upon the mount Cithæron.

_OEdip._ O speak, go on, the air grows sensible
Of the great things you utter, and is calm:
The hurried orbs, with storms so racked of late,
Seem to stand still, as if that Jove were talking.
Cithæron! speak, the valley of Cithæron!

_Æge._ Oft-times before, I thither did resort,
Charmed with the conversation of a man,
Who led a rural life, and had command
O'er all the shepherds, who about those vales
Tended their numerous flocks: in this man's arms,
I saw you smiling at a fatal dagger,
Whose point he often offered at your throat;
But then you smiled, and then he drew it back,
Then lifted it again,--you smiled again:
'Till he at last in fury threw it from him,
And cried aloud,--The Gods forbid thy death.
Then I rushed in, and, after some discourse,
To me he did bequeath your innocent life;
And I, the welcome care to Polybus.

_OEdip._ To whom belongs the master of the shepherds?

_Æge._ His name I knew not, or I have forgot:
That he was of the family of Laius,
I well remember.

_OEdip._ And is your friend alive? for if he be,
I'll buy his presence, though it cost my crown.

_Æge._ Your menial attendants best can tell
Whether he lives, or not; and who has now
His place.

_Joc._ Winds, bear me to some barren island,
Where print of human feet was never seen;
O'er-grown with weeds of such a monstrous height,
Their baleful tops are washed with bellying clouds;
Beneath whose venomous shade I may have vent
For horrors, that would blast the barbarous world!

_OEdip._ If there be any here that knows the person
Whom he described, I charge him on his life
To speak; concealment shall be sudden death:
But he, who brings him forth, shall have reward
Beyond ambition's lust.

_Tir._ His name is Phorbas:
Jocasta knows him well; but, if I may
Advise, rest where you are, and seek no farther.

_OEdip._ Then all goes well, since Phorbas is secured
By my Jocasta.--Haste, and bring him forth:
My love, my queen, give orders, Ha! what mean
These tears, and groans, and strugglings? speak, my fair,
What are thy troubles?

_Joc._ Yours; and yours are mine:
Let me conjure you, take the prophet's counsel,
And let this Phorbas go.

_OEdip._ Not for the world.
By all the Gods, I'll know my birth, though death
Attends the search. I have already past
The middle of the stream; and to return,
Seems greater labour than to venture over:
Therefore produce him.

_Joc._ Once more, by the Gods,
I beg, my OEdipus, my lord, my life,
My love, my all, my only, utmost hope!
I beg you, banish Phorbas: O, the Gods,
I kneel, that you may grant this first request.
Deny me all things else; but for my sake,
And as you prize your own eternal quiet,
Never let Phorbas come into your presence.

_OEdip._ You must be raised, and Phorbas shall appear,
Though his dread eyes were basilisks. Guards, haste,
Search the queen's lodgings; find, and force him hither.
                                                     [_Exeunt Guards._

_Joc._ O, OEdipus, yet send,
And stop their entrance, ere it be too late;
Unless you wish to see Jocasta rent
With furies,--slain out-right with mere distraction!
Keep from your eyes and mine the dreadful Phorbas.
Forbear this search, I'll think you more than mortal;
Will you yet hear me?

_OEdip._ Tempests will be heard,
And waves will dash, though rocks their basis keep.
But see, they enter. If thou truly lovest me,
Either forbear this subject, or retire.

  _Enter_ HÆMON, _Guards, with_ PHORBAS.

_Joc._ Prepare then, wretched prince, prepare to hear
A story, that shall turn thee into stone.
Could there be hewn a monstrous gap in nature,
A flaw made through the centre, by some God,
Through which the groans of ghosts may strike thy ears,
They would not wound thee, as this story will.
Hark, hark! a hollow voice calls out aloud,
Jocasta! Yes, I'll to the royal bed,
Where first the mysteries of our loves were acted,
And double-dye it with imperial crimson;
Tear off this curling hair,
Be gorged with fire, stab every vital part,
And, when at last I'm slain, to crown the horror,
My poor tormented ghost shall cleave the ground,
To try if hell can yet more deeply wound.                     [_Exit._

_OEdip._ She's gone; and, as she went, methought her eyes
Grew larger, while a thousand frantic spirits,
Seething like rising bubbles on the brim,
Peeped from the watry brink, and glowed upon me.
I'll seek no more; but hush my genius up,
That throws me on my fate.--Impossible!
O wretched man, whose too too busy thoughts
Hide swifter than the gallopping heaven's round,
With an eternal hurry of the soul.
Nay, there's a time when even the rolling year
Seems to stand still, dead calms are in the ocean,
When not a breath disturbs the drowzy waves:
But man, the very monster of the world,
Is ne'er at rest; the soul for ever wakes.
Come then, since destiny thus drives us on,
Let us know the bottom.--Hæmon, you I sent;
Where is that Phorbas?

_Hæm._ Here, my royal lord.

_OEdip._ Speak first, Ægeon, say, is this the man?

_Æge._ My lord, it is; Though time has ploughed that face
With many furrows since I saw it first,
Yet I'm too well acquainted with the ground,
Quite to forget it.

_OEdip._ Peace; stand back a while.--
Come hither, friend; I hear thy name is Phorbas.
Why dost thou turn thy face? I charge thee answer
To what I shall enquire: Wert thou not once
The servant to king Laius here in Thebes?

_Phor._ I was, great sir, his true and faithful servant;
Born and bred up in court, no foreign slave.

_OEdip._ What office hadst thou? what was thy employment?

_Phor._ He made me lord of all his rural pleasures;
For much he loved them: oft I entertained him
With sporting swains, o'er whom I had command.

_OEdip._ Where was thy residence? to what part of the country
Didst thou most frequently resort?

_Phor._ To mount Cithæron, and the pleasant vallies
Which all about lie shadowing its large feet.

_OEdip._ Come forth, Ægeon.--Ha! why start'st thou, Phorbas?
Forward, I say, and face to face confront him:
Look wistly on him,--through him, if thou canst!
And tell me on thy life, say, dost thou know him?
Didst thou e'er see him? e'er converse with him
Near mount Cithæron?

_Phor._ Who, my lord, this man?

_OEdip._ This man, this old, this venerable man:
Speak, did'st thou ever meet him there?

_Phor._ Where, sacred sir?

_OEdip._ Near mount Cithæron; answer to the purpose,
'Tis a king speaks; and royal minutes are
Of much more worth than thousand vulgar years:
Did'st thou e'er see this man near mount Cithæron?

_Phor._ Most sure, my lord, I have seen lines like those
His visage bears; but know not where, nor when.

_Æge._ Is't possible you should forget your ancient friend?
There are, perhaps,
Particulars, which may excite your dead remembrance.
Have you forgot I took an infant from you,
Doomed to be murdered in that gloomy vale?
The swaddling-bands were purple, wrought with gold.
Have you forgot, too, how you wept, and begged
That I should breed him up, and ask no more?

_Phor._ Whate'er I begged, thou, like a dotard, speak'st
More than is requisite; and what of this?
Why is it mentioned now? And why, O why
Dost thou betray the secrets of thy friend?

_Æge._ Be not too rash. That infant grew at last
A king; and here the happy monarch stands.

_Phor._ Ha! whither would'st thou? O what hast thou uttered!
For what thou hast said, death strike thee dumb for ever!

_OEdip._ Forbear to curse the innocent; and be
Accurst thyself, thou shifting traitor, villain,
Damned hypocrite, equivocating slave!

_Phor._ O heavens! wherein, my lord, have I offended?

_OEdip._ Why speak you not according to my charge?
Bring forth the rack: since mildness cannot win you,
Torments shall force.

_Phor._ Hold, hold, O dreadful sir!
You will not rack an innocent old man?

_OEdip._ Speak then.

_Phor._ Alas! What would you have me say?

_OEdip._ Did this old man take from your arms an infant?

_Phor._ He did: And, Oh! I wish to all the gods,
Phorbas had perished in that very moment.

_OEdip._ Moment! Thou shalt be hours, days, years, a dying.--
Here, bind his hands; he dallies with my fury:
But I shall find a way--

_Phor._ My lord, I said
I gave the infant to him.

_OEdip._ Was he thy own, or given thee by another?

_Phor._ He was not mine, but given me by another.

_OEdip._ Whence? and from whom? what city? of what house?

_Phor._ O, royal sir, I bow me to the ground;
Would I could sink beneath it! by the gods,
I do conjure you to inquire no more.

_OEdip._ Furies and hell! Hæmon, bring forth the rack,
Fetch hither cords, and knives, and sulphurous flames:
He shall be bound and gashed, his skin flead off,
And burnt alive.

_Phor._ O spare my age.

_OEdip._ Rise then, and speak.

_Phor._ Dread sir, I will.

_OEdip._ Who gave that infant to thee?

_Phor._ One of king Laius' family.

_OEdip._ O, you immortal gods!--But say, who was't?
Which of the family of Laius gave it?
A servant, or one of the royal blood?

_Phor._ O wretched state! I die, unless I speak;
And if I speak, most certain death attends me!

_OEdip._ Thou shalt not die. Speak, then, who was it? speak,
While I have sense to understand the horror;
For I grow cold.

_Phor._ The queen Jocasta told me,
It was her son by Laius.

_OEdip._ O you gods!--But did she give it thee?

_Phor._ My lord, she did.

_OEdip._ Wherefore? for what?--O break not yet, my heart;
Though my eyes burst, no matter:--wilt thou tell me,
Or must I ask for ever? for what end,
Why gave she thee her child?

_Phor._ To murder it.

_OEdip._ O more than savage! murder her own bowels,
Without a cause!

_Phor._ There was a dreadful one,
Which had foretold, that most unhappy son
Should kill his father, and enjoy his mother.

_OEdip._ But one thing more.
Jocasta told me, thou wert by the chariot
When the old king was slain: Speak, I conjure thee,
For I shall never ask thee aught again,--
What was the number of the assassinates?

_Phor._ The dreadful deed was acted but by one;
And sure that one had much of your resemblance.

_OEdip._ 'Tis well! I thank you, gods! 'tis wondrous well!
Daggers, and poison! O there is no need
For my dispatch: And you, you merciless powers,
Hoard up your thunder-stones; keep, keep your bolts,
For crimes of little note.                                   [_Falls._

_Adr._ Help, Hæmon, help, and bow him gently forward;
Chafe, chafe his temples: How the mighty spirits,
Half-strangled with the damp his sorrows raised,
Struggle for vent! But see, he breathes again,
And vigorous nature breaks through opposition.--
How fares my royal friend?

_OEdip._ The worse for you.
O barbarous men, and oh the hated light,
Why did you force me back, to curse the day;
To curse my friends; to blast with this dark breath
The yet untainted earth and circling air?
To raise new plagues, and call new vengeance down,
Why did you tempt the gods, and dare to touch me?
Methinks there's not a hand that grasps this hell,
But should run up like flax all blazing fire.
Stand from this spot, I wish you as my friends,
And come not near me, lest the gaping earth
Swallow you too.--Lo, I am gone already.
                                   [_Draws, and claps his Sword to his
                                    Breast, which_ ADRASTUS _strikes
                                    away with his Foot._

_Adr._ You shall no more be trusted with your life:--
Creon, Alcander, Hæmon, help to hold him.

_OEdip._ Cruel Adrastus! wilt thou, Hæmon, too?
Are these the obligations of my friends?
O worse than worst of my most barbarous foes!
Dear, dear Adrastus, look with half an eye
On my unheard of woes, and judge thyself,
If it be fit that such a wretch should live!
O, by these melting eyes, unused to weep,
With all the low submissions of a slave,
I do conjure thee, give my horrors way!
Talk not of life, for that will make me rave:
As well thou may'st advise a tortured wretch,
All mangled o'er from head to foot with wounds,
And his bones broke, to wait a better day.

_Adr._ My lord, you ask me things impossible;
And I with justice should be thought your foe,
To leave you in this tempest of your soul.

_Tir._ Though banished Thebes, in Corinth you may reign;
The infernal powers themselves exact no more:
Calm then your rage, and once more seek the gods.

_OEdip._ I'll have no more to do with gods, nor men;
Hence, from my arms, avaunt. Enjoy thy mother!
What, violate, with bestial appetite,
The sacred veils that wrapt thee yet unborn!
This is not to be borne! Hence; off, I say!
For they, who let my vengeance, make themselves
Accomplices in my most horrid guilt.

_Adr._ Let it be so; we'll fence heav'n's fury from you,
And suffer all together. This, perhaps,
When ruin comes, may help to break your fall.

_OEdip._ O that, as oft I have at Athens seen
The stage arise, and the big clouds descend;
So now, in very deed I might behold
The pond'rous earth, and all yon marble roof
Meet, like the hand of Jove, and crush mankind!
For all the elements, and all the powers
Celestial, nay, terrestrial, and infernal,
Conspire the wreck of out-cast OEdipus!
Fall darkness then, and everlasting night
Shadow the globe; may the sun never dawn;
The silver moon be blotted from her orb;
And for an universal rout of nature
Through all the inmost chambers of the sky,
May there not be a glimpse, one starry spark,
But gods meet gods, and jostle in the dark;
That jars may rise, and wrath divine be hurled,
Which may to atoms shake the solid world!                   [_Exeunt._

ACT V.--SCENE I.

  _Enter_ CREON, ALCANDER, _and_ PYRACMON.

_Creon._ Thebes is at length my own; and all my wishes,
Which sure were great as royalty e'er formed,
Fortune and my auspicious stars have crowned.
O diadem, thou centre of ambition,
Where all its different lines are reconciled,
As if thou wert the burning glass of glory!

_Pyr._ Might I be counsellor, I would intreat you
To cool a little, sir; find out Eurydice;
And, with the resolution of a man
Marked out for greatness, give the fatal choice
Of death or marriage.

_Alc._ Survey cursed OEdipus,
As one who, though unfortunate, beloved,
Thought innocent, and therefore much lamented
By all the Thebans: you must mark him dead,
Since nothing but his death, not banishment,
Can give assurance to your doubtful reign.

_Cre._ Well have you done, to snatch me from the storm
Of racking transport, where the little streams
Of love, revenge, and all the under passions,
As waters are by sucking whirlpools drawn,
Were quite devoured in the vast gulph of empire.
Therefore, Pyracmon, as you boldly urged,
Eurydice shall die, or be my bride.
Alcander, summon to their master's aid
My menial servants, and all those whom change
Of state, and hope of the new monarch's favour,
Can win to take our part: Away.--What now?           [_Exit_ ALCANDER.

  _Enter_ HÆMON.

When Hæmon weeps, without the help of ghosts
I may foretel there is a fatal cause.

_Hæm._ Is't possible you should be ignorant
Of what has happened to the desperate king?

_Cre._ I know no more but that he was conducted
Into his closet, where I saw him fling
His trembling body on the royal bed;
All left him there, at his desire, alone;
But sure no ill, unless he died with grief,
Could happen, for you bore his sword away.

_Hæm._ I did; and, having locked the door, I stood;
And through a chink I found, not only heard,
But saw him, when he thought no eye beheld him.
At first, deep sighs heaved from his woful heart
Murmurs, and groans that shook the outward rooms.
And art thou still alive, O wretch! he cried;
Then groaned again, as if his sorrowful soul
Had cracked the strings of life, and burst away.

_Cre._ I weep to hear; how then should I have grieved,
Had I beheld this wondrous heap of sorrow!
But, to the fatal period.

_Hæm._ Thrice he struck,
With all his force, his hollow groaning breast,
And thus, with outcries, to himself complained:--
But thou canst weep then, and thou think'st 'tis well,
These bubbles of the shallowest emptiest sorrow,
Which children vent for toys, and women rain
For any trifle their fond hearts are set on;
Yet these thou think'st are ample satisfaction
For bloodiest murder, and for burning lust:
No, parricide! if thou must weep, weep blood;
Weep eyes, instead of tears:--O, by the gods!
'Tis greatly thought, he cried, and fits my woes.
Which said, he smiled revengefully, and leapt
Upon the floor; thence gazing at the skies,
His eye-balls fiery red, and glowing vengeance,--
Gods I accuse you not, though I no more
Will view your heaven, till, with more durable glasses,
The mighty soul's immortal perspectives,
I find your dazzling beings: Take, he cried,
Take, eyes, your last, your fatal farewel-view.
Then with a groan, that seemed the call of death,
With horrid force lifting his impious hands,
He snatched, he tore, from forth their bloody orbs,
The balls of sight, and dashed them on the ground.

_Cre._ A master-piece of horror; new and dreadful!

_Hæm._ I ran to succour him; but, oh! too late;
For he had plucked the remnant strings away.
What then remains, but that I find Tiresias,
Who, with his wisdom, may allay those furies,
That haunt his gloomy soul?                                   [_Exit._

_Cre._ Heaven will reward
Thy care, most honest, faithful,--foolish Hæmon!
But see, Alcander enters, well attended.

  _Enter_ ALCANDER, _attended._

I see thou hast been diligent.

_Alc._ Nothing these,
For number, to the crowds that soon will follow;
Be resolute,
And call your utmost fury to revenge.

_Cre._ Ha! thou hast given
The alarm to cruelty; and never may
These eyes be closed, till they behold Adrastus
Stretched at the feet of false Eurydice.
But see, they are here! retire a while, and mark.

  _Enter_ ADRASTUS, _and_ EURYDICE, _attended._

_Adr._ Alas, Eurydice, what fond rash man,
What inconsiderate and ambitious fool,
That shall hereafter read the fate of OEdipus,
Will dare, with his frail hand, to grasp a sceptre?

_Eur._ 'Tis true, a crown seems dreadful, and I wish
That you and I, more lowly placed, might pass
Our softer hours in humble cells away:
Not but I love you to that infinite height,
I could (O wondrous proof of fiercest love!)
Be greatly wretched in a court with you.

_Adr._ Take then this most loved innocence away;
Fly from tumultuous Thebes, from blood and murder,
Fly from the author of all villainies,
Rapes, death, and treason, from that fury Creon:
Vouchsafe that I, o'er-joyed, may bear you hence,
And at your feet present the crown of Argos.
                               [CREON _and attendants come up to him._

_Cre._ I have o'er-heard thy black design, Adrastus,
And therefore, as a traitor to this state,
Death ought to be thy lot: Let it suffice
That Thebes surveys thee as a prince; abuse not
Her proffered mercy, but retire betimes,
Lest she repent, and hasten on thy doom.

_Adr._ Think not, most abject, most abhorred of men,
Adrastus will vouchsafe to answer thee;--
Thebans to you I justify my love:
I have addrest my prayer to this fair princess;
But, if I ever meant a violence,
Or thought to ravish, as that traitor did,
What humblest adorations could not win,
Brand me, you gods, blot me with foul dishonour,
And let men curse me by the name of Creon!

_Eur._ Hear me, O Thebans, if you dread the wrath
Of her whom fate ordained to be your queen;
Hear me, and dare not, as you prize your lives,
To take the part of that rebellious traitor.
By the decree of royal OEdipus,
By queen Jocasta's order, by what's more,
My own dear vows of everlasting love,
I here resign, to prince Adrastus' arms,
All that the world can make me mistress of.

_Cre._ O perjured woman!
Draw all; and when I give the word, fall on.--
Traitor, resign the princess, or this moment
Expect, with all those most unfortunate wretches,
Upon this spot straight to be hewn in pieces.

_Adr._ No, villain, no;
With twice those odds of men,
I doubt not in this cause to vanquish thee.--
Captain remember to your care I give
My love; ten thousand, thousand times more clear,
Than life or liberty.

_Cre._ Fall on, Alcander.--
Pyracmon you and I must wheel about
For nobler game, the princess.

_Adr._ Ah, traitor, dost thou shun me?
Follow, follow,
My brave companions! see, the cowards fly!
                                    [_Exeunt fighting:_ CREON'S _Party
                                     beaten off by_ ADRASTUS.

  _Enter_ OEDIPUS.

_OEdip._ O, 'tis too little this; thy loss of sight,
What has it done? I shall be gazed at now
The more; be pointed at, There goes the monster!
Nor have I hid my horrors from myself;
For, though corporeal light be lost for ever,
The bright reflecting soul, through glaring optics,
Presents in larger size her black ideas,
Doubling the bloody prospect of my crimes;
Holds fancy down, and makes her act again,
With wife and mother:--Tortures, hell and furies!
Ha! now the baleful offspring's brought to light!
In horrid form, they rank themselves before me;--
What shall I call this medley of creation?
Here one, with all the obedience of a son,
Borrowing Jocasta's look, kneels at my feet,
And calls me father; there, a sturdy boy,
Resembling Laius just as when I killed him,
Bears up, and with his cold hand grasping mine,
Cries out, how fares my brother OEdipus?
What, sons and brothers! Sisters and daughters too!
Fly all, begone, fly from my whirling brain!
Hence, incest, murder! hence, you ghastly figures!
O Gods! Gods, answer; is there any mean?
Let me go mad, or die.

  _Enter_ JOCASTA.

_Joc._ Where, where is this most wretched of mankind,
This stately image of imperial sorrow,
Whose story told, whose very name but mentioned,
Would cool the rage of fevers, and unlock
The hand of lust from the pale virgin's hair,
And throw the ravisher before her feet?

_OEdip._ By all my fears, I think Jocasta's voice!--
Hence fly; begone! O thou far worse than worst
Of damning charmers! O abhorred, loathed creature!
Fly, by the gods, or by the fiends, I charge thee,
Far as the East, West, North, or South of heaven,
But think not thou shalt ever enter there;
The golden gates are barred with adamant,
'Gainst thee, and me; and the celestial guards,
Still as we rise, will dash our spirits down.

_Joc._ O wretched pair! O greatly wretched we!
Two worlds of woe!

_OEdip._ Art thou not gone then? ha!
How darest thou stand the fury of the gods?
Or comest thou in the grave to reap new pleasures?

_Joc._ Talk on, till thou mak'st mad my rolling brain;
Groan still more death; and may those dismal sources
Still bubble on, and pour forth blood and tears.
Methinks, at such a meeting, heaven stands still;
The sea, nor ebbs, nor flows; this mole-hill earth
Is heaved no more; the busy emmets cease:
Yet hear me on--

_OEdip._ Speak, then, and blast my soul.

_Joc._ O, my loved lord, though I resolve a ruin,
To match my crimes; by all my miseries,
'Tis horror, worse than thousand thousand deaths,
To send me hence without a kind farewell.

_OEdip._ Gods, how she shakes me!--stay thee, O Jocasta!
Speak something ere thou goest for ever from me!

_Joc._ 'Tis woman's weakness, that I would be pitied;
Pardon me then, O greatest, though most wretched.
Of all thy kind! My soul is on the brink,
And sees the boiling furnace just beneath:
Do not thou push me off, and I will go,
With such a willingness, as if that heaven
With all its glory glowed for my reception.

_OEdip._ O, in my heart I feel the pangs of nature;
It works with kindness o'er: give, give me way!
I feel a melting here, a tenderness,
Too mighty for the anger of the gods!
Direct me to thy knees: yet, oh forbear,
Lest the dead embers should revive.
Stand off, and at just distance
Let me groan my horrors!--here
On the earth, here blow my utmost gale;
Here sob my sorrows, till I burst with sighing;
Here gasp and languish out my wounded soul.

_Joc._ In spite of all those crimes the cruel gods
Can charge me with, I know my innocence;
Know yours. 'Tis fate alone that makes us wretched,
For you are still my husband.

_OEdip._ Swear I am,
And I'll believe thee; steal into thy arms,
Renew endearments, think them no pollutions,
But chaste as spirits' joys. Gently I'll come,
Thus weeping blind, like dewy night, upon thee,
And fold thee softly in my arms to slumber.
                                     [_The Ghost of_ LAIUS _ascends by
                                      degrees, pointing at_ JOCASTA.

_Joc._ Begone, my lord! Alas, what are we doing?
Fly from my arms! Whirlwinds, seas, continents,
And worlds, divide us! O, thrice happy thou,
Who hast no use of eyes; for here's a sight
Would turn the melting face of mercy's self
To a wild fury.

_OEdip._ Ha! what seest thou there?

_Joc._ The spirit of my husband! O, the gods!
How wan he looks!

_OEdip._ Thou ravest; thy husband's here.

_Joc._ There, there he mounts
In circling fire among the blushing clouds!
And see, he waves Jocasta from the world!

_Ghost._ Jocasta, OEdipus.                     [_Vanish with thunder._

_OEdip._ What wouldst thou have?
Thou knowest I cannot come to thee, detained
In darkness here, and kept from means of death.
I've heard a spirit's force is wonderful;
At whose approach, when starting from his dungeon,
The earth does shake, and the old ocean groans,
Rocks are removed, and towers are thundered down;
And walls of brass, and gates of adamant
Are passable as air, and fleet like winds.

_Joc._ Was that a raven's croak, or my son's voice?
No matter which; I'll to the grave and hide me.
Earth open, or I'll tear thy bowels up.
Hark! he goes on, and blabs the deed of incest.

_OEdip._ Strike then, imperial ghost; dash all at once
This house of clay into a thousand pieces;
That my poor lingering soul may take her flight
To your immortal dwellings.

_Joc._ Haste thee, then,
Or I shall be before thee. See,--thou canst not see!
Then I will tell thee that my wings are on.
I'll mount, I'll fly, and with a port divine
Glide all along the gaudy milky soil,
To find my Laius out; ask every god
In his bright palace, if he knows my Laius,
My murdered Laius!

_OEdip._ Ha! how's this, Jocasta?
Nay, if thy brain be sick, then thou art happy.
_Joc._ Ha! will you not? shall I not find him out?
Will you not show him? are my tears despised?
Why, then I'll thunder, yes, I will be mad,
And fright you with my cries. Yes, cruel gods,
Though vultures, eagles, dragons tear my heart,
I'll snatch celestial flames, fire all your dwellings,
Melt down your golden roofs, and make your doors
Of crystal fly from off their diamond hinges;
Drive you all out from your ambrosial hives,
To swarm like bees about the field of heaven.
This will I do, unless you show me Laius,
My dear, my murdered lord. O Laius! Laius! Laius!     [_Exit_ JOCASTA.

_OEdip._ Excellent grief! why, this is as it should be!
No mourning can be suitable to crimes
Like ours, but what death makes, or madness forms.
I could have wished, methought, for sight again,
To mark the gallantry of her distraction;
Her blazing eyes darting the wandering stars,
To have seen her mouth the heavens, and mate the gods,
While with her thundering voice she menaced high,
And every accent twanged with smarting sorrow;
But what's all this to thee? thou, coward, yet
Art living, canst not, wilt not find the road
To the great palace of magnificent Death;
Though thousand ways lead to his thousand doors,
Which, day and night, are still unbarred for all.
                    [_Clashing of Swords. Drums and Trumpets without._
Hark! 'tis the noise of clashing swords! the sound
Comes near;--O, that a battle would come o'er me!
If I but grasp a sword, or wrest a dagger,
I'll make a ruin with the first that falls.

  _Enter_ HÆMON, _with Guards._

_Hæm._ Seize him, and bear him to the western tower.--
Pardon me, sacred sir; I am informed
That Creon has designs upon your life:
Forgive me, then, if, to preserve you from him,
I order your confinement.

_OEdip._ Slaves, unhand me!--
I think thou hast a sword;--'twas the wrong side.
Yet, cruel Hæmon, think not I will live;
He, that could tear his eyes out, sure can find
Some desperate way to stifle this cursed breath:
Or if I starve!--but that's a lingering fate;
Or if I leave my brains upon the wall!--
The airy soul can easily o'er-shoot
Those bounds, with which thou striv'st to pale her in.
Yes, I will perish in despite of thee;
And, by the rage that stirs me, if I meet thee
In the other world, I'll curse thee for this usage.      [_Exit._

_Hæm._ Tiresias, after him, and with your counsel,
Advise him humbly: charm, if possible,
These feuds within; while I without extinguish,
Or perish in the attempt, the furious Creon;
That brand which sets our city in a flame.

_Tir._ Heaven prosper your intent, and give a period
To all our plagues. What old Tiresias can,
Shall straight be done.--Lead, Manto, to the tower.
                                       [_Exeunt_ TIRESIAS _and_ MANTO.

_Hæm._ Follow me all, and help to part this fray,   [_Trumpets again._
Or fall together in the bloody broil.                       [_Exeunt._

  _Enter_ CREON _with_ EURYDICE; PYRACMON, _and his party, giving
  Ground to_ ADRASTUS.

_Cre._ Hold, hold your arms, Adrastus, prince of Argos!
Hear, and behold; Eurydice is my prisoner.

_Adr._ What would'st thou, hell-hound?

_Cre._ See this brandished dagger;
Forego the advantage which thy arms have won.
Or, by the blood which trembles through the heart
Of her, whom more than life I know thou lovest,
I'll bury to the haft, in her fair breast,
This instrument of my revenge.

_Adr._ Stay thee, damned wretch; hold, stop thy bloody hand!

_Cre._ Give order, then, that on this instant, now,
This moment, all thy soldiers straight disband.

_Adr._ Away, my friends, since fate has so allotted;
Begone, and leave me to the villain's mercy.

_Eur._ Ah, my Adrastus! call them, call them back!
Stand there; come back! O, cruel barbarous men!
Could you then leave your lord, your prince, your king,
After so bravely having fought his cause,
To perish by the hand of this base villain?
Why rather rush you not at once together
All to his ruin? drag him through the streets,
Hang his contagious quarters on the gates;
Nor let my death affright you.

_Cre._ Die first thyself, then.

_Adr._ O, I charge thee hold!--
Hence from my presence, all; he's not my friend
That disobeys.--See, art thou now appeased?      [_Exeunt Attendants._
Or is there aught else yet remains to do,
That can atone thee? slake thy thirst of blood
With mine; but save, O save that innocent wretch!

_Cre._ Forego thy sword, and yield thyself my prisoner.

_Eur._ Yet, while there's any dawn of hope to save
Thy precious life, my dear Adrastus,
Whate'er thou dost, deliver not thy sword;
With that thou may'st get off, tho' odds oppose thee.
For me, O fear not; no, he dares not touch me;
His horrid love will spare me. Keep thy sword;
Lest I be ravished after thou art slain.

_Adr._ Instruct me, gods, what shall Adrastus do?

_Cre._ Do what thou wilt, when she is dead; my soldiers
With numbers will o'erpower thee. Is't thy wish
Eurydice should fall before thee?

_Adr._ Traitor, no;
Better that thou, and I, and all mankind,
Should be no more.

_Cre._ Then cast thy sword away,
And yield thee to my mercy, or I strike.

_Adr._ Hold thy raised arm; give me a moment's pause.
My father, when he blest me, gave me this:
My son, said he, let this be thy last refuge;
If thou forego'st it, misery attends thee.--
Yet love now charms it from me; which in all
The hazards of my life I never lost.
'Tis thine, my faithful sword; my only trust;
Though my heart tells me that the gift is fatal.          [_Gives it._

_Cre._ Fatal! yes, foolish love-sick prince, it shall:
Thy arrogance, thy scorn, my wound's remembrance.
Turn all at once the fatal point upon thee.--
Pyracmon to the palace; dispatch
The king; hang Hæmon up, for he is loyal,
And will oppose me.--Come, sir, are you ready?

_Adr._ Yes, villain, for whatever thou canst dare.

_Eur._ Hold, Creon, or through me, through me you wound.

_Adr._ Off, madam, or we perish both; behold
I'm not unarmed, my poniard's in my hand;
Therefore, away.

_Eur._ I'll guard your life with mine.

_Cre._ Die both, then; there is now no time for dallying.
                                                    [_Kills_ EURYDICE.

_Eur._ Ah, prince, farewell! farewell, my dear Adrastus!      [_Dies._

_Adr._ Unheard-of monster! eldest-born of hell!
Down, to thy primitive flame.                          [_Stabs_ CREON.

_Cre._ Help, soldiers, help;
Revenge me.

_Adr._ More; yet more; a thousand wounds!
I'll stamp thee still, thus, to the gaping furies.
                            [ADRASTUS _falls, killed by the soldiers._

  _Enter_ HÆMON, _Guards, with_ ALCANDER _and_ PYRACMON _bound; the
   Assassins are driven off._

O Hæmon, I am slain; nor need I name
The inhuman author of all villainies;
There he lies gasping.

_Cre._ If I must plunge in flames,
Burn first my arm; base instrument, unfit
To act the dictates of my daring mind;
Burn, burn for ever, O weak substitute
Of that, the god, ambition.                                   [_Dies._

_Adr._ She's gone;--O deadly marksman, in the heart!
Yet in the pangs of death she grasps my hand;
Her lips too tremble, as if she would speak
Her last farewell.--O, OEdipus, thy fall
Is great; and nobly now thou goest attended!
They talk of heroes, and celestial beauties,
And wondrous pleasures in the other world;
Let me but find her there, I ask no more.                     [_Dies._

  _Enter a Captain to_ HÆMON; _with_ TERESIAS _and_ MANTO.

_Cap._ O, sir, the queen Jocasta, swift and wild,
As a robbed tygress bounding o'er the woods,
Has acted murders that amaze mankind;
In twisted gold I saw her daughters hang
On the bed-royal, and her little sons
Stabbed through the breasts upon the bloody pillows.

_Hæm._ Relentless heavens! is then the fate of Laius
Never to be atoned? How sacred ought
Kings' lives be held, when but the death of one
Demands an empire's blood for expiation!
But see! the furious mad Jocasta's here.

  _Scene draws, and discovers_ JOCASTA _held by her women and stabbed
  in many places of her Bosom, her Hair dishevelled, her Children
  slain upon the Bed._

Was ever yet a sight of so much horror
And pity brought to view!

_Joc._ Ah, cruel women!
Will you not let me take my last farewell
Of those dear babes? O let me run, and seal
My melting soul upon their bubbling wounds!
I'll print upon their coral mouths such kisses,
As shall recal their wandering spirits home.
Let me go, let me go, or I will tear you piece-meal.
Help, Hæmon, help;
Help, OEdipus; help, Gods; Jocasta dies.

  _Enter_ OEDIPUS _above._

_OEdip._ I've found a window, and I thank the gods
'Tis quite unbarred; sure, by the distant noise,
The height will fit my fatal purpose well.

_Joc._ What hoa, my OEdipus! see where he stands!
His groping ghost is lodged upon a tower,
Nor can it find the road. Mount, mount, my soul;
I'll wrap thy shivering spirit in lambent flames; and so we'll sail.--
But see! we're landed on the happy coast;
And all the golden strands are covered o'er
With glorious gods, that come to try our cause.
Jove, Jove, whose majesty now sinks me down,
He, who himself burns in unlawful fires,
Shall judge, and shall acquit us. O, 'tis done;
'Tis fixt by fate, upon record divine;
And OEdipus shall now be ever mine.                           [_Dies._

_OEdip._ Speak, Hæmon; what has fate been doing there?
What dreadful deed has mad Jocasta done?

_Hæm._ The queen herself, and all your wretched offspring,
Are by her fury slain.

_OEdip._ By all my woes,
She has outdone me in revenge and murder,
And I should envy her the sad applause:
But oh, my children! oh, what have they done?
This was not like the mercy of the heavens,
To set her madness on such cruelty:
This stirs me more than all my sufferings,
And with my last breath I must call you tyrants.

_Hæm._ What mean you, sir?

_OEdip._ Jocasta! lo, I come.
O Laius, Labdacus, and all you spirits
Of the Cadmean race, prepare to meet me,
All weeping ranged along the gloomy shore;
Extend your arms to embrace me, for I come.
May all the gods, too, from their battlements,
Behold and wonder at a mortal's daring;
And, when I knock the goal of dreadful death,
Shout and applaud me with a clap of thunder.
Once more, thus winged by horrid fate, I come,
Swift as a falling meteor; lo, I fly,
And thus go downwards to the darker sky.
                         [_Thunder. He flings himself from the Window:
                          The Thebans gather about his Body._

_Hæm._ O prophet, OEdipus is now no more!
O cursed effect of the most deep despair!

_Tir._ Cease your complaints, and bear his body hence;
The dreadful sight will daunt the drooping Thebans,
Whom heaven decrees to raise with peace and glory.
Yet, by these terrible examples warned,
The sacred Fury thus alarms the world:--
Let none, though ne'er so virtuous, great, and high,
Be judged entirely blest before they die.                   [_Exeunt._

Footnotes:
1. Imitated from the commencement of the plague in the first book of
   the _Iliad_.

2. The story of the Sphinx is generally known: She was a monster, who
   delighted in putting a riddle to the Thebans, and slaying each poor
   dull Boeotian, who could not interpret it. OEdipus guessed the
   enigma, on which the monster destroyed herself for shame. Thus he
   attained the throne of Thebes, and the bed of Jocasta.

3. To _dare a lark_, is to fly a hawk, or present some other object of
   fear, to engage the bird's attention, and prevent it from taking
   wing, while the fowler draws his net:

     Farewell, nobility; let his grace go forward,
     And dare us with his cap, like larks.
                                   _Henry VIII._ Act III. Scene II.

4. The carelessness of OEdipus about the fate of his predecessor is
   very unnatural; but to such expedients dramatists are often
   reduced, to communicate to their audience what must have been known
   to the persons of the drama.

5. _Start_ is here, and in p. 136, used for _started_, being borrowed
   from _sterte_, the old perfect of the verb.

6. It is a common idea, that falling stars, as they are called, are
   converted into a sort of jelly. "Among the rest, I had often the
   opportunity to see the seeming shooting of the stars from place to
   place, and sometimes they appeared as if falling to the ground,
   where I once or twice found a white jelly-like matter among the
   grass, which I imagined to be distilled from them; and hence
   foolishly conjectured, that the stars themselves must certainly
   consist of a like substance."

7. Serpens, serpentem vorans, fit draco. Peccata, peccatis
   superaddita, monstra fiunt. _Hieroglyphica animalium, per
   Archibaldum Simsonum Dalkethensis Ecclesiæ pastorem, p. 95._

8. The idea of this sacred grove seems to be taken from that of
   Colonus near Athens, dedicated to the Eumenides, which gives name
   to Sophocles's second tragedy. Seneca describes the scene of the
   incantation in the following lines:

       _Est procul ab urbe lucus illicibus niger
     Dircæa circa vallis irriguæ loca.
     Cupressus altis exerens silvis caput
     Virente semper alligat trunco nemus;
     Curvosque tendit quercus et putres situ
     Annosa ramos: hujus abrupit latus
     Edax vetustas: illa jam fessa cadens
     Radice, fulta pendet aliena trabe.
     Amara baccas laurus; et tiliæ leves
     Et Paphia myrtus; et per immensum mare
     Motura remos alnus; et Phoebo obvia
     Enode Zephyris pinus opponens latus.
     Medio stat ingens arbor, atque umbra gravi
     Silvas minores urget; et magno ambitu
     Diffusa ramos, una defendit nemus.
     Tristis sub illa, lucis et Phoebi inscius
     Restagnat humor, frigore æterno rigens.
     Limosa pigrum circuit fontem palus.
                                   Actus Tertius. Scena prima._

   This diffuse account of the different kinds of forest trees, which
   composed the enchanted grove, is very inartificially put into the
   mouth of Creon, who, notwithstanding the horrible message which he
   has to deliver to OEdipus from the ghost, finds time to solace the
   king with this long description of a place, which he doubtless knew
   as well as Creon himself. Dryden, on the contrary, has, with great
   address, rendered the description necessary, by the violence
   committed within the sacred precinct, and turned it, not upon
   minute and rhetorical detail, but upon the general awful properties
   of this consecrated ground. Lucan's fine description of the
   Massyllian forest, and that of the enchanted grove in Tasso, have
   been both consulted by our author.]

9. The quarrel betwixt OEdipus and the prophet, who announces his
   guilt, is imitated from a similar scene in the OEdipus Tyrannus.

10. Borrowed from Shakespeare;

     And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.
                                   _Richard II._

EPILOGUE.

  What Sophocles could undertake alone,
  Our poets found a work for more than one;
  And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,
  With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;
  A weight that bent even Seneca's strong muse,
  And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse.
  So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
  So much two consuls yield to one just king.
  Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
  The mightiest machines that can mount a play.
  How heavy will those vulgar souls be found,
  Whom two such engines cannot move from ground!
  When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth,
  You can but damn for one poor spot of earth;
  And when your children find your judgment such,
  They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch;
  Each haughty poet will infer with ease,
  How much his wit must under-write to please.
  As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance
  The monumental sword that conquered France;
  So you, by judging this, your judgment teach,
  Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach.
  Since then the vote of full two thousand years
  Has crowned this plot, and all the dead are theirs,
  Think it a debt you pay, not alms you give,
  And, in your own defence, let this play live.
  Think them not vain, when Sophocles is shown,
  To praise his worth they humbly doubt their own.
  Yet as weak states each other's power assure,
  Weak poets by conjunction are secure.
  Their treat is what your palates relish most,
  Charm! song! and show! a murder and a ghost!
  We know not what you can desire or hope,
  To please you more, but burning of a Pope.[1]

Footnote:
1. The burning a Pope in effigy, was a ceremony performed upon the
   anniversary of queen Elizabeth's coronation. When parties ran high
   betwixt the courtiers and opposition, in the latter part of Charles
   the II. reign, these anti-papal solemnities were conducted by the
   latter, with great state and expence, and employed as engines to
   excite the popular resentment against the duke of York, and his
   religion. The following curious description of one of these
   tumultuary processions, in 1679, was extracted by Ralph, from a
   very scarce pamphlet; it is the ceremony referred to in the
   epilogue; and it shall be given at length, as the subject is
   frequently alluded to by Dryden.

    The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinals, Jesuits,
      Friars, &c.
    Through the CITY OF LONDON November 17.th 1679.

    London Published January 1808 by William Miller, Albemarle Street.
    Dryden Works to face Vol 6th page 223]

   "On the said 17th of November, 1679, the bells, generally, about
   the town, began to ring at three o'clock in the morning. At the
   approach of the evening, (all things being in readiness) the solemn
   procession began, setting forth from Moregate, and so passed, first
   to Aldgate, and thence through Leadenhall-street, by the Royal
   Exchange, through Cheapside, and so to Temple-bar in the ensuing
   order, viz.

   "1. Came six whifflers, to clear the way, in pioneer caps, and red
       waistcoats.

   "2. A bellman ringing, and with a loud (but doleful) voice, crying
       out all the way, remember Justice Godfrey.

   "3. A dead body, representing justice Godfrey, in a decent black
       habit, carried before a jesuit, in black, on horse-back, in
       like manner as he was carried by the assassins to Primrose
       Hill.

   "4. Next after Sir Edmonbury, so mounted, came a priest in a
       surplice, with a cope embroidered with dead bones, skeletons,
       skulls, and the like, giving pardons very plentifully to all
       those who should murder protestants; and proclaiming it
       meritorious.

   "5. Then a priest in black alone, with a great silver cross.

   "6. Four carmelites, in white and black habits.

   "7. Four grey-friars, in the proper habits of their order.

   "8. Six jesuits, with bloody daggers.

   "9. A concert of wind music.

   "10. Four bishops, in purple, and lawn sleeves, with a golden
       crosier on their breast, and crosier-staves in their hands.

   "11. Four other bishops, in _Pontificalibus_, with surplices, and
       rich embroidered copes, and golden mitres on their heads.

   "12. Six cardinals, in scarlet robes and caps.

   "13. The Pope's doctor, _i.e._ Wakeman,[a] with jesuits-powder in
       one hand, and an urinal in the other.

   "14. Two priests in surplices, with two golden crosses.

   "Lastly, The Pope, in a lofty, glorious pageant, representing a
   chair of state, covered with scarlet, richly embroidered and
   fringed, and bedecked with golden balls and crosses: At his feet a
   cushion of state, and two boys in surplices with white silk
   banners, and bloody crucifixes and daggers with an incense pot
   before them, censing his holiness, who was arrayed in a splendid
   scarlet gown, lined through with ermin, and richly daubed with gold
   and silver lace; on his head a triple crown of gold, and a glorious
   collar of gold and precious stones, St Peter's keys, a number of
   beads, agnus deis, and other catholic trumpery. At his back, his
   holiness's privy counsellor, the degraded Seraphim, (_anglice_ the
   devil,) frequently caressing, hugging, and whispering him, and oft
   times instructing him aloud to destroy his majesty, to forge a
   protestant plot, and to fire the city again, to which purpose he
   held an infernal torch in his hand.

   "The whole procession was attended with 150 flambeaux and lights,
   by order; but so many more came in volunteers, as made up some
   thousands.

   "Never were the balconies, windows, and houses more numerously
   lined, or the streets closer throng'd with multitudes of people,
   all expressing their abhorrence of Popery, with continual shouts
   and exclamations; so that 'tis modestly computed, that, in the
   whole progress, there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand
   spectators.

   "Thus with a slow, and solemn state, they proceeded to Temple Bar;
   where with innumerable swarms, the houses seemed to be converted
   into heaps of men, and women, and children, for whose diversion
   there were provided great variety of excellent fireworks.

   "Temple Bar being, since its rebuilding, adorned with four stately
   statues, viz. those of Queen Elizabeth and King James, on the
   inward, or eastern side, fronting the city; and those of King
   Charles the I. of blessed memory, and our present gracious
   sovereign, (whom God, in mercy to these nations, long preserve!) on
   the outside, facing towards Westminster; and the statue of Queen
   Elizabeth in regard to the day, having on a crown of gilded laurel,
   and in her hand a golden shield, with this motto inscribed: _The
   Protestant Religion, and Magna Charta_, and flambeaux placed before
   it. The Pope being brought up near thereunto, the following song,
   alluding to the posture of those statues, was sung in parts,
   between one representing the English Cardinal (_Howard_)[b] and
   others acting the people:

           CARDINAL NORFOLK.

     From York to London town we come,
       To talk of Popish ire,
     To reconcile you all to Rome,
       And prevent Smithfield fire.

           PLEBEIANS.

     Cease, cease, thou Norfolk Cardinal,
       See yonder stands Queen Bess;
     Who sav'd our souls from Popish thrall:
       O Queen Bess, Queen Bess, Queen Bess!

     Your Popish plot, and Smithfield threat,
       We do not fear at all;
     For lo! beneath Queen Bess's feet,
       You fall, you fall, you fall.

     "'Tis true, our King's on t'other side,
       A looking tow'rds Whitehall:
     But could we bring him round about;
       He'd counterplot you all.

     "Then down with James, and set up Charles,
       On good Queen Bess's side;
     That all true Commons, Lords, and Earls,
       May wish him a fruitfull bride."

     Now God preserve great Charles our King,
       And eke all honest men;
     And traitors all to justice bring:
       Amen, Amen, Amen.

   "Then having entertained the thronging spectators for some time,
   with the ingenious fireworks, a vast bonfire being prepared, just
   over against the inner temple gate, his holiness, after some
   compliments and reluctancies, was decently toppled from all his
   grandeur, into the impartial flames; the crafty devil leaving his
   infallibilityship in the lurch, and laughing as heartily at his
   deserved ignominious end, as subtle jesuits do at the ruin of
   bigotted Lay Catholics, whom themselves have drawn in; or, as
   credulous Coleman's abettors did, when, with pretences of a
   reprieve at last gasp, they had made him vomit up his soul with a
   lye, and sealed his dangerous chops with a halter. This justice was
   attended with a prodigious shout, that might be heard far beyond
   Somerset-house; and 'twas believed the echo, by continued
   reverberations, before it ceased, reached _Scotland_, (the Duke was
   then there;) France, and even Rome, itself, damping them all with a
   dreadfull astonishment."

   From a very rare broadside, in the collection made by Narcissus
   Luttrell.

   Footnotes:
   a. Sir George Wakeman was physician to the queen, and a catholic.
      He was tried for the memorable Popish plot and acquitted, the
      credit of the witnesses being now blasted, by the dying
      declarations of those who suffered.

   b. Philip, the 3d son of Henry Earl of Arundel, and brother to the
      Duke of Norfolk, created a Cardinal in 1675. He was a second
      cousin of Lady Elizabeth Howard, afterwards the wife of our
      poet.

                        TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:

                                 OR,

                        TRUTH FOUND TOO LATE.

                                  A

                               TRAGEDY.

             _Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
             Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus._
                                   HOR.

                        TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

The story of Troilus and Cressida was one of the more modern fables,
engrafted, during the dark ages, on "the tale of Troy divine."
Chaucer, who made it the subject of a long and somewhat dull poem,
professes to have derived his facts from an author of the middle ages,
called Lollius, to whom he often refers, and who he states to have
written in Latin. Tyrwhitt disputes the existence of this personage,
and supposes Chaucer's original to have been the _Philostrato dell'
amorose fatiche de Troilo,_ a work of Boccacio. But Chaucer was never
reluctant in acknowledging obligations to his contemporaries, when
such really existed; and Mr Tyrwhitt's opinion seems to be
successfully combated by Mr Godwin, in his "Life of Chaucer." The
subject, whencesoever derived, was deemed by Shakespeare worthy of the
stage; and his tragedy, of Troilus and Cressida, contains so many
scenes of distinguished excellence, that it could have been wished our
author had mentioned it with more veneration. In truth, even the
partiality of an editor must admit, that on this occasion, the modern
improvements of Dryden shew to very little advantage beside the
venerable structure to which they have been attached. The arrangement
of the plot is, indeed, more artificially modelled; but the preceding
age, during which the infidelity of Cressida was proverbially current,
could as little have endured a catastrophe turning upon the discovery
of her innocence, as one which should have exhibited Helen chaste, or
Hector a coward. In Dryden's time, the prejudice against this
unfortunate female was probably forgotten, as her history had become
less popular. There appears, however, something too nice and
fastidious in the critical rule, which exacts that the hero and
heroine of the drama shall be models of virtuous perfection. In the
most interesting of the ancient plays we find this limitation
neglected, with great success; and it would have been more natural to
have brought about the catastrophe on the plan of Shakespeare and
Chaucer, than by the forced mistake in which Dryden's lovers are
involved, and the stale expedient of Cressida's killing herself, to
evince her innocence. For the superior order, and regard to the unity
of place, with which Dryden has new-modelled the scenes and entries,
he must be allowed the full praise which he claims in the preface.

In the dialogue, considered as distinct from the plot, Dryden appears
not to have availed himself fully of the treasures of his predecessor.
He has pitilessly retrenched the whole scene, in the 3d act, between
Ulysses and Achilles, full of the purest and most admirable moral
precept, expressed in the most poetical and dignified language[1].
Probably this omission arose from Dryden's desire to simplify the
plot, by leaving out the intrigues of the Grecian chiefs, and limiting
the interest to the amours of Troilus and Cressida. But he could not
be insensible to the merit of this scene, though he has supplied it by
one far inferior, in which Ulysses is introduced, using gross flattery
to the buffoon Thersites. In the latter part of the play, Dryden has
successfully exerted his own inventive powers. The quarrelling scene
between Hector and Troilus is very impressive, and no bad imitation of
that betwixt Brutus and Cassius, with which Dryden seems to have been
so much charmed, and which he has repeatedly striven to emulate. The
parting of Hector and Andromache contains some affecting passages,
some of which may be traced back to Homer; although the pathos, upon
the whole, is far inferior to that of the noted scene in the Iliad,
and destitute of the noble simplicity of the Grecian bard.

Mr Godwin has justly remarked, that the delicacy of Chaucer's ancient
tale has suffered even in the hands of Shakespeare; but in those of
Dryden it has undergone a far deeper deterioration. Whatever is coarse
and naked in Shakespeare, has been dilated into ribaldry by the poet
laureat of Charles the second; and the character of Pandarus, in
particular, is so grossly heightened, as to disgrace even the obliging
class to whom that unfortunate procurer has bequeathed his name. So
far as this play is to be considered as an alteration of Shakespeare,
I fear it must be allowed, that our author has suppressed some of his
finest poetry, and exaggerated some of his worst faults.

Troilus and Cressida was published in 1679.

Footnote:
1. I need only recall to the reader's remembrance the following
   beautiful passage, inculcating the unabating energy necessary to
   maintain, in the race of life, the ground which has been already
   gained.

     _Ulys._ Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
     Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
     A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes:
     These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
     As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
     As done: Perséverance, dear my lord,
     Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
     Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
     In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
     For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
     Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
     For emulation hath a thousand sons,
     That one by one pursue: If you give way,
     Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
     Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
     And leave you hindmost.--
     Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
     Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
     O'er run and trampled on: Then what they do in present,
     Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
     For time is like a fashionable host,
     That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
     And with his arms out stretch'd, as he would fly,
     Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
     And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
     Remuneration for the thing it was;
     For beauty, wit,
     High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
     Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
     To envious and calumniating time.
     One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--
     That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
     Though they are made and moulded of things past;
     And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
     More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
     The present eye praises the present object:
     Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
     That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
     Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
     Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
     And still it might, and yet it may again,
     If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,
     And case thy reputation in thy tent;
     Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
     Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
     And drave great Mars to faction.

                                  TO

                         THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

                               ROBERT,

                        EARL OF SUNDERLAND[1],

          PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S
                  MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, &C.

MY LORD,

Since I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but
reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my
dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of
your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity
of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other
understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong
digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so
critical a judgment as your lordship, who can set the bounds of just
and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so
bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my lord, that you would not
do common justice to yourself; and, therefore, were I to give that
character of you, which I think you truly merit, I would make my
appeal from your lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from
flattery by the public voice, whatever protestation you might enter to
the contrary. But I find I am to take other measures with your
lordship; I am to stand upon my guard with you, and to approach you as
warily as Horace did Augustus:

  _Cui malè si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus._

An ill-timed, or an extravagant commendation, would not pass upon you;
but you would keep off such a dedicator at arms-end, and send him back
with his encomiums to this lord, or that lady, who stood in need of
such trifling merchandise. You see, my lord, what an awe you have upon
me, when I dare not offer you that incense which would be acceptable
to other patrons; but am forced to curb myself from ascribing to you
those honours, which even an enemy could not deny you. Yet I must
confess, I never practised that virtue of moderation (which is
properly your character) with so much reluctancy as now: for it
hinders me from being true to my own knowledge, in not witnessing your
worth, and deprives me of the only means which I had left, to shew the
world that true honour and uninterested respect which I have always
paid you. I would say somewhat, if it were possible which might
distinguish that veneration I have for you, from the flatteries of
those who adore your fortune. But the eminence of your condition, in
this particular, is my unhappiness; for it renders whatever I would
say suspected. Professions of service, submissions, and attendance,
are the practice of all men to the great; and commonly they, who have
the least sincerity, perform them best; as they, who are least engaged
in love, have their tongues the freest to counterfeit a passion. For
my own part, I never could shake off the rustic bashfulness which
hangs upon my nature; but, valuing myself at as little as I am worth,
have been afraid to render even the common duties of respect to those
who are in power. The ceremonious visits, which are generally paid on
such occasions, are not my talent. They may be real even in courtiers,
but they appear with such a face of interest, that a modest man would
think himself in danger of having his sincerity mistaken for his
design. My congratulations keep their distance, and pass no farther
than my heart. There it is that I have all the joy imaginable, when I
see true worth rewarded, and virtue uppermost in the world.

If, therefore, there were one to whom I had the honour to be known;
and to know him so perfectly, that I could say, without flattery, he
had all the depth of understanding that was requisite in an able
statesman, and all that honesty which commonly is wanting; that he was
brave without vanity, and knowing without positiveness; that he was
loyal to his prince, and a lover of his country; that his principles
were full of moderation, and all his counsels such as tended to heal,
and not to widen, the breaches of the nation: that in all his
conversation there appeared a native candour, and a desire of doing
good in all his actions: if such an one, whom I have described, were
at the helm; if he had risen by his merits, and were chosen out in the
necessity and pressures of affairs, to remedy our confusions by the
seasonableness of his advice, and to put a stop to our ruin, when we
were just rolling downward to the precipice; I should then
congratulate the age in which I live, for the common safety; I should
not despair of the republic, though Hannibal were at the gates; I
should send up my vows for the success of such an action, as Virgil
did, on the like occasion, for his patron, when he was raising up his
country from the desolations of a civil war:

  _Hunc saltem everso juvenem succurrere seclo
  Ne, superi, prohibete._

I know not whither I am running, in this extacy which is now upon me:
I am almost ready to re-assume the ancient rights of poetry; to point
out, and prophecy the man, who was born for no less an undertaking,
and whom posterity shall bless for its accomplishment. Methinks, I am
already taking fire from such a character, and making room for him,
under a borrowed name, amongst the heroes of an epic poem. Neither
could mine, or some more happy genius, want encouragement under such a
patron:

  _Pollio amat nostram, quamvis sit rustica, musam._

But these are considerations afar off, my lord: the former part of the
prophecy must be first accomplished; the quiet of the nation must be
secured; and a mutual trust, betwixt prince and people, be renewed;
and then this great and good man will have leisure for the ornaments
of peace; and make our language as much indebted to his care, as the
French is to the memory of their famous Richelieu[2]. You know, my
lord, how low he laid the foundations of so great a work; that he
began it with a grammar and a dictionary; without which all those
remarks and observations, which have since been made, had been
performed to as little purpose, as it would be to consider the
furniture of the rooms, before the contrivance of the house. Propriety
must first be stated, ere any measures of elegance can be taken.
Neither is one Vaugelas sufficient for such a work[3]. It was the
employment of the whole academy for many years; for the perfect
knowledge of a tongue was never attained by any single person. The
court, the college, and the town, must be joined in it. And as our
English is a composition of the dead and living tongues, there is
required a perfect knowledge, not only of the Greek and Latin, but of
the old German, the French, and the Italian; and, to help all these, a
conversation with those authors of our own, who have written with the
fewest faults in prose and verse. But how barbarously we yet write and
speak, your lordship knows, and I am sufficiently sensible in my own
English. For I am often put to a stand, in considering whether what I
write be the idiom of the tongue, or false grammar, and nonsense
couched beneath that specious name of Anglicism; and have no other way
to clear my doubts, but by translating my English into Latin, and
thereby trying what sense the words will bear in a more stable
language. I am desirous, if it were possible, that we might all write
with the same certainty of words, and purity of phrase, to which the
Italians first arrived, and after them the French; at least that we
might advance so far, as our tongue is capable of such a standard. It
would mortify an Englishman to consider, that from the time of Boccace
and of Petrarch, the Italian has varied very little; and that the
English of Chaucer, their contemporary, is not to be understood
without the help of an old dictionary. But their Goth and Vandal had
the fortune to be grafted on a Roman stock; ours has the disadvantage
to be founded on the Dutch[4]. We are full of monosyllables, and those
clogged with consonants, and our pronunciation is effeminate; all
which are enemies to a sounding language. It is true, that to supply
our poverty, we have trafficked with our neighbour nations; by which
means we abound as much in words, as Amsterdam does in religions; but
to order them, and make them useful after their admission, is the
difficulty. A greater progress has been made in this, since his
majesty's return, than, perhaps, since the conquest to his time. But
the better part of the work remains unfinished; and that which has
been done already, since it has only been in the practice of some few
writers, must be digested into rules and method, before it can be
profitable to the general. Will your lordship give me leave to speak
out at last? and to acquaint the world, that from your encouragement
and patronage, we may one day expect to speak and write a language,
worthy of the English wit, and which foreigners may not disdain to
learn? Your birth, your education, your natural endowments, the former
employments which you have had abroad, and that which, to the joy of
good men you now exercise at home, seem all to conspire to this
design: the genius of the nation seems to call you out as it were by
name, to polish and adorn your native language, and to take from it
the reproach of its barbarity. It is upon this encouragement that I
have adventured on the following critique, which I humbly present you,
together with the play; in which, though I have not had the leisure,
nor indeed the encouragement, to proceed to the principal subject of
it, which is the words and thoughts that are suitable to tragedy; yet
the whole discourse has a tendency that way, and is preliminary to it.
In what I have already done, I doubt not but I have contradicted some
of my former opinions, in my loose essays of the like nature; but of
this, I dare affirm, that it is the fruit of my riper age and
experience, and that self-love, or envy have no part in it. The
application to English authors is my own, and therein, perhaps, I may
have erred unknowingly; but the foundation of the rules is reason, and
the authority of those living critics who have had the honour to be
known to you abroad, as well as of the ancients, who are not less of
your acquaintance. Whatsoever it be, I submit it to your lordship's
judgment, from which I never will appeal, unless it be to your good
nature, and your candour. If you can allow an hour of leisure to the
perusal of it, I shall be fortunate that I could so long entertain
you; if not, I shall at least have the satisfaction to know, that your
time was more usefully employed upon the public. I am,

  MY LORD,

    Your Lordship's most Obedient,
      Humble Servant,
        JOHN DRYDEN.

Footnotes:
1. This was the famous Earl of Sunderland, who, being a Tory under the
   reign of Charles, a Papist in that of his successor, and a Whig in
   that of William, was a favourite minister of all these monarchs. He
   was a man of eminent abilities; and our author shews a high opinion
   of his taste, by abstaining from the gross flattery, which was then
   the fashionable stile of dedication.

2. Alluding to the institution of an academy for fixing the language,
   often proposed about this period.

3. Author of a treatise on the French language.

4. Dutch is here used generally for the High Dutch or German.

                                 THE

                               PREFACE.

The poet Æschylus was held in the same veneration by the Athenians of
after-ages, as Shakespeare is by us; and Longinus has judged, in
favour of him, that he had a noble boldness of expression, and that
his imaginations were lofty and heroic; but, on the other side,
Quintilian affirms, that he was daring to extravagance. It is certain,
that he affected pompous words, and that his sense was obscured by
figures; notwithstanding these imperfections, the value of his
writings after his decease was such, that his countrymen ordained an
equal reward to those poets, who could alter his plays to be acted on
the theatre, with those whose productions were wholly new, and of
their own. The case is not the same in England; though the
difficulties of altering are greater, and our reverence for
Shakespeare much more just, than that of the Grecians for Æschylus. In
the age of that poet, the Greek tongue was arrived to its full
perfection; they had then amongst them an exact standard of writing
and of speaking: the English language is not capable of such a
certainty; and we are at present so far from it, that we are wanting
in the very foundation of it, a perfect grammar. Yet it must be
allowed to the present age, that the tongue in general is so much
refined since Shakespeare's time, that many of his words, and more of
his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we
understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style
is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as
it is obscure. It is true, that in his latter plays he had worn off
somewhat of the rust; but the tragedy, which I have undertaken to
correct, was in all probability one of his first endeavours on the
stage.

The original story was written by one Lollius a Lombard, in Latin
verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, a
satire on the inconstancy of women: I find nothing of it among the
ancients; not so much as the name Cressida once mentioned.
Shakespeare, (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing,
modelled it into that play, which is now called by the name of
"Troilus and Cressida," but so lamely is it left to us, that it is not
divided into acts; which fault I ascribe to the actors who printed it
after Shakespeare's death; and that too so carelessly, that a more
uncorrected copy I never saw. For the play itself, the author seems to
have begun it with some fire; the characters of Pandarus and
Thersites, are promising enough; but as if he grew weary of his task,
after an entrance or two, he lets them fall: and the latter part of
the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of drums and trumpets,
excursions and alarms. The chief persons, who give name to the
tragedy, are left alive; Cressida is false, and is not punished. Yet,
after all, because the play was Shakespeare's, and that there appeared
in some places of it the admirable genius of the author, I undertook
to remove that heap of rubbish under which many excellent thoughts lay
wholly buried. Accordingly, I new modelled the plot, threw out many
unnecessary persons, improved those characters which were begun and
left unfinished, as Hector, Troilus, Pandarus, and Thersites, and
added that of Andromache. After this, I made, with no small trouble,
an order and connection of all the scenes; removing them from the
places where they were inartificially set; and, though it was
impossible to keep them all unbroken, because the scene must be
sometimes in the city and sometimes in the camp, yet I have so ordered
them, that there is a coherence of them with one another, and a
dependence on the main design; no leaping from Troy to the Grecian
tents, and thence back again, in the same act, but a due proportion of
time allowed for every motion. I need not say that I have refined his
language, which before was obsolete; but I am willing to acknowledge,
that as I have often drawn his English nearer to our times, so I have
sometimes conformed my own to his; and consequently, the language is
not altogether so pure as it is significant. The scenes of Pandarus
and Cressida, of Troilus and Pandarus, of Andromache with Hector and
the Trojans, in the second act, are wholly new; together with that of
Nestor and Ulysses with Thersites, and that of Thersites with Ajax and
Achilles.  I will not weary my reader with the scenes which are added
of Pandarus and the lovers, in the third, and those of Thersites,
which are wholly altered; but I cannot omit the last scene in it,
which is almost half the act, betwixt Troilus and Hector. The occasion
of raising it was hinted to me by Mr Betterton; the contrivance and
working of it was my own. They who think to do me an injury, by
saying, that it is an imitation of the scene betwixt Brutus and
Cassius, do me an honour, by supposing I could imitate the
incomparable Shakespeare; but let me add, that if Shakespeare's scene,
or that faulty copy of it in "Amintor and Melantius," had never been,
yet Euripides had furnished me with an excellent example in his
"Iphigenia," between Agamemnon and Menelaus; and from thence, indeed,
the last turn of it is borrowed. The occasion which Shakespeare,
Euripides, and Fletcher, have all taken, is the same,--grounded upon
friendship; and the quarrel of two virtuous men, raised by natural
degrees to the extremity of passion, is conducted in all three, to the
declination of the same passion, and concludes with a warm renewing of
their friendship. But the particular ground-work which Shakespeare has
taken, is incomparably the best; because he has not only chosen two of
the greatest heroes of their age, but has likewise interested the
liberty of Rome, and their own honours, who were the redeemers of it,
in this debate. And if he has made Brutus, who was naturally a patient
man, to fly into excess at first, let it be remembered in his defence,
that, just before, he has received the news of Portia's death; whom
the poet, on purpose neglecting a little chronology, supposes to have
died before Brutus, only to give him an occasion of being more easily
exasperated. Add to this, that the injury he had received from
Cassius, had long been brooding in his mind; and that a melancholy
man, upon consideration of an affront, especially from a friend, would
be more eager in his passion, than he who had given it, though
naturally more choleric. Euripides, whom I have followed, has raised
the quarrel betwixt two brothers, who were friends. The foundation of
the scene was this: The Grecians were wind-bound at the port of Aulis,
and the oracle had said, that they could not sail, unless Agamemnon
delivered up his daughter to be sacrificed: he refuses; his brother
Menelaus urges the public safety; the father defends himself by
arguments of natural affection, and hereupon they quarrel. Agamemnon
is at last convinced, and promises to deliver up Iphigenia, but so
passionately laments his loss, that Menelaus is grieved to have been
the occasion of it, and, by a return of kindness, offers to intercede
for him with the Grecians, that his daughter might not be sacrificed.
But my friend Mr Rymer has so largely, and with so much judgment,
described this scene, in comparing it with that of Melantius and
Amintor, that it is superfluous to say more of it; I only named the
heads of it, that any reasonable man might judge it was from thence I
modelled my scene betwixt Troilus and Hector. I will conclude my
reflections on it, with a passage of Longinus, concerning Plato's
imitation of Homer: "We ought not to regard a good imitation as a
theft, but as a beautiful idea of him who undertakes to imitate, by
forming himself on the invention and the work of another man; for he
enters into the lists like a new wrestler, to dispute the prize with
the former champion. This sort of emulation, says Hesiod, is
honourable, [Greek: Agathê d' eris esti Brotoisin]--when we combat for
victory with a hero, and are not without glory even in our overthrow.
Those great men, whom we propose to ourselves as patterns of our
imitation, serve us as a torch, which is lifted up before us, to
enlighten our passage, and often elevate our thoughts as high as the
conception we have of our author's genius."

I have been so tedious in three acts, that I shall contract myself in
the two last. The beginning scenes of the fourth act are either added
or changed wholly by me; the middle of it is Shakespeare altered, and
mingled with my own; three or four of the last scenes are altogether
new. And the whole fifth act, both the plot and the writing, are my
own additions.

But having written so much for imitation of what is excellent, in that
part of the preface which related only to myself, methinks it would
neither be unprofitable nor unpleasant to inquire how far we ought to
imitate our own poets, Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their tragedies;
and this will occasion another inquiry, how those two writers differ
between themselves: but since neither of these questions can be
solved, unless some measures be first taken, by which we may be
enabled to judge truly of their writings, I shall endeavour, as
briefly as I can, to discover the grounds and reason of all criticism,
applying them in this place only to Tragedy. Aristotle with his
interpreters, and Horace, and Longinus, are the authors to whom I owe
my lights; and what part soever of my own plays, or of this, which no
mending could make regular, shall fall under the condemnation of such
judges, it would be impudence in me to defend. I think it no shame to
retract my errors, and am well pleased to suffer in the cause, if the
art may be improved at my expence: I therefore proceed to

                 THE GROUNDS OF CRITICISM IN TRAGEDY.

Tragedy is thus defined by Aristotle (omitting what I thought
unnecessary in his definition). It is an imitation of one entire,
great, and probable action; not told, but represented; which, by
moving in us fear and pity, is conducive to the purging of those two
passions in our minds. More largely thus: Tragedy describes or paints
an action, which action must have all the properties above named.
First, it must be one or single; that is, it must not be a history of
one man's life, suppose of Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar, but
one single action of theirs. This condemns all Shakespeare's
historical plays, which are rather chronicles represented, than
tragedies; and all double action of plays. As, to avoid a satire upon
others, I will make bold with my own "Marriage A-la-mode," where there
are manifestly two actions, not depending on one another; but in
"OEdipus" there cannot properly be said to be two actions, because the
love of Adrastus and Eurydice has a necessary dependence on the
principal design into which it is woven. The natural reason of this
rule is plain; for two different independent actions distract the
attention and concernment of the audience, and consequently destroy
the intention of the poet; if his business be to move terror and pity,
and one of his actions he comical, the other tragical, the former will
divert the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose.
Therefore, as in perspective, so in tragedy, there must be a point of
sight in which all the lines terminate; otherwise the eye wanders, and
the work is false. This was the practice of the Grecian stage. But
Terence made an innovation in the Roman: all his plays have double
actions; for it was his custom to translate two Greek comedies, and to
weave them into one of his, yet so, that both their actions were
comical, and one was principal, the other but secondary or
subservient. And this has obtained on the English stage, to give us
the pleasure of variety.

As the action ought to be one, it ought, as such, to have order in it;
that is, to have a natural beginning, a middle, and an end. A natural
beginning, says Aristotle, is that which could not necessarily have
been placed after another thing; and so of the rest. This
consideration will arraign all plays after the new model of Spanish
plots, where accident is heaped upon accident, and that which is first
might as reasonably be last; an inconvenience not to be remedied, but
by making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise it is a
farce and not a play. Of this nature is the "Slighted Maid;" where
there is no scene in the first act, which might not by as good reason
be in the fifth. And if the action ought to be one, the tragedy ought
likewise to conclude with the action of it. Thus in "Mustapha," the
play should naturally have ended with the death of Zanger, and not
have given us the grace-cup after dinner, of Solyman's divorce from
Roxolana.

The following properties of the action are so easy, that they need not
my explaining. It ought to be great, and to consist of great persons,
to distinguish it from comedy, where the action is trivial, and the
persons of inferior rank. The last quality of the action is, that it
ought to be probable, as well as admirable and great. It is not
necessary that there should be historical truth in it; but always
necessary that there should be a likeness of truth, something that is
more than barely possible; _probable_ being that which succeeds, or
happens, oftener than it misses. To invent therefore a probability and
to make it wonderful, is the most difficult undertaking in the art of
poetry; for that, which is not wonderful, is not great; and that,
which is not probable, will not delight a reasonable audience. This
action, thus described, must be represented and not told, to
distinguish dramatic poetry from epic: but I hasten to the end or
scope of tragedy, which is, to rectify or purge our passions, fear and
pity.

To instruct delightfully is the general end of all poetry. Philosophy
instructs, but it performs its work by precept; which is not
delightful, or not so delightful as example. To purge the passions by
example, is therefore the particular instruction which belongs to
tragedy. Rapin, a judicious critic, has observed from Aristotle, that
pride and want of commiseration are the most predominant vices in
mankind; therefore, to cure us of these two, the inventors of tragedy
have chosen to work upon two other passions, which are, fear and pity.
We are wrought to fear, by their setting before our eyes some terrible
example of misfortune, which happened to persons of the highest
quality; for such an action demonstrates to us, that no condition is
privileged from the turns of fortune; this must of necessity cause
terror in us, and consequently abate our pride. But when we see that
the most virtuous, as well as the greatest, are not exempt from such
misfortunes, that consideration moves pity in us, and insensibly works
us to be helpful to, and tender over, the distressed; which is the
noblest and most godlike of moral virtues, Here it is observable, that
it is absolutely necessary to make a man virtuous, if we desire he
should be pitied: we lament not, but detest, a wicked man; we are glad
when we behold his crimes are punished, and that poetical justice is
done upon him. Euripides was censured by the critics of his time, for
making his chief characters too wicked; for example, Phædra, though
she loved her son-in-law with reluctancy, and that it was a curse upon
her family for offending Venus, yet was thought too ill a pattern for
the stage. Shall we therefore banish all characters of villainy? I
confess I am not of that opinion; but it is necessary that the hero of
the play be not a villain; that is, the characters, which should move
our pity, ought to have virtuous inclinations, and degrees of moral
goodness in them. As for a perfect character of virtue, it never was
in nature, and therefore there can be no imitation of it; but there
are allays of frailty to be allowed for the chief persons, yet so that
the good which is in them shall outweigh the bad, and consequently
leave room for punishment on the one side, and pity on the other.

After all, if any one will ask me, whether a tragedy cannot be made
upon any other grounds than those of exciting pity and terror in
us;--Bossu, the best of modern critics, answers thus in general: That
all excellent arts, and particularly that of poetry, have been
invented and brought to perfection by men of a transcendent genius;
and that, therefore, they, who practise afterwards the same arts, are
obliged to tread in their footsteps, and to search in their writings
the foundation of them; for it is not just that new rules should
destroy the authority of the old. But Rapin writes more particularly
thus, that no passions in a story are so proper to move our
concernment, as fear and pity; and that it is from our concernment we
receive our pleasure, is undoubted. When the soul becomes agitated
with fear for one character, or hope for another; then it is that we
are pleased in tragedy, by the interest which we take in their
adventures.

Here, therefore, the general answer may be given to the first
question, how far we ought to imitate Shakespeare and Fletcher in
their plots; namely, that we ought to follow them so far only, as they
have copied the excellencies of those who invented and brought to
perfection dramatic poetry; those things only excepted, which
religion, custom of countries, idioms of languages, &c. have altered
in the superstructures, but not in the foundation of the design.

How defective Shakespeare and Fletcher have been in all their plots,
Mr Rymer has discovered in his criticisms. Neither can we, who follow
them, be excused from the same, or greater errors; which are the more
unpardonable in us, because we want their beauties to countervail our
faults. The best of their designs, the most approaching to antiquity,
and the most conducing to move pity, is the "King and no King;" which,
if the farce of Bessus were thrown away, is of that inferior sort of
tragedies, which end with a prosperous event. It is probably derived
from the story of OEdipus, with the character of Alexander the Great,
in his extravagances, given to Arbaces. The taking of this play,
amongst many others, I cannot wholly ascribe to the excellency of the
action; for I find it moving when it is read. It is true, the faults
of the plot are so evidently proved, that they can no longer be
denied. The beauties of it must therefore lie either in the lively
touches of the passion; or we must conclude, as I think we may, that
even in imperfect plots there are less degrees of nature, by which
some faint emotions of pity and terror are raised in us; as a less
engine will raise a less proportion of weight, though not so much as
one of Archimedes's making; for nothing can move our nature, but by
some natural reason, which works upon passions. And, since we
acknowledge the effect, there must be something in the cause.

The difference between Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their plottings,
seems to be this; that Shakespeare generally moves more terror, and
Fletcher more compassion: for the first had a more masculine, a
bolder, and more fiery genius; the second, a more soft and womanish.
In the mechanic beauties of the plot, which are the observation of the
three unities, time, place, and action, they are both deficient; but
Shakespeare most. Ben Jonson reformed those errors in his comedies,
yet one of Shakespeare's was regular before him; which is, "The Merry
Wives of Windsor." For what remains concerning the design, you are to
be referred to our English critic. That method which he has prescribed
to raise it, from mistake, or ignorance of the crime, is certainly the
best, though it is not the only; for amongst all the tragedies of
Sophocles, there is but one, OEdipus, which is wholly built after that
model.

After the plot, which is the foundation of the play, the next thing to
which we ought to apply our judgment, is the manners; for now the poet
comes to work above ground. The ground-work, indeed, is that which is
most necessary, as that upon which depends the firmness of the whole
fabric; yet it strikes not the eye so much, as the beauties or
imperfections of the manners, the thoughts, and the expressions.

The first rule which Bossu prescribes to the writer of an heroic poem,