serve where OEdipus commands.

_Cre._ [_To_ HAEM.]
How mean it shews, to fawn upon the victor!

_Haem._ Had you beheld him fight, you had said otherwise.
Come, 'tis brave bearing in him, not to envy
Superior virtue.

_OEdip._ This indeed is conquest,
To gain a friend like you: Why were we foes?

_Adr._ 'Cause we were kings, and each disdained an equal.
I fought to have it in my power to do
What thou hast done, and so to use my conquest.
To shew thee, honour was my only motive,
Know this, that were my army at thy gates,
And Thebes thus waste, I would not take the gift,
Which, like a toy dropt from the hands of fortune,
Lay for the next chance-comer.

_OEdip._ [_Embracing._] No more captive,
But brother of the war. 'Tis much more pleasant,
And safer, trust me, thus to meet thy love,
Than when hard gauntlets clenched our warlike hands,
And kept them from soft use.

_Adr._ My conqueror!

_OEdip._ My friend! that other name keeps enmity alive.
But longer to detain thee were a crime;
To love, and to Eurydice, go free.
Such welcome, as a ruined town can give,
Expect from me; the rest let her supply.

_Adr._ I go without a blush, though conquered twice,
By you, and by my princess. [_Exit_ ADRASTUS.

_Cre._ [_Aside._] Then I am conquered thrice; by OEdipus,
And her, and even by him, the slave of both.
Gods, I'm beholden to you, for making me your image;
Would I could make you mine! [_Exit_ CREON.

_Enter the People with branches in their hands, holding them up, and
kneeling: Two Priests before them._

_OEdip._ Alas, my people!
What means this speechless sorrow, downcast eyes,
And lifted hands? If there be one among you,
Whom grief has left a tongue, speak for the rest.

_1 Pr._ O father of thy country!
To thee these knees are bent, these eyes are lifted,
As to a visible divinity;
A prince, on whom heaven safely might repose
The business of mankind; for Providence
Might on thy careful bosom sleep secure,
And leave her task to thee.
But where's the glory of thy former acts?
Even that's destroyed, when none shall live to speak it.
Millions of subjects shalt thou have; but mute.
A people of the dead; a crowded desert;
A midnight silence at the noon of day.

_OEdip._ O were our gods as ready with their pity,
As I with mine, this presence should be thronged
With all I left alive; and my sad eyes
Not search in vain for friends, whose promised sight