t
A mother's love start[5] up in your defence,
And bade me not be angry. Be not you;
For I love Laius still, as wives should love;
But you more tenderly, as part of me:
And when I have you in my arms, methinks
I lull my child asleep.

_OEdip._ Then we are blest;
And all these curses sweep along the skies
Like empty clouds, but drop not on our heads.

_Joc._ I have not joyed an hour since you departed,
For public miseries, and for private fears;
But this blest meeting has o'er-paid them all.
Good fortune, that comes seldom, comes more welcome.
All I can wish for now, is your consent
To make my brother happy.

_OEdip._ How, Jocasta?

_Joc._ By marriage with his niece, Eurydice.

_OEdip._ Uncle and niece! they are too near, my love;
'Tis too like incest; 'tis offence to kind:
Had I not promised, were there no Adrastus,
No choice but Creon left her of mankind,
They should not marry: Speak no more of it;
The thought disturbs me.

_Joc._ Heaven can never bless
A vow so broken, which I made to Creon;
Remember, he is my brother.

_OEdip._ That is the bar;
And she thy daughter: Nature would abhor
To be forced back again upon herself,
And, like a whirlpool, swallow her own streams.

_Joc._ Be not displeased: I'll move the suit no more.

_OEdip._ No, do not; for, I know not why, it shakes me,
When I but think on incest. Move we forward,
To thank the gods for my success, and pray
To wash the guilt of royal blood away. [_Exeunt._

ACT II.

SCENE I.--_An open Gallery. A Royal Bed-chamber being supposed behind.

The Time, Night. Thunder, &c._

_Enter_ HAEMON, ALCANDER, _and_ PYRACMON.

_Haem._ Sure 'tis the end of all things! fate has torn
The lock of time off, and his head is now
The ghastly ball of round eternity!
Call you these peals of thunder, but the yawn
Of bellowing clouds? By Jove, they seem to me
The world's last groans; and those vast sheets of flame
Are its last blaze. The tapers of the gods,
The sun and moon, run down like waxen-globes;
The shooting stars end all in purple jellies[6],
And chaos is at hand.

_Pyr._ 'Tis midnight, yet there's not a Theban sleeps,
But such as ne'er must wake. All crowd about
The palace, and implore, as from a god,
Help of the king; who, from the battlement,
By the red lightning's glare descried afar,
Atones the angry powers. [_Thunder, &c._

_Haem._ Ha! Pyracmon, look;
Behold, Alcander, from yon' wes