bling 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 ma