[_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 nak