_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?

_AEge._ 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 paean sing!

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

_AEge._ 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.

_AEge._ 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.

_AEge._ 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 lord