Priests, Citizens, Attendants, &c.
SCENE—Thebes.
ŒDIPUS.
ACT I.
SCENE I.—The Curtain rises to a plaintive Tune, representing the present condition of Thebes; dead Bodies appear at a distance in the Streets; some faintly go over the Stage, others drop.
Enter Alcander, Diocles, and Pyracmon.
Alc. Methinks we stand on ruins; nature shakes
About us; and the universal frame
So loose, that it but wants another push,
To leap from off its hinges.
Dioc. No sun to cheer us; but a bloody globe,
That rolls above, a bald and beamless fire,
His face o'er-grown with scurf: The sun's sick, too;
Shortly he'll be an earth.
Pyr. Therefore the seasons
Lie all confused; and, by the heavens neglected,
Forget themselves: Blind winter meets the summer
In his mid-way, and, seeing not his livery,
Has driven him headlong back; and the raw damps,
With flaggy wings, fly heavily about,
132 Scattering their pestilential colds and rheums
Through all the lazy air.
Alc. Hence murrains followed
On bleating flocks, and on the lowing herds:
At last, the malady
Grew more domestic, and the faithful dog
Died at his master's feet[1].