Pyr. Clusters of golden stars hang o'er their heads,
And seem so crowded, that they burst upon them:
All dart at once their baleful influence,
In leaking fire.
Alc. Long-bearded comets stick,
Like flaming porcupines, to their left sides,
As they would shoot their quills into their hearts.
Hæm. But see! the king, and queen, and all the court!
152 Did ever day or night shew aught like this? [Thunders again. The Scene draws, and discovers the Prodigies.
Enter Œdipus, Jocasta, Eurydice, Adrastus; and all coming forward with amazement.
Œdip. Answer, you powers divine! spare all this noise,
This rack of heaven, and speak your fatal pleasure.
Why breaks yon dark and dusky orb away?
Why from the bleeding womb of monstrous night,
Burst forth such myriads of abortive stars?
Ha! my Jocasta, look! the silver moon!
A settling crimson stains her beauteous face!
She's all o'er blood! and look, behold again,
What mean the mystic heavens she journies on?
A vast eclipse darkens the labouring planet:—
Sound there, sound all our instruments of war;
Clarions and trumpets, silver, brass, and iron,
And beat a thousand drums, to help her labour.
Adr. 'Tis vain; you see the prodigies continue;
Let's gaze no more, the gods are humorous.
Œdip. Forbear, rash man.—Once more I ask your pleasure!
If that the glow-worm light of human reason
Might dare to offer at immortal knowledge,
And cope with gods, why all this storm of nature?
Why do the rocks split, and why rolls the sea?
Why those portents in heaven, and plagues on earth?
Why yon gigantic forms, ethereal monsters?
Alas! is all this but to fright the dwarfs,
Which your own hands have made? Then be it so.
Or if the fates resolve some expiation
For murdered Laius; hear me, hear me, gods!
Hear me thus prostrate: Spare this groaning land,
Save innocent Thebes, stop the tyrant death;
Do this, and lo, I stand up an oblation,
153 To meet your swiftest and severest anger;
Shoot all at once, and strike me to the centre.
The Cloud draws, that veiled the Heads of the Figures in the Sky, and shews them crowned, with the names of Œdipus and Jocasta, written above in great characters of gold.
Adr. Either I dream, and all my cooler senses
Are vanished with that cloud that fleets away,
Or just above those two majestic heads,
I see, I read distinctly, in large gold,
Œdipus and Jocasta.
Alc. I read the same.