Eur. Can I be so to one, who has accused me
Of murder and of parricide?
Cre. You provoked me:
And yet I only did thus far accuse you,
As next of blood to Laius: Be advised,
And you may live.
Eur. The means?
Cre. 'Tis offered you.
The fool Adrastus has accused himself.
Eur. He has indeed, to take the guilt from me.
Cre. He says he loves you; if he does, 'tis well:
He ne'er could prove it in a better time.
Eur. Then death must be his recompence for love?
Cre. 'Tis a fool's just reward;
168 The wise can make a better use of life.
But 'tis the young man's pleasure; his ambition:
I grudge him not that favour.
Eur. When he's dead,
Where shall I find his equal!
Cre. Every where.
Fine empty things, like him, the court swarms with them.
Fine fighting things; in camps they are so common,
Crows feed on nothing else: plenty of fools;
A glut of them in Thebes.
And fortune still takes care they should be seen:
She places 'em aloft, o'th' topmost spoke
Of all her wheel. Fools are the daily work
Of nature; her vocation; if she form
A man, she loses by't, 'tis too expensive;
'Twould make ten fools: A man's a prodigy.