Tir. By the furies fierce and dread!
Cho. Which are three.
Tir. By the judges of the dead!
Cho. Which are three.
Three times three!
Tir. By hell's blue flame:
By the Stygian Lake:
And by Demogorgon's name,
At which ghosts quake,
Hear and appear! [The Ghost of Laius rises armed in his chariot, as he was slain. And behind his Chariot, sit the three who were murdered with him.
Ghost of Laius. Why hast thou drawn me from my pain below,
To suffer worse above? to see the day,
And Thebes, more hated? Hell is heaven to Thebes.
For pity send me back, where I may hide,
In willing night, this ignominious head:
In hell I shun the public scorn; and then
They hunt me for their sport, and hoot me as I fly:
Behold even now they grin at my gored side,
And chatter at my wounds.
Tir. I pity thee:
Tell but why Thebes is for thy death accurst,
And I'll unbind the charm.
Ghost. O spare my shame!
Tir. Are these two innocent?
Ghost. Of my death they are.
But he who holds my crown,—Oh, must I speak!—
Was doomed to do what nature most abhors.
The Gods foresaw it; and forbade his being,
Before he yet was born. I broke their laws,
178 And clothed with flesh his pre-existing soul.
Some kinder power, too weak for destiny,
Took pity, and endued his new-formed mass
With temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude,
And every kingly virtue: But in vain.
For fate, that sent him hood-winked to the world,
Performed its work by his mistaking hands.
Ask'st thou who murdered me? 'twas Œdipus:
Who stains my bed with incest? Œdipus:
For whom then are you curst, but Œdipus!
He comes, the parricide! I cannot bear him:
My wounds ake at him: Oh, his murderous breath
Venoms my airy substance! hence with him,
Banish him; sweep him out; the plague he bears
Will blast your fields, and mark his way with ruin.
From Thebes, my throne, my bed, let him be driven:
Do you forbid him earth, and I'll forbid him heaven. [Ghost descends.