Enter Pyracmon and Creon.
Pyr. Some business of import, that triumph wears,
You seem to go with; nor is it hard to guess
When you are pleased, by a malicious joy,
Whose red and fiery beams cast through your visage
A glowing pleasure. Sure you smile revenge,
And I could gladly hear.
Cre. Would'st thou believe!
This giddy hair-brained king, whom old Tiresias
Has thunder-struck with heavy accusation,
Though conscious of no inward guilt, yet fears:
He fears Jocasta, fears himself, his shadow;
He fears the multitude; and,—which is worth
An age of laughter,—out of all mankind,
He chuses me to be his orator;
Swears that Adrastus, and the lean-looked prophet[10],
Are joint conspirators; and wished me to
187 Appease the raving Thebans; which I swore
To do.
Pyr. A dangerous undertaking;
Directly opposite to your own interest.
Cre. No, dull Pyracmon; when I left his presence
With all the wings, with which revenge could aid
My flight, I gained the midst o'the city;
There, standing on a pile of dead and dying,
I to the mad and sickly multitude,
With interrupting sobs, cry'd out,—O Thebes!
O wretched Thebes, thy king, thy Œdipus,
This barbarous stranger, this usurper, monster,
Is by the oracle, the wise Tiresias,
Proclaimed the murderer of thy royal Laius:
Jocasta too, no longer now my sister,
Is found complotter in the horrid deed.
Here I renounce all tie of blood and nature,
For thee, O Thebes, dear Thebes, poor bleeding Thebes!—
And there I wept, and then the rabble howled.
And roared, and with a thousand antic mouths
Gabbled revenge! revenge was all the cry.
Pyr. This cannot fail: I see you on the throne:
And Œdipus cast out.
Cre. Then strait came on
Alcander, with a wild and bellowing crowd,
Whom he had wrought; I whispered him to join.
And head the forces while the heat was in them.
So to the palace I returned, to meet
The king, and greet him with another story.—
But see, he enters.
Enter Œdipus and Jocasta, attended.
Œdip. Said you that Phorbas is returned, and yet
Intreats he may return, without being asked
188 Of aught concerning what we have discovered?
Joc. He started when I told him your intent,
Replying, what he knew of that affair
Would give no satisfaction to the king;
Then, falling on his knees, begged, as for life,
To be dismissed from court: He trembled too,
As if convulsive death had seized upon him,
And stammered in his abrupt prayer so wildly,
That had he been the murderer of Laius,
Guilt and distraction could not have shook him more.