Joc. Ah, cruel women!
Will you not let me take my last farewell
Of those dear babes? O let me run, and seal
My melting soul upon their bubbling wounds!
I'll print upon their coral mouths such kisses,
As shall recal their wandering spirits home.
Let me go, let me go, or I will tear you piece-meal.
Help, Hæmon, help;
Help, Œdipus; help, Gods; Jocasta dies.
Enter Œdipus above.
Œdip. I've found a window, and I thank the gods
'Tis quite unbarred; sure, by the distant noise,
The height will fit my fatal purpose well.
Joc. What hoa, my Œdipus! see where he stands!
His groping ghost is lodged upon a tower,
Nor can it find the road. Mount, mount, my soul;
I'll wrap thy shivering spirit in lambent flames; and so we'll sail.—
But see! we're landed on the happy coast;
And all the golden strands are covered o'er
With glorious gods, that come to try our cause.
Jove, Jove, whose majesty now sinks me down,
He, who himself burns in unlawful fires,
Shall judge, and shall acquit us. O, 'tis done;
'Tis fixt by fate, upon record divine;
And Œdipus shall now be ever mine.[Dies.
221 Œdip. Speak, Hæmon; what has fate been doing there?
What dreadful deed has mad Jocasta done?
Hæm. The queen herself, and all your wretched offspring,
Are by her fury slain.
Œdip. By all my woes,
She has outdone me in revenge and murder,
And I should envy her the sad applause:
But oh, my children! oh, what have they done?
This was not like the mercy of the heavens,
To set her madness on such cruelty:
This stirs me more than all my sufferings,
And with my last breath I must call you tyrants.
Hæm. What mean you, sir?
Œdip. Jocasta! lo, I come.
O Laius, Labdacus, and all you spirits
Of the Cadmean race, prepare to meet me,
All weeping ranged along the gloomy shore;
Extend your arms to embrace me, for I come.
May all the gods, too, from their battlements,
Behold and wonder at a mortal's daring;
And, when I knock the goal of dreadful death,
Shout and applaud me with a clap of thunder.
Once more, thus winged by horrid fate, I come,
Swift as a falling meteor; lo, I fly,
And thus go downwards to the darker sky. [Thunder. He flings himself from the Window: The Thebans gather about his Body.
Hæm. O prophet, Œdipus is now no more!
O cursed effect of the most deep despair!