_OEdip._ Suspend your thoughts; and flatter not too soon. Just in the place you named, where three ways met. And near that time, five persons I encountered; One was too like, (heaven grant it prove not him!) Whom you describe for Laius: insolent, And fierce they were, as men who lived on spoil. I judged them robbers, and by force repelled The force they used: In short, four men I slew: The fifth upon his knees demanding life, My mercy gave it;--Bring me comfort now. If I slew Laius, what can be more wretched! From Thebes, and you, my curse has banished me: From Corinth, fate. _Joc._ Perplex not thus your mind. My husband fell by multitudes opprest; So Phorbas said: This band you chanced to meet: And murdered not my Laius, but revenged him. _OEdip._ There's all my hope: Let Phorbas tell me this, And I shall live again.-- To you, good gods, I make my last appeal; Or clear my virtue, or my crime reveal: If wandering in the maze of fate I run, And backward trod the paths I sought to shun, Impute my errors to your own decree; My hands are guilty, but my heart is free. [_Exeunt._ ACT IV. SCENE I. _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 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 OEdipus, 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 OEdipus cast out.