_Joc._ You make, my lord, your own unhappiness, By these extravagant and needless fears. _OEdip._ Needless! O, all you Gods! By heaven, I would rather Embrue my arms, up to my very shoulders, In the dear entrails of the best of fathers, Than offer at the execrable act Of damned incest: therefore no more of her. _AEge._ And why, O sacred sir, if subjects may Presume to look into their monarch's breast, Why should the chaste and spotless Merope Infuse such thoughts, as I must blush to name? _OEdip._ Because the god of Delphos did forewarn me, With thundering oracles. _AEge._ May I entreat to know them? _OEdip._ Yes, my AEgeon; but the sad remembrance Quite blasts my soul: See then the swelling priest! Methinks, I have his image now in view!-- He mounts the tripos in a minute's space, His clouded head knocks at the temple-roof; While from his mouth, These dismal words are heard: "Fly, wretch, whom fate has doomed thy father's blood to spill, And with preposterous births thy mother's womb to fill!" _AEge._ Is this the cause, Why you refuse the diadem of Corinth? _OEdip._ The cause! why, is it not a monstrous one! _AEge._ Great sir, you may return; and though you should Enjoy the queen, (which all the Gods forbid!) The act would prove no incest. _OEdip._ How, AEgeon? Though I enjoy my mother, not incestuous! Thou ravest, and so do I; and these all catch My madness; look, they're dead with deep distraction: Not incest! what, not incest with my mother? _AEge._ My lord, queen Merope is not your mother. _OEdip._ Ha! did I hear thee right? not Merope My mother! _AEge._ Nor was Polybus your father. _OEdip._ Then all my days and nights must now be spent In curious search, to find out those dark parents Who gave me to the world; speak then, AEgeon. By all the Gods celestial and infernal, By all the ties of nature, blood and friendship, Conceal not from this racked despairing king, A point or smallest grain of what thou knowest: Speak then, O answer to my doubts directly, If royal Polybus was not my father, Why was I called his son? _AEge._ He from my arms Received you, as the fairest gift of nature. Not but you were adorned with all the riches That empire could bestow, in costly mantles, Upon its infant heir. _OEdip._ But was I made the heir of Corinth's crown, Because AEgeon's hands presented me? _AEge._ By my advice, Being past all hope of children, He took, embraced, and owned you for his son. _OEdip._ Perhaps I then am yours; instruct me, sir; If it be so, I'll kneel and weep before you. With all the obedience of a penitent child, Imploring pardon. Kill me, if you please; I will not writhe my body at the wound, But sink upon your feet with a last sigh, And ask forgiveness with my dying hands. _AEge._ O rise, and call not to this aged cheek The little blood which should keep warm my heart; You are not mine, nor ought I to be blest With such a god-like offspring. Sir, I found you Upon the mount Cithaeron.