OEDIPUS, _King of Thebes._ ADRASTUS, _Prince of Argos._ CREON, _Brother to_ JOCASTA. TIRESIAS, _a blind Prophet._ HAEMON, _Captain of the Guard._ ALCANDER, } DIOCLES, } _Lords of_ CREON'S _faction._ PYRACMON, } PHORBAS, _an old Shepherd._ DYMAS, _the Messenger returned from Delphos._ AEGEON, _the Corinthian Embassador._ _Ghost of_ LAIUS, _the late King of Thebes._ JOCASTA, _Queen of Thebes._ EURYDICE, _her Daughter, by_ LAIUS, _her first husband._ MANTO, _Daughter of_ TIRESIAS. _Priests, Citizens, Attendants,_ &c. SCENE--_Thebes._ OEDIPUS. ACT I. SCENE I.--_The Curtain rises to a plaintive Tune, representing the present condition of Thebes; dead Bodies appear at a distance in the Streets; some faintly go over the Stage, others drop._ _Enter_ ALCANDER, DIOCLES, _and_ PYRACMON. _Alc._ Methinks we stand on ruins; nature shakes About us; and the universal frame So loose, that it but wants another push, To leap from off its hinges. _Dioc._ No sun to cheer us; but a bloody globe, That rolls above, a bald and beamless fire, His face o'er-grown with scurf: The sun's sick, too; Shortly he'll be an earth. _Pyr._ Therefore the seasons Lie all confused; and, by the heavens neglected, Forget themselves: Blind winter meets the summer In his mid-way, and, seeing not his livery, Has driven him headlong back; and the raw damps, With flaggy wings, fly heavily about, Scattering their pestilential colds and rheums Through all the lazy air. _Alc._ Hence murrains followed On bleating flocks, and on the lowing herds: At last, the malady Grew more domestic, and the faithful dog Died at his master's feet[1]. _Dioc._ And next, his master: For all those plagues, which earth and air had brooded, First on inferior creatures tried their force, And last they seized on man. _Pyr._ And then a thousand deaths at once advanced, And every dart took place; all was so sudden, That scarce a first man fell; one but began To wonder, and straight fell a wonder too; A third, who stooped to raise his dying friend, Dropt in the pious act.--Heard you that groan? [_Groan within._ _Dioc._ A troop of ghosts took flight together there. Now death's grown riotous, and will play no more For single stakes, but families and tribes. How are we sure we breathe not now our last, And that, next minute, Our bodies, cast into some common pit, Shall not be built upon, and overlaid By half a people? _Alc._ There's a chain of causes Linked to effects; invincible necessity, That whate'er is, could not but so have been; That's my security. _To them, enter_ CREON. _Cre._ So had it need, when all our streets lie covered With dead and dying men; And earth exposes bodies on the pavements, More than she hides in graves. Betwixt the bride and bridegroom have I seen The nuptial torch do common offices Of marriage and of death.