_Dioc._ Now OEdipus (If he return from war, our other plague) Will scarce find half he left, to grace his triumphs. _Pyr._ A feeble paean will be sung before him. _Alc._ He would do well to bring the wives and children Of conquered Argians, to renew his Thebes. _Cre._ May funerals meet him at the city gates, With their detested omen! _Dioc._ Of his children. _Cre._ Nay, though she be my sister, of his wife. _Alc._ O that our Thebes might once again behold A monarch, Theban born! _Dioc._ We might have had one. _Pyr._ Yes, had the people pleased. _Cre._ Come, you are my friends: The queen my sister, after Laius' death, Feared to lie single; and supplied his place With a young successor. _Dioc._ He much resembles Her former husband too. _Alc._ I always thought so. _Pyr._ When twenty winters more have grizzled his black locks, He will be very Laius. _Cre._ So he will. Meantime, she stands provided of a Laius, More young, and vigorous too, by twenty springs. These women are such cunning purveyors! Mark, where their appetites have once been pleased, The same resemblance, in a younger lover, Lies brooding in their fancies the same pleasures, And urges their remembrance to desire. _Dioc._ Had merit, not her dotage, been considered; Then Creon had been king; but OEdipus, A stranger! _Cre._ That word, _stranger_, I confess, Sounds harshly in my ears. _Dioc._ We are your creatures. The people, prone, as in all general ills, To sudden change; the king, in wars abroad; The queen, a woman weak and unregarded; Eurydice, the daughter of dead Laius, A princess young and beauteous, and unmarried,-- Methinks, from these disjointed propositions, Something might be produced. _Cre._ The gods have done Their part, by sending this commodious plague. But oh, the princess! her hard heart is shut By adamantine locks against my love. _Alc._ Your claim to her is strong; you are betrothed. _Pyr._ True, in her nonage. _Dioc._ I heard the prince of Argos, young Adrastus, When he was hostage here-- _Cre._ Oh name him not! the bane of all my hopes. That hot-brained, head-long warrior, has the charms Of youth, and somewhat of a lucky rashness, To please a woman yet more fool than he. That thoughtless sex is caught by outward form. And empty noise, and loves itself in man. _Alc._ But since the war broke out about our frontiers, He's now a foe to Thebes. _Cre._ But is not so to her. See, she appears; Once more I'll prove my fortune. You insinuate Kind thoughts of me into the multitude; Lay load upon the court; gull them with freedom; And you shall see them toss their tails, and gad, As if the breeze had stung them. _Dioc._ We'll about it. [_Exeunt_ ALC. DIOC. _and_ PYR. _Enter_ EURYDICE. _Cre._ Hail, royal maid! thou bright Eurydice, A lavish planet reigned when thou wert born, And made thee of such kindred mould to heaven, Thou seem'st more heaven's than ours.