_Alc._ Long-bearded comets stick, Like flaming porcupines, to their left sides, As they would shoot their quills into their hearts. _Haem._ But see! the king, and queen, and all the court! Did ever day or night shew aught like this? [_Thunders again. The Scene draws, and discovers the Prodigies._ _Enter_ OEDIPUS, JOCASTA, EURYDICE, ADRASTUS; _and all coming forward with amazement._ _OEdip._ Answer, you powers divine! spare all this noise, This rack of heaven, and speak your fatal pleasure. Why breaks yon dark and dusky orb away? Why from the bleeding womb of monstrous night, Burst forth such myriads of abortive stars? Ha! my Jocasta, look! the silver moon! A settling crimson stains her beauteous face! She's all o'er blood! and look, behold again, What mean the mystic heavens she journies on? A vast eclipse darkens the labouring planet:-- Sound there, sound all our instruments of war; Clarions and trumpets, silver, brass, and iron, And beat a thousand drums, to help her labour. _Adr._ 'Tis vain; you see the prodigies continue; Let's gaze no more, the gods are humorous. _OEdip._ Forbear, rash man.--Once more I ask your pleasure! If that the glow-worm light of human reason Might dare to offer at immortal knowledge, And cope with gods, why all this storm of nature? Why do the rocks split, and why rolls the sea? Why those portents in heaven, and plagues on earth? Why yon gigantic forms, ethereal monsters? Alas! is all this but to fright the dwarfs, Which your own hands have made? Then be it so. Or if the fates resolve some expiation For murdered Laius; hear me, hear me, gods! Hear me thus prostrate: Spare this groaning land, Save innocent Thebes, stop the tyrant death; Do this, and lo, I stand up an oblation, To meet your swiftest and severest anger; Shoot all at once, and strike me to the centre. _The Cloud draws, that veiled the Heads of the Figures in the Sky, and shews them crowned, with the names of_ OEDIPUS _and_ JOCASTA, _written above in great characters of gold._ _Adr._ Either I dream, and all my cooler senses Are vanished with that cloud that fleets away, Or just above those two majestic heads, I see, I read distinctly, in large gold, _OEdipus and Jocasta._ _Alc._ I read the same. _Adr._ 'Tis wonderful; yet ought not man to wade Too far in the vast deep of destiny. [_Thunder; and the Prodigies vanish._ _Joc._ My lord, my OEdipus, why gaze you now, When the whole heaven is clear, as if the gods Had some new monsters made? will you not turn, And bless your people, who devour each word You breathe?