_OEdip._ It shall be so. Yes, I will die, O Thebes, to save thee! Draw from my heart my blood, with more content Than e'er I wore thy crown.--Yet, O Jocasta! By all the endearments of miraculous love, By all our languishings, our fears in pleasure, Which oft have made us wonder; here I swear, On thy fair hand, upon thy breast I swear, I cannot call to mind, from budding childhood To blooming youth, a crime by me committed, For which the awful gods should doom my death. _Joc._ 'Tis not you, my lord, But he who murdered Laius, frees the land. Were you, which is impossible, the man, Perhaps my poniard first should drink your blood; But you are innocent, as your Jocasta, From crimes like those. This made me violent To save your life, which you unjust would lose: Nor can you comprehend, with deepest thought, The horrid agony you cast me in, When you resolved to die. _OEdip._ Is't possible? _Joc._ Alas! why start you so? Her stiffening grief, Who saw her children slaughtered all at once, Was dull to mine: Methinks, I should have made My bosom bare against the armed god, To save my OEdipus! _OEdip._ I pray, no more. _Joc._ You've silenced me, my lord. _OEdip._ Pardon me, dear Jocasta! Pardon a heart that sinks with sufferings, And can but vent itself in sobs and murmurs: Yet, to restore my peace, I'll find him out. Yes, yes, you gods! you shall have ample vengeance On Laius' murderer. O, the traitor's name! I'll know't, I will; art shall be conjured for it, And nature all unravelled. _Joc._ Sacred sir-- _OEdip._ Rage will have way, and 'tis but just; I'll fetch him, Though lodged in air upon a dragon's wing, Though rocks should hide him: Nay, he shall be dragged From hell, if charms can hurry him along: His ghost shall be, by sage Tiresias' power,-- Tiresias, that rules all beneath the moon,-- Confined to flesh, to suffer death once more; And then be plunged in his first fires again. _Enter_ CREON. _Cre._ My lord, Tiresias attends your pleasure. _OEdip._ Haste, and bring him in.-- O, my Jocasta, Eurydice, Adrastus, Creon, and all ye Thebans, now the end Of plagues, of madness, murders, prodigies, Draws on: This battle of the heavens and earth Shall by his wisdom be reduced to peace. _Enter_ TIRESIAS, _leaning on a staff, led by his Daughter_ MANTO, _followed by other Thebans._ O thou, whose most aspiring mind Knows all the business of the courts above, Opens the closets of the gods, and dares To mix with Jove himself and Fate at council; O prophet, answer me, declare aloud The traitor, who conspired the death of Laius; Or be they more, who from malignant stars Have drawn this plague, that blasts unhappy Thebes?