_Alc._ Try promises and threats, and if all fail, Since hell's broke loose, why should not you be mad? Ravish, and leave her dead with her Adrastus. _Cre._ Were the globe mine, I'd give a province hourly For such another thought.--Lust and revenge! To stab at once the only man I hate, And to enjoy the woman whom I love! I ask no more of my auspicious stars, The rest as fortune please; so but this night She play me fair, why, let her turn for ever. _Enter_ HAEMON. _Haem._ My lord, the troubled king is gone to rest; Yet, ere he slept, commanded me to clear The antichambers; none must dare be near him. _Cre._ Haemon, you do your duty; [_Thunder._ And we obey.--The night grows yet more dreadful! 'Tis just that all retire to their devotions. The gods are angry; but to-morrow's dawn, If prophets do not lie, will make all clear. _As they go off,_ OEDIPUS _enters, walking asleep in his shirt, with a dagger in his right hand, and a taper in his left._ _OEdip._ O, my Jocasta! 'tis for this, the wet Starved soldier lies on the cold ground; For this, he bears the storms Of winter camps, and freezes in his arms; To be thus circled, to be thus embraced. That I could hold thee ever!--Ha! where art thou? What means this melancholy light, that seems The gloom of glowing embers? The curtain's drawn; and see she's here again! Jocasta? Ha! what, fallen asleep so soon? How fares my love? this taper will inform me.-- Ha! Lightning blast me, thunder Rivet me ever to Prometheus' rock, And vultures gnaw out my incestuous heart!-- By all the gods, my mother Merope! My sword! a dagger! ha, who waits there? Slaves, My sword!--What, Haemon, dar'st thou, villain, stop me? With thy own poniard perish.--Ha! who's this? Or is't a change of death? By all my honours, New murder; thou hast slain old Polybus: Incest and parricide,--thy father's murderer! Out, thou infernal flame!--Now all is dark, All blind and dismal, most triumphant mischief! And now, while thus I stalk about the room, I challenge Fate to find another wretch Like OEdipus! [_Thunder,_ &c. _Enter_ JOCASTA _attended, with Lights, in a Night-gown._ _OEdip._ Night, horror, death, confusion, hell, and furies! Where am I?--O, Jocasta, let me hold thee, Thus to my bosom! ages let me grasp thee! All that the hardest-tempered weathered flesh, With fiercest human spirit inspired, can dare, Or do, I dare; but, oh you powers, this was, By infinite degrees, too much for man. Methinks my deafened ears Are burst; my eyes, as if they had been knocked By some tempestuous hand, shoot flashing fire;-- That sleep should do this! _Joc._ Then my fears were true. Methought I heard your voice,--and yet I doubted,-- Now roaring like the ocean, when the winds Fight with the waves; now, in a still small tone Your dying accents fell, as wrecking ships, After the dreadful yell, sink murmuring down, And bubble up a noise.