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.

OEdip. Trust me, thou fairest, best of all thy kind,
None e’er in dreams was tortured so before. 
Yet what most shocks the niceness of my temper,
Even far beyond the killing of my father,
And my own death, is, that this horrid sleep
Dashed my sick fancy with an act of incest: 
I dreamt, Jocasta, that thou wert my mother;
Which, though impossible, so damps my spirits,
That I could do a mischief on myself,
Lest I should sleep, and dream the like again.

Joc. O OEdipus, too well I understand you! 
I know the wrath of heaven, the care of Thebes,
The cries of its inhabitants, war’s toils,
And thousand other labours of the state,
Are all referred to you, and ought to take you
For ever from Jocasta.

OEdip. Life of my life, and treasure of my soul, Heaven knows I love thee.

Joc. O, you think me vile,
And of an inclination so ignoble,
That I must hide me from your eyes for ever. 
Be witness, gods, and strike Jocasta dead,
If an immodest thought, or low desire,
Inflamed my breast, since first our loves were lighted.