Part 15

CREON.

Not if the King Does evil.

OEDIPUS.

To your King! Ho, Thebes, mine own!

CREON.

Thebes is my country, not the King's alone.

LEADER.

Stay, Princes, stay! See, on the Castle stair The Queen Jocasta standeth. Show to her Your strife. She will assuage it as is well.

JOCASTA.

Vain men, what would ye with this angry swell Of words heart-blinded? Is there in your eyes No pity, thus, when all our city lies Bleeding, to ply your privy hates?... Alack, My lord, come in!--Thou, Creon, get thee back To thine own house. And stir not to such stress Of peril griefs that are but nothingness.

CREON.

Sister, it is the pleasure of thy lord, Our King, to do me deadly wrong. His word Is passed on me: 'tis banishment or death.

OEDIPUS.

I found him ... I deny not what he saith, My Queen ... with craft and malice practising Against my life.

CREON.

Ye Gods, if such a thing Hath once been in my thoughts, may I no more See any health on earth, but, festered o'er With curses, die!--Have done. There is mine oath.

JOCASTA.

In God's name, Oedipus, believe him, both For my sake, and for these whose hearts are all Thine own, and for my brother's oath withal.

LEADER. [Strophe.

Yield; consent; think! My Lord, I conjure thee!

OEDIPUS.

What would ye have me do?

LEADER.

Reject not one who never failed his troth Of old and now is strong in his great oath.

OEDIPUS.

Dost know what this prayer means?

LEADER.

Yea, verily!