Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 16.djvu/183

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Œdipus
161

SCENE II.


JOCASTE, ÆGINA.

ÆGINA.

Thebans, be gone. How I lament thy fate!

JOCASTE.

Alas! I envy those whom death has freed
From all their cares: but what remains for me,
What pain and torment to a virtuous heart!

ÆGINA.

'Tis terrible indeed: the clamorous people,
Warmed with false zeal, will cry aloud for vengeance,
And soon demand their victim. I forbear
To accuse him; but if he at last should prove
The murderer of thy unhappy lord,
How it must shock thy soul!

JOCASTE.

How it must shock thy soul! Impossible!
Such guilt and baseness never dwelt in him.
O my Ægina! since our bonds of love
Were disunited, naught has pierced my heart
Like this suspicion: this alone was wanting
To make Jocaste most completely wretched:
But I'll not bear to hear him thus accused;
I loved him, and he must be innocent.

ÆGINA.

That constant love——