Voltaire

“ Lives still, and reigns o'er Thebes; but reigns, alas!
O'er dying subjects, and a desert land.
Vainly we hoped to see the wayward fates
Chained to his throne, and yielding to the hand
Of Œdipus, our great deliverer.
A little time the gods propitious smiled,
And blessed us with a gleam of transient peace;
But barrenness and famine soon destroyed
Our airy hopes: ills heaped on ills succeed,
A dreadful plague unpeoples half the realms
Of sickly Thebes, snatching the poor remains
Just escaped from famine and the grave: high heaven
Hath thus ordained, and such our hapless fate. ”

“ And urge our lingering fate.
SECOND PERSON OF THE CHORUS.
And urge our lingering fate. Strike, strike, ye gods,
Your victims are prepared; ye mountains, fall!
Crush us, ye heavens! O death, deliver us,
And we shall thank you for the boon.
HIGH PRIEST.
And we shall thank you for the boon. No more:
Cease your loud plaints, the wretch's poor resource;
Yield to the power supreme, who means to try
His people by affliction; with a word
He can destroy, and with a word can save:
He knows that death is here; the cries of Thebes
Have reached his throne. Behold! ”

“ Is it my friend, my Philoctetes? Whence
And wherefore comest thou to distempered Thebes
In search of death, to brave the wrath of heaven?
For, know, the gods on this devoted land
Wreak their full vengeance: mortals dare not tread
The guilty soil, to death and horror long
Consigned, and from the living world cut off:
Away, begone!
PHILOCTETES.
Away, begone! It suits a wretch like me:
Leave me, my friend, to my unhappy fate;
And only tell me, if the wrath divine
Hath, in its rapid progress, spared the queen.
DIMAS.
Jocaste lives ”