Cre. Well:  ’tis resolved.

Dioc. The princess walks this way;
You must not meet her,
Till this be done.

Cre. I must.

Dioc. She hates your sight; And more, since you accused her.

Cre. Urge it not. 
I cannot stay to tell thee my design;
For she’s too near.

  Enter EURYDICE.

How, madam, were your thoughts employed?

Eur. On death, and thee.

Cre. Then were they not well sorted:  Life and me Had been the better match.

Eur. No, I was thinking On two the most detested things in nature:  And they are death and thee.

Cre. The thought of death to one near death is dreadful! 
O ’tis a fearful thing to be no more;
Or, if to be, to wander after death;
To walk as spirits do, in brakes all day;
And when the darkness comes, to glide in paths
That lead to graves; and in the silent vault,
Where lies your own pale shroud, to hover o’er it,
Striving to enter your forbidden corps,
And often, often, vainly breathe your ghost
Into your lifeless lips;
Then, like a lone benighted traveller,
Shut out from lodging, shall your groans be answered
By whistling winds, whose every blast will shake
Your tender form to atoms.

Eur. Must I be this thin being? and thus wander?  No quiet after death!

Cre. None:  You must leave
This beauteous body; all this youth and freshness
Must be no more the object of desire,
But a cold lump of clay;
Which then your discontented ghost will leave,
And loath its former lodging. 
This is the best of what comes after death. 
Even to the best.

Eur. What then shall be thy lot?—­
Eternal torments, baths of boiling sulphur,
Vicissitudes of fires, and then of frosts;
And an old guardian fiend, ugly as thou art,
To hollow in thy ears at every lash,—­
This for Eurydice; these for her Adrastus!

Cre. For her Adrastus!

Eur. Yes; for her Adrastus:  For death shall ne’er divide us:  Death? what’s death!

Dioc. You seemed to fear it.

Eur. But I more fear Creon:  To take that hunch-backed monster in my arms!  The excrescence of a man!

Dioc. to Cre. See what you’ve gained.

Eur. Death only can be dreadful to the bad: 
To innocence, ’tis like a bug-bear dressed
To frighten children; pull but off his masque,
And he’ll appear a friend.

Cre. You talk too slightly Of death and hell.  Let me inform you better.

Eur. You best can tell the news of your own country.

Dioc. Nay, now you are too sharp.

Eur. Can I be so to one, who has accused me Of murder and of parricide?

Cre. You provoked me: 
And yet I only did thus far accuse you,
As next of blood to Laius:  Be advised,
And you may live.