Jocasta’s whole Speech in English
Are then these holy instruments of heaven
Infallible? Their ministry indeed
Binds them to the altar, they approach the gods,
But they are mortals still; and thinkest thou then
Truth is dependent on the flight of birds?
Thinkest thou, expiring by the sacred knife,
The groaning heifer shall for them alone
Remove the veil of dark futurity?
Or the gay victims, crowned with flowery garlands,
With their entrails bear the fates of men?
O no! to search for truth by ways like these
Is to usurp the rights of power supreme;
These priests are not what the vile rabble think them,
Their knowledge springs from our credulity.