by Aeschylus
[Exit Melanippus.]
CHORUS
[417] May the gods grant success to our champion, since he rises up in a just cause, to battle for his city! But I shudder to watch the bloody deaths of men cut down for the sake of their own people.
SCOUT
[422] Yes, may the gods so grant success to this man. Capaneus is stationed at the Electran gates, another giant of a man, greater than the one described before. But his boast is too proud for a mere human, and he makes terrifying threats against our battlements — which, I hope, chance will not fulfil! For he says he will utterly destroy the city with god’s will or without it, and that not even conflict with Zeus, though it should fall before him in the plain, will stand in his way. The god’s lightning and thunderbolts he compares to midday heat. For his shield’s symbol he has a man without armor bearing fire, and the torch, his weapon, blazes in his hands; and in golden letters he says “I will burn the city.” Against such a man make your dispatch — who will meet him in combat, who will stand firm without trembling before his boasts?
ETEOCLES
[437] Here too gain follows with interest from gain. The tongue proves in the end to be an unerring accuser of men’s wicked thoughts. Capaneus makes his threats, ready to act, irreverent toward the gods, and giving his tongue full exercise in wicked glee, he, though a mere mortal, sends a loud and swollen boast to Zeus in heaven. But I trust that the fire-bearing thunderbolt will justly come to him, and when it comes it will not be anything like the sun’s mid-day heat. And against him, even though he is a big talker, a man of fiery spirit, mighty Polyphontes, is stationed, a dependable sentinel with the good will of guardian Artemis and the other gods. Now tell me about another one allotted to other gates!
[Exit Polyphontes.]
CHORUS
[452] Death to him who exults so arrogantly over the city! May the thunderbolt stop him before he leaps into my home and plunders me from my maiden chambers with his outrageous spear!
SCOUT
[457] Now I will tell you about the man who next drew station at the gates. The third lot leaped out of the upturned bronze helmet for Eteoclus, to hurl his band against the Neistan gates. He whirls his horses as they snort through their bridles, eager to fall against the gate. Their muzzles whistle in a barbarian way, filled with the breath of their haughty nostrils. His shield is decorated in great style: an armored man climbs a ladder’s rungs to mount an enemy tower that he wants to destroy. This one, too, shouts in syllables of written letters that even Ares could not hurl him from the battlements. Send a dependable opponent against this man, too, to keep the yoke of slavery from our city.
ETEOCLES
[472] I would send this man here, and with good fortune. [Exit Megareus.] Indeed, he has already been sent, his only boast in his hands, Megareus, Creon’s seed, of the race of the sown-men. He will not withdraw from the gate in fear of the thunder of the horses’ furious snorting; but either he will die and pay the earth the full price of his nurture, or will capture two men and the city on the shield, and then adorn his father’s house with the spoils. Tell me about another’s boasts and do not begrudge me the full tale!
CHORUS
[481] O champion of my home, I pray that this man will have good fortune, and that there will be bad fortune for his enemies. As they boast too much against the city in their frenzied mind, so, too, may Zeus the Requiter look on them in anger!
SCOUT
[486] Another, the fourth, has the gate near Onca Athena and takes his stand with a shout, Hippomedon, tremendous in form and figure. I shuddered in fear as he spun a huge disk — the circle of his shield, I mean — I cannot deny it. The symbol-maker who put the design on his shield was no lowly craftsman: the symbol is Typhon, spitting out of his fire-breathing mouth a dark, thick smoke, the darting sister of fire. And the rim of the hollow-bellied shield is fastened all around with snaky braids. The warrior himself has raised the war-cry and, inspired by Ares he raves for battle like a maenad, with a look to inspire fear. We must put up a good defense against the assault of such a man, for already Rout is boasting of victory at the gate.
ETEOCLES
[501] First Onca Pallas, who dwells near the city, close by the gate, and who loathes outrageousness in a man, will fend him off like a dangerous snake away from nestlings. Moreover, Hyperbius, Oenops’ trusty son, is chosen to match him, man to man, as he is eager to search out his fate in the crisis that chance has wrought — neither in form, nor spirit nor in the wielding of his arms does he bear reproach. Hermes has appropriately pitted them against each other. For the man is hostile to the man he faces in battle, and the gods on their shields also meet as enemies. The one has fire-breathing Typhon, while father Zeus stands upright on Hyperbius’ shield, his lightening bolt aflame in his hand. And no one yet has seen Zeus conquered. Such then is the favor of the divine powers: we are with the victors, they with the vanquished, if Zeus in fact proves stronger in battle than Typhon. And it is likely that the mortal adversaries will fare as do their gods; and so, in accordance with the symbol, Zeus will be a savior for Hyperbius since he resides on his shield.
[Exit Hyperbius.]
CHORUS
[521] I am sure that Zeus’ antagonist, since he has on his shield the unloved form of an earth-born deity, an image hated by both mortals and the long-lived gods, will drop his head in death before the gate.
SCOUT
[526] Let it be so! Next I describe the fifth man who is stationed at the fifth, the Northern gate opposite the tomb of Amphion, Zeus’s son. He swears by his spear which, in his confidence, he holds more to be revered than a god and more precious than his eyes, that he will sack the city of the Cadmeans in spite of Zeus. He says this, the beautiful child of a mountain-bred mother — a warrior, half man, half boy, and his beard’s first growth is just now advancing on his cheeks, his youth in first bloom, thick, upspringing hair. But now he makes his advance with a savage heart and a terrifying look, not at all like the maidens he’s named for. Nor does he take his stand at the gate unboasting, but wields our city’s shame on his bronze-forged shield, his body’s circular defence, on which the Sphinx who eats men raw is cleverly fastened with bolts, her body embossed and gleaming. She carries under her a single Cadmean, so that against this man chiefly our missiles will be hurled. He does not seem to have come to do any petty trading in the battle, nor to shame the making of his long journey — he is Parthenopaeus of Arcadia. Such is the man, and aiming to make full payment for the fine support given him in Argos, his adopted land, he now threatens our fortifications — may God not fulfil his threats!
ETEOCLES
[550] If only they would get from the gods what they wish for, because of those unholy boasts of theirs, then surely they would perish in utter ruin and misery. There is a man for this one, too, whom you name an Arcadian, a man who does not boast, but who knows the thing to do — Actor, brother of him I named before. He will not allow words that lack deeds to overrun his gate and increase fear, nor will he let in a man who carries on his hostile shield the image of the ravenous, detested beast. That beast outside his shield will blame the man who carries her into the gate, when she has taken a heavy beating beneath the city’s walls. If the gods are willing, what I speak may prove true!
[Exit Actor.]
CHORUS
[563] His words penetrate to my heart, my hair stands on end as I hear the loud threats of these loud-boasting, impious men. May the gods destroy them here in our land!
SCOUT
[568] The sixth man I will name is of the highest moderation and a seer brave in combat, mighty Amphiaraus. Stationed at the Homoloid gate, he repeatedly rebukes mighty Tydeus with evil names “Murderer, maker of unrest in the city, principal teacher of evils to the Argives, summoner of vengeance’s Curse, servant of Slaughter, counselor to Adrastus in these evil plans.” And next, with eyes looking upward, he addressed your own brother, mighty Polynices who shares your blood, and called him by name, dwelling twice upon its
latter part. These were his words: “Will such a deed as this be pleasing to the gods, fine to hear of and to relate to those in the future — that you sacked the city of your ancestors and your native gods and launched a foreign army against them? What justice is it to drain dry the font of your existence? And how shall your fatherland, captured by the spear for the sake of your ambition, be won over to your cause? As for me, I will enrich this earth, a seer interred beneath enemy soil. Let us fight! I anticipate no dishonorable death.” So the seer spoke as untroubled he held his all-bronze shield. No symbol was fixed to his shield’s circle. For he does not wish to appear the bravest, but to be the bravest, as he harvests the fruit of his mind’s deep furrow, where his careful resolutions grow. I advise you to send wise and brave opponents against him. He who reveres the gods is to be feared.
ETEOCLES
[597] Ah, the pity of fate’s omen when it makes a just man associate with the irreverent! In all things, nothing is more evil than evil partnership. Its fruit should not be gathered in: the field of recklessness yields a harvest of death. For it may be that a pious man, embarked shipboard with sailors hot for some crime, perishes along with the sort of men hated by the gods; or, a man, though upright himself, when among fellow-citizens who hate all strangers and neglect the gods, may fall undeserving into the same trap as they, and be subdued, struck by the scourge of God that strikes all alike.
[609] Just so the seer, Oecles’ son, although a moderate, just, noble, reverent man and a great prophet, mixes with impious, rash-talking men against his own judgment, men stretching out in a procession that is long to retrace, and, if it is Zeus’s will, he will be be dragged down in ruin along with them.
[615] So then, I expect that he will not even charge the gates: not because he lacks courage or is weak-willed, but because he knows that he must meet his end in battle, if the prophecies of Loxias are to come to fruition — the god usually either holds silent or speaks to the point. Just the same, I will station a man against him, mighty Lasthenes, a gate-keeper who hates foreigners. He has the wisdom of an old man, but his body is at its prime: his eyes are quick, and he does not let his hand delay for his spear to seize what is left exposed by the shield. Still it is God’s gift when mortals succeed.
[Exit Lasthenes.]
CHORUS
[626] Gods, hear our just prayers and fulfil them, that the city may have good fortune! Turn aside the evils suffered in war onto those who invade our land! May Zeus strike them with his thunderbolt outside the walls and slay them!
SCOUT
[631] Last I will tell of the seventh champion, him at the seventh gate, your own brother, and of what fate he prays for and calls down on the city. His prayer is that after he mounts the battlements and is proclaimed king in the land, and shouts the paian in triumph over its capture, he may then meet you in combat, and once he kills you, that he may perish at your side, or, if you survive, make you pay with banishment in the same way as you dishonored him with exile. Mighty Polynices shouts such threats and invokes his native gods, the gods of his fatherland, to watch over his prayers in every way. He holds a shield, a perfect circle, newly-made, with a double symbol cleverly fastened on it: a woman modestly walking in the fore leads a man in arms made, it appears, of hammered gold. She claims to be Justice, as the lettering indicates, “I will bring this man back and he will have his city and move freely in his father’s halls.”
[649] Such are the inventions fixed to their shields. [Quickly determine yourself whom you think it best to send.] Know that you will find no fault with me in the substance of my report, but you yourself determine on what course to pilot the city.
[Exit Scout.]
ETEOCLES
[654] O my family sired by Oedipus, steeped in tears, driven to madness by the gods and by the gods detested! Ah, now indeed our father’s curses are brought to fulfillment. But neither weeping nor wailing is proper for me now, lest a grief even harder to bear is brought to life. As for him whose name is so very fitting, Polynices, we shall know soon enough what the symbol on his shield will accomplish, whether the babbling letters shaped in gold on his shield, together with his mind’s wanderings, will bring him back. If Justice, Zeus’s maiden daughter, were attending his actions and his thoughts, this might be so. But as it is, neither when he escaped the darkness of his mother’s womb, nor in childhood, nor at any point in his early manhood, nor when the beard first thickened on his cheek, did Justice acknowledge him and consider him worthy. And even now I do not think that she is standing by his side to aid the destruction of his fatherland. Indeed, Justice would truly be false to her name, if she should ally herself with a man so utterly audacious in his plans. Trusting in this fact I will go and stand against him — I myself in person. Who else has a more just claim? Commander against commander, brother against brother, enemy against enemy, I will take my stand. Quick, bring my greaves to protect against spears and stones!
CHORUS
[677] No, son of Oedipus, most dear of our men, do not be like in temperament to him who is called by such an evil name. It is enough that Cadmeans are advancing to close combat with Argives. That bloodshed can be expiated. But when men of the same blood kill each other as you desire, the pollution from this act never grows old.
ETEOCLES
[683] If indeed a man should suffer evil, let it be without dishonor, since that is the only benefit for the dead. But you cannot speak of any glory for happenings that are at once evil and held in dishonor.
CHORUS
[686] For what are you so eager, child? Do not let mad lust for battle fill your soul and carry you away. Reject this evil passion while it is still young.
ETEOCLES
[689] Since God hastens the deed so urgently, let the whole race of Laius, hated by Phoebus, be swept on the wind to Cocytus’ destined flood!
CHORUS
[692] A savage desire eats away at you, drives you to murder, blood-sacrifice proscribed by divine law, whose only fruit is bitterness.
ETEOCLES
[695] True, my own beloved father’s hateful, ruinous curse hovers before my dry, unweeping eyes, and informs me of benefit preceding subsequent death.
CHORUS
[698] No, do not let yourself be driven to it. You will not be called a coward if you retain life nobly. Will not the avenging Erinys in her dark aegis leave your house, when the gods receive sacrifice from your hands?
ETEOCLES
[702] The gods, it seems, have already banished us from their care, yet they admire the grace we offer them when we perish. So then, why should we cringe and shy away from deadly fate?
CHORUS
[705] It is only at this moment that death stands close by you, for the divine spirit may change its purpose even after a long time and come on a gentler wind. But now it still seethes.
ETEOCLES
[709] Yes, the curses of Oedipus have made it seethe in fury. Too true were the phantoms in my sleeping visions, predicting the division of our father’s wealth!
CHORUS
[712] Obey us women, although you do not like to.
ETEOCLES
[713] Recommend something that can be accomplished; your request need not be lengthy.
CHORUS
[714] Do not yourself take the road to the seventh gate!
ETEOCLES
[715] Let me assure you, you will not blunt my sharpened purpose with words.
CHORUS
[716] And yet any victory, even a cowardly one, is nonetheless held in honor by God.
ETEOCLES
[717] A soldier must not embrace that maxim.
CHORUS
[718] But are you willing to harvest the blood of your own brother?
ETEOCLES
[719] When it is the gods who give you evils, you cannot flee them.
[Exit.]
CHORUS
[720] I shudder in terror at the goddess who lays ruin to homes, a goddess unlike other divinities, who is an unerring omen of evil to come. I
shudder that the Erinys invoked by the father’s prayer will fulfil the over-wrathful curses that Oedipus spoke in madness. This strife that will destroy his sons drives the Erinys to fulfillment.
[727] A stranger distributes their inheritance, a Chalybian immigrant from Scythia, a bitter divider of wealth, savage-hearted iron that apportions land for them to dwell in, as much as they can occupy in death when they have lost their share in these wide plains.
[734] But when both have died, each killing the other in mutual slaughter, and the earth’s dust has swallowed the black streams of their blood, who could offer sacrifice that might make purification? Who could cleanse them of their pollution? O, the new troubles of this house mixed with its evils of before!
[742] Indeed I speak of the ancient transgression, now swift in its retribution. It remains even into the third generation, ever since Laius — in defiance of Apollo who, at his Pythian oracle at the earth’s center, said three times that the king would save his city if he died without offspring — ever since he, overcome by the thoughtlessness of his longing, fathered his own death, the parricide Oedipus, who sowed his mother’s sacred field, where he was nurtured, and endured a bloody crop. Madness united the frenzied bridal pair.
[758] Now it is as if a sea of evils pushes its swell onward. As one wave sinks, the sea raises up another, triple-crested, which crashes around the city’s stern. In between a narrow defense stretches — no wider than a wall. I fear that the city will be overthrown along with its kings.
[766] For the compensation is heavy when curses uttered long ago are fulfilled, and once the deadly curse has come into existence, it does not pass away. When the fortune of seafaring merchants has grown too great, it must be thrown overboard.
