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Aeschylus The seven against Thebes of Aeschylus

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Presented to the

library

of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by Mr. Edgar Stone

J£Vf<- J£

The Nelson Playbooks
Edited by

JOHN HAMPDEN,

M.A.

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

No. 304

THE VILLAGE DRAMA SOCIETY
In association with the British

Drama League

The Society sends out sets of plays for selecand gives advice on questions of production. It will arrange Drama Schools, and provides Lecturers and Adjudicators. The Costume Department makes a speciality of beautiful and accurate historical costume, tion, taking into account not only stage lighting for indoor plays, but distance and daylight on outWell-known portraits have door performances. The department been copied in many instances. can now undertake to dress Pageants, Mystery plays, Shakespeare, Restoration, Eighteenth Century, and early Nineteenth Century plays, as well as Greek drama. Further particulars may be had from :

The Hon.
274

Secretary, Village

Drama

Society,

New

Cross Road, London, S.E.14.

The

Seven Against Thebes of iEschylus

RENDERED INTO ENGLISH VERSE
BY

EDWYN BEVAN
AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF SELEUCUS"

THOMAS NELSON AND

SONS, Ltd.

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

LIBRARY

(

All rights in

this translation ai-e reserved

3§

PREFACE
Out
of the old festivals of the wine-god, Dionysos, in which songs had been sung by a chorus, dealing with stories of the legendary past, there was developed at Athens, in the fifth century B.C., the drama, in which the old stories were acted. But since the Attic drama was still in theory a piece of religious ritual, carried out in honour of Dionysos, the chorus was retained as a form prescribed by tradition, though its action had somehow to be fitted into the action of the play. It was now given the role of a crowd or group of subordinate persons attached to one or other of the principal characters of the play, or belonging to the place which was the supposed scene of the play a company of old men or sailors or maidens or slaves, or whatever the case might require. But the chorus could never take a very its role was mainly that of lookers-on, making active part comments on the actions and speeches of the characters it might express very decided sympathies with in the play one side or another where the play was a story of strife, and act as adviser or confidant to some person in the play. but these It continued to chant songs of some length were worked into the substance of the play, expressing the feelings aroused in the old men or maidens, or whoever the chorus might represent, by the situation of the moment, or calling to mind other old myths connected with the subject These choric songs were also used to mark of the drama. the divisions between the successive episodes of the drama, very much as is done by dropping the curtain in a modern the other actors, whilst they were being sung, replay mained behind the scenes, and the chorus had the orchestra all to itself. In the fifth century B.C. there seems to have been a wooden stage in the theatre of Dionysos at Athens. The tiers of marble seats rose on the hillside round a semiOn the circular space, in the middle of which was an altar. other side of this space, facing the audience, was the wall which formed the background for the play. It had the

—

;

;

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v

PREFACE appearance of the facade of a house with a great door in the middle. Since in the majority of Greek plays the action is supposed to take place in front of some house, this facade served for the royal palace in Mycenae or Thebes, or for a chief's hut on the Trojan shore, or whatever abode was postulated by the story acted. Through the great door were made the entrances and exits of the persons from and There were also into the interior of the palace or house. doors right and left of the back wall, through which the exits and entrances were made when persons were going elsewhere than into the house or coming from elsewhere than from the interior. The semicircular space in front of the house was called the orchestra, which means " place for dancing." It was in this space that from the time of their entry, nearly always after the opening speech, or first few speeches, of the play, the chorus stood or moved about for the rest of the play. Some of their chanting was accompanied by rhythmic movements and evolutions round or near the central altar, which may be described as " dancing," though, of course, very unlike what we call "dancing" to-day more like some Oriental dancing. This dancing " antistrophe is indicated by the terms "strophe" and attached to the choric songs. The " strophe " was a series of rhythmical movements corresponding with the metre of the song, which had to be precisely repeated in the " antistrophe," perhaps in a reversed direction. The large semicircular space gave plenty of room for the movements of the chorus apart from those of the actors proper, who took All their station immediately in front of the back wall. this makes it extraordinarily difficult to reproduce a Greek play in a modern theatre. Since there is no orchestra, the chorus has to be on the stage, where it crowds the actors uncomfortably also, since we have no traditional associations with a dancing like that of the ancient drama, the chanting and movements of the chorus cannot mean to us what they did to a fifth-century Greek, and in nearly all modern reproductions of Greek plays which I have seen in ordinary theatres, the chorus is a rather tiresome element which seems to clog the action of the play, and which one wishes away. Probably these difficulties could be got over by clever stage management. Another feature of the ancient drama strange to us, which it is probably best in modern reproductions to eliminate, was the wearing of

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:

vi

PREFACE
No actor showed his real face there were no masks. All the actors and all the members of the chorus actresses. were men if they took the role of women, they wore masks and dresses to suit. In tragedy the actors also wore boots with very thick soles to raise their stature above the common. All this, because unfamiliar to our eye, looks so unnatural to-day that it destroys the appeal of the play
:

:

if it is

attempted. In the worship of the ancient Greek gods it was common The to have contests of various kinds, athletic or musical. fifth-century plays were all exhibited in the theatre of Dionysos in competitive contests between different dramEach poet had to atic poets at the festivals of the god. get together a chorus some time before the festival and " teach "it. He had also to teach the two or three or four Not more than four actors were ever reactors required. quired, because the wearing of masks allowed the same actor Each poet presented a series of to take different parts. three tragedies, commonly spoken of by scholars to-day as a " trilogy," followed by a fourth play of a lighter, semicomic kind, called a " satyric " play, because the chorus in it normally consisted of the mythical goat-legged beings whom the Greeks called " satyroi." Performances must have gone on all day, perhaps into dusk (it is noticeable that torchlight shows or playing with fire were a feature at the end of the great trilogy of vEschylus and apparently At the end the judges in some of the lost satyric plays). gave one of the competing poets the prize. The three great Athenian tragedians, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, were by no means the only dramatic poets of their day, and sometimes they were beaten in the contest by other men who are only names to us to-day. But it is only of those three that plays are preserved, seven out of the ninety said to have been composed by ^Eschylus, seven of Sophocles, and eighteen or (if the Rhesus is genuine) nineteen of Euripides. iEschylus, the eldest of the three,

was born probably somewhere about 524
;

B.C.

and he died

Euripides, the youngest, was born in in 456 or 455 b.c. 480 B.C., so that he must have seen the plays of iEschylus, But though so as a lad, when they were first presented. near in time, there is an immense difference of character between the plays of iEschylus and the plays of Euripides. For with Euripides a modernist fashion set in. It must be vii PREFACE tragedies, with very few excepnot with contemporary life, but with the stories of a supposed heroic age long past, as familiar to all the spectators as the Bible stories were to our fathers, seen transEuripides tried to present figured through a halo of legend. the characters of these stories in a way which assimilated them more, in their mentality and language and behaviour, to the real men and women of his own time, and in so doing he provoked violent protest and ridicule from old-fashioned iEschylus is still primitive and solemn, his imaginapeople. tion belonging to a world not ours, in which men stand his language is awed before dark tremendous Powers built up with rich, sonorous, poetic words remote from the language of every day, a language which was to contemporary speech very much what the language of the Bible and As compared with of Milton is to our common speech. Euripides, .ZEschylus was stiff and archaic and naif, but he had the impressiveness of ancient dignity. His mind was steeped in religion, in the sense of awe regarding the unseen Powers sometimes he seems to come nearer than any other Greek writer to the Old Testament. It is especially the idea of curses working themselves out in some great house of the ancient time, generation after generation, which gives the note of his tragedies. Man, in a type heroically idealized, is seen contending with this dark Power, and contending often, This Power of destiny for all his splendid efforts, in vain. or vengeance is personified in the imagined figure of the Erinys, or, in the plural, the Erinyes, called by the Romans " Furies," the goddesses who are behind all the successive catastrophes, and who hunt the guilty man, or the man It is akin to the idea of the accursed family, to his doom. The origin of the of the " weird" in northern mythology. curse in the Greek legendary stories is some offence committed against the gods disobedience to an oracle or proud J^schylus, in his profound reverence for boasting words me ancestral gods, had as great a horror as a pious Hebrew of the " mouth that speaketh great things." The play here translated was the third in a trilogy dealing with the royal house of Thebes in the legendary past, upon whom a curse had rested since the disobedience of La'ius a story dark with the horror of family bloodshed, incest, and suicide. The first two plays of the trilogy, La'ius and CEdipus, are lost also the satyric play, The Sphinx, which

remembered that Greek

tions, dealt

;

;

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:

;

viii

PREFACE followed The Seven against Thebes. The trilogy was first presented in the theatre of Dionysos in the year 467 B.C., and on this occasion ^Eschylus won the first prize. The Seven against Thebes is a poem which, beyond any other Greek play, brings before us the terror and the splendour of It is full of the sound of shields clashing, ancient war. towering figures of an age when men were half -divine, meetIt ing in battle under a sky charged with imminent doom. is, of course, not exactly the war of the poet's own time, which iEschylus knew well enough as an old warrior who had fought at Marathon in 490 against the Persians it is war idealized, as it appeared to the fifth-century Greeks Probably the part of the in Homer and the other old epics. play which for the generations following that of ^Eschylus gave it abiding interest, and secured its preservation, is the highly worked-up description of the seven chiefs and of the All this belongs rather different devices on their shields. to Homeric warfare than to fifth-century Greek warfare. One feature, however, in war, as the play shows it, was true the horrors which attended of war in the poet's own time the capture of a city by a hostile army. War in the twentieth century a.d. seems to have horrors added to it which ancient warfare did not know it is fair to remember that ancient warfare had also horrors from which modern warfare is free. When iEschylus wrote, in the wars between the Greek city-states it was common for the people victorious to carry off into slavery the whole population of a conquered town. When, therefore, the Theban maidens in our play express almost hysterical terror at the possible fate awaiting them if the city is taken, that would have had a note of dreadful actuality to the first hearers of the play. It is because Eteocles the king stands between such a fate and his people that he appears a figure of heroic intrepidity. As the ancient Greek plays come down to us in mediaeval manuscripts there are no stage directions, no notes even of " enter" and " exit" nothing but the letters signifying the several speakers. In the two plays which Swinburne wrote imitating ancient Greek plays, Atalanta in Calydon and Erechtheus, in order to make them look as like Greek plays as possible, he omitted all stage directions, and in the first edition of my translation of this play of ^Eschylus, published by Edward Arnold in 1912, I followed the same Readers of the translations of Greek plays, who have plan.
:

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;

ix

PREFACE no acquaintance with the original, should understand that the stage directions they find inserted are made up by the translator at his fancy or discretion, as they seem to him required by the situation, and represent nothing in the Greek. But it is likely that for such readers they often make the action of the play more rapidly intelligible, and in a large number of cases they show what a scholar, by his study of the text, sees that the action accompanying the words must be in order to correspond with the poet's In this small edition of my translation I have intention. all accordingly inserted stage-directions throughout.
E. B.

CONTENTS
Of the Argument of the Play
13 17
. .

"The Seven against Thebes" The Pronunciation of the Greek Names
List of the Cast

68

7°

XI

The "Antigone" of Sophocles, which

is

published in this

series of Playbooks in Professor Lewis Campbell's verse translation, also dramatizes {somewhat differently) the old story how Antigone buried Polynices in defiance of the State, and carries on the story until after Antigone's death.

12

OF THE ARGUMENT
Cadmus
the Phoenician, coming into the land of Bceotia. a great serpent whose dwelling was near With the teeth of the serpent he the stream Dirce. sowed a field, and there sprang up warriors out of the ground, who fell to fighting together, so that a great part Certain, however, remained alive, of them were slain. and together with these he built the city of Cadmea, called afterwards Thebes, upon the streams Dirce and The children of those warriors which had Ismenus. sprung from the serpent's teeth, called the Sown Ones, had ever chief honour among the Cadmeans in after time. Moreover, the God Ares gave Cadmus to wife his daughter Harmonia, whom the Cyprian goddess Aphrodite had borne him, wherefore Ares was reckoned as their special protector by the Cadmeans and Aphrodite Cadmus also established in as in a sort their mother. his city the worship of Athene, giving her the surname Onca. Two generations after Cadmus the city came into the power of Amphion and Zethus, whose father was none other than Zeus himself, and Amphion built a wall about it by the magic of his harping, a great wall in Greece, slew

with seven gates.

When Laius, the great-grandson of Cadmus, was King of Thebes, the oracle of Apollo at Delphi foretold evil, unless he died without issue. But Laius, being disobedient, begat a son. Then there came to him a word of divination that this babe should be the slayer of his father and should take his own mother to wife. Wherefore Laius, willing that the child should die, but not willing to kill him, cast him forth upon the mountains.
13

OF THE ARGUMENT
The
however, was found by a shepherd and taken to the house of the King of Corinth, and he was reared up in Corinth, being called (Edipus, and held to be the King of Corinth's son. When (Edipus was come to man's estate he journeyed to Thebes, which at that time was sore afflicted by a she-monster, the Sphinx, who ravaged the land for so long as the Cadmeans could not read her riddle, and as many as went to her and sought to read her riddle but could not, she devoured. As (Edipus drew near Thebes he met King La'ius on the way, and, falling into a quarrel with him, smote him so that he After this the died, not knowing that it was his father. Cadmeans in distress proclaimed that whoever should read the riddle of the Sphinx should be King of Thebes and take the dead king's queen to wife. And (Edipus guessing the riddle, the Sphinx slew herself, and (Edipus became King of Thebes and married the dead king's queen, not knowing that she was his mother. Of her he child, had two sons, Eteocles and Polynices,* and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. But at last (Edipus discovered spirit, he put out his After this, being displeased with his sons because they gave him not such sustenance as he desired, he cursed them, praying that they might divide the inheritance by means of iron and might possess so much When (Edipus was land as should suffice for a grave. dead, the brothers quarrelled, and Eteocles drove PolyPolynices then betook himself to nices out of the city. Adrastus, King of Argos, and persuaded Adrastus to bring him back to the land of the Cadmeans with an army. Wherefore King Adrastus marched with Polynices against Thebes, having under him six great chiefs of the Argives, and the Argives overran the country and laid siege to the city, the Cadmeans fighting against them under the kingship of Eteocles. And here beginneth the action of the play. See * " Polynices " in Greek means " Man of much strife."

the truth.

Then, in anguish of

own

eyes.

page 42.

14

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

15

THE PERSONS
Eteocles. A Spy, a Bringer of Tidings. Antigone. Ismene.

A

Herald. Chorus of Cadmean Virgins.

The scene is a public place in Thebes, near a sanctuary wherein are seen images of Zeus, Ares, Poseidon, Apollo, Hera, Pallas Athene, Artemis, and Aphrodite.

(3,552)

16

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
[The scene of the play is an open space before the r ovalpalace in Thebes, which city ASscJiylus in this play always calls by what, according to tradition, was its older name,

Cadmea.

As first represented in the theatre of Dionysos, the palace door probably opened on to a wooden stage higher than the orchestra in which the crowd at the opening of the play, and the chorus later on, stood or moved. Certainly, if the plav were put on the modern stage, it would be almost necessary that the palace door should be raised by the height of a few steps above the ground in front, so that the King, when he addresses the crowd or the chorus, should stand well above it. Similarly, at the close of the play the Herald would stand at the top of the palace steps to make his proclamation. Somewhere in front of the palace is a sanctuary an altar or an assemblage of altars dedicated to the eight tutelary gods of the city, Zeus the king of the gods, Ares the war-god, Poseidon the sea-god, Apollo, Hera the wife of Zeus, Pallas Athene, Artemis the twin-sister of Apollo, and Aphrodite the goddess of love, called also Kypris, " the Cyprian," because of her great temple in Cyprus. In or above this sanctuary are images of the eight gods curious stiff archaic shapes ; even in the- days of .Eschylus Greek art was still

—

—

—

and archaic, and these are images strange and ancient, belonging, it is supposed, to a time very long before. No doubt the altar which, we have seen, stood in the middle of the orchestra would have been fitted out for the purposes of stiff (3,55-4)

1

7

2

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES the play

to

represent this sanctuary with

its eight

quaint

images.

When the play opens the space in front of the palace is occupied by groups of men of all ages, looking anxiously towards the great door of the palace. The door opens and Eteocles, the king, comes forth. He is dressed in long and splendid robes, and carries a long staff or sceptre in his hand. He wears no crown, because a crown was not, with the Greeks, an emblem of royalty : possibly he wears a band round his head, tied behind, with the ends hanging down, which the Greeks called a " diadem." He stands just outside the door and addresses the crowd :]
ETEOCLES
People of Cadmus, he must wield his word Home to the instant's need, who, set beside The city's helm, deviseth of her way, Hand on the tiller and lids refrain'd from sleep. For if good fall, the praise therefor is God's But if there come may't never, I pray mischance, Then one man's name shall wax in sound, to fill* The city and all men's mouths, and Eteocles Be toss'd in a wild surf and clamour of tongues Wails, malisons, whereof may he, whose name Is Zeus Forfender, be Forfender indeed

—

!

—

;

Unto

this city of

Cadmean men

you, O people, I say to him That is not yet full man, and him the years Have minish'd somewhat from the man that was,

And unto

—

!

And him whose
Whose body
All of is have manhood whole and fed with lusty sap, you, every age, as comely is, loins in

them,

big

Help ye this city, help the sanctuaries Of our own gods, that they may keep for ever Their worship unprofaned, your little ones, And this earth, mother of us and nurse and friend. For she it was, when we were pitiful
18

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Slight crawling things, that on her sustinent breast, Giving glad welcome to all toil that came, Did nurse us up, to stand in such an hour As this, the people of her soil, complete In arms and heart to bear them, faithful found. And hitherto, behold, God's will hath leant Rather to our salvation yea, though siege Hath held us wall-emboss'd these many days, Our warfare hath not wanted grace of heaven. But now the seer hath spoken, he to whom All feather'd things are given for flock, whose ears And spirit read, without the office of fire, By some sure craft the wise way of the birds He, master of such-like oracles, hath shown Great battle toward of all the Achaean power,
:

Night-publish'd, levell'd at the city's life. Up then to the battlements with all tools of war Up, each man, I say To the gateway-castles take post tarry not Beset the breastworks Within the fabric of the towers, or stand At the issuing of the gates, and bear good heart God Fear not o'ermuch the outlandish rabble Myself withal Shall make the ending good. Have sent out spies, perusers of the host, Whose going, I trow, not vain is taught of these
!
! !

:

:

:

:

I shall

not be amazed by any guile. [The crowd disperses and goes out right and left. Enter from the direction of one of the city gates the Spy. He does obeisance to the King, and speaks :]

THE SPY good lord Eteocles, Lo, I bear back to thee the very shape Of things wrought yonder in the host mine eyes Have seen them and my lips shall utter them. Seven men there were, chief-captains, fiery-proud, These same did slay a bull the bason was of this people,
:
:

King

19

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES black-bounden and each man his hand dark stream of hot bestial life, And sware, crying dread names, the Lord of War, The Battle-maiden and blood-ravening Fear, That either he would sack by strength of hand The town Cadmean and unbuild her towers, Or, slain, make bloody clay of this land's dust. And each did bind the chariot of the king Adrastus with such token as might keep His memory in far days with those at home Who bare him, not without some fall of tears, But, for their mouth, nought weak was found therein Those hearts were iron-proof there burn'd the clear they seem'd Spirit of war unquenchable Lions, whose eyes are even as gleaming swords.

A

shield,

:

Dipp'd

in the

:

:

:

no lag-foot post is this I bring went from them, they cast the lot, How each must launch his battle at the gates. Wherefore let chosen men, the city's best, Be set by thy ordainment presently To keep the issuing of the gates for near The Argive host, full-harness'd, draweth near, With trampling and with whirl of dust the fields Be fleck'd with flying white from the hot breath Of horses. But do thou, O king, this ship's Good rudderman, make strong her civic wall Or ever lighten on us the hurricane

And

Even

look, as I

;

:

:

Immense
That
is

of war, the roaring of the sea

of

As

shall

men, not waters. Nay, dispose be swiftest in the act, and I

Shall do my daylight office with, as true Curious an eye, that thou by clear report May'st look beyond the doors and take no harm. [The Spy goes out in the same direction from which he came. The King, left alone, stands a moment deep in Then he flings out his hand towards the thought. images of the eight gods, and speaks in passionate appeal :] 20

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ETEOCLES

O
1

Zeus and Earth and gods that dwell with us, dark and strong Destroyer, my father's Curse,
!

cry to you, break. us not utterly this city as a tree pluck'd up By the roots, abolish'd, broken of battles, one That speaketh the sweet speech of Hellas, homes Where the old fire burneth this free land, this town Of Cadmus, bind it never in bonds of shame. Be strong to save. Surely ye too are grieved In all our grieving, for that city's gods Do get most honour, which most prospereth. [Eteocles goes back within the palace. Enter from the side towards the interior of the city the Chorus of Cadmean maidens. They group themselves about the sanctuary When the of the eight gods and break into their chant. passage marked Str. i {Strophe i) begins, their chant is accompanied with rhythmical movements and evolutions round the sanctuary. It is to be noted that the chant before the Strophe begins is not uttered by all the Chorus together, but by different maidens chanting singly, beginning presumably with the Leader of How the parts are to be distributed bethe Chorus. tween the different maidens is a matter for dramatic

Make not

;

discretion.']

CHORUS
Pangs have laid hold on me, terrors have loosed my tongue in crying, army is moved from its place, the foot of the foe is a-stir
:

An

in ruining floods, Multitudes, multitudes, Horsemen are there in the van

Horsemen

!

Can

I

doubt,

when

heavenward
Lo,
the dark messenger
!

flying

dust,

the

sure,

swift,

voiceless

21

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES A thunder, a noise in mine ears Ye are smitten, of my land,
!

plains its Smitten of violent hoofs, and the wave o'erhangeth fall: It breaketh, it roareth as waters that

no bound can gods, withstand Stand ye in the path of destruction,
!

god-

desses all

More high than the walls ascend
Shouts
;

they are nigh, they are nigh, nation, !

The strong, white-shielded The people ready for war

Who now

shall save or befriend ?
?

What god of the gods on high ? Oh, who shall show us salvation What goddess of all that are ?
Graven gods

of the city, familiars and warders of it, the thrones of your peace establish'd, which shall I seek to and pray ? Why stand we and wail Cling fast to the holy feet

On

!

without profit ? Lo, heard ye a ringing, a ringing, shields ringing, yea or nay

?

Will a time be ever for garb of entreaty A time for the crown that craveth pity, If it be not to-day ?

Mine ears discern and know A sound, mine ears a-strain

:

Can one spear clatter Not one nor twain.

so

?

O

Ares,

O

praise

Of our fathers, what thing Wilt thou do to us ? Thou That of ancient days
22

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Art this land's king, Forsake it not now O god of the helmet of gold, Look down on this people, behold The city that once by thy grace
!

Was
Come

glad among cities, the place Which thou lovedst of old
!

to our help, dear gods, that abide in the land's high places, [Sir. i.] city, Strength of the

come

!

We

weak, we that

maidens are

Do

cry to you, clasp you, entreat

With the moving of hands and feet, Lest a day dawn dark and the shame of bondage cover our faces,

For the city of war

is set

midmost

in the

wave and the welter

A wave

is driven of a wind, of a vehement spirit eager, Crests aslant with the speed of their going Ah God, give aid

that

and

—

!

O Zeus that dost work and wield All things to the utterance, shield These walls from o'erleaping, shield afraid. is set forth

them, for the Argive hosts beleaguer Cadmus' builded burg, and the drawn sword maketh

Death

on

his

way, and a dread sound,

lo.

for

omen
!

Jangling of bridles, shaken and gnash' d in jaws foamwhite There be seven strong men, the strongest and lordliest of our foemen, Set foot to the seven gateways, spearmen in harness dight, To every gateway a man, fight. as his lot

fell

out for to

23

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Splendour burning to battle,
Pallas, child of the [Ant. i.] Highest, and thou too, O King, Fence of the City, defend it for to thee The strength of horses, the strong Fierce heart of the seas, belong, Thy cunning shaft, that for doom in the silvery shoals
!

thou
Lift

pliest,

up

for our loosing, Poseidon,

from fear fast-bound
!

set us free.

Ares,

Is kindred forawake for thy city gotten ? Hast yet to thine own a kindness ? Stand forth, be it shown in our eyes Cyprian, Cyprian, aid, In the dark of whose womb was made we, blood of thy blood This people's ancient mother begotten, Do come to thee with strong praying, do storm thy presence with cries. O King that art named of the Wolf, of a wolf's deeds be thou doer Ravin and slay turn back our groans on the head of the foe And thou, O virgin-daughter of her that had Zeus for wooer, Daughter of Leto, look that the arrow be couch' d on thy bow.

Ares,

!

:

:

:

!

(Lo there

!

lo there

!)

[Str. 2.]

The rushing rattle of cars, of cars at the gates, the rushing
!

and

The naves

Hera, Hera above of the axles shriek, full-fraught with the
!

burden of battle
Artemis, where is thy love ? And the tempest and torment of spears doth the air under heaven
:

madden

24

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES city, what travail is this art thou driven ? will ?

To

the edge of
?

what doom

What end
(Nay, hark
!

God

order thereof

nay, hark

!)

The stony storm doth reach to shake them
!

to the

crown

[Ant. 2.] of the walls,

In the doors

Apollo, merciful one is the clashing of bucklers, brass manifold

—who shall break them is ?

Son, whose Father alone Is lord of the sanctions of war, when the balance of battle

O

weighted

!

Rise thou too, Blessed one, Onca, and succour the sevengated City, the place of thy throne
!

all together, strong to save, All gods, all goddesses, that have Lordship of us and guard our wall, Give not this town up to the lust Of men of strange lips, but, being just, Regard these lifted hands and voices virginal.

O

[Sir. 3.]

The

to whom the city hath kneel'd, her redeemers and strong shield, That ye do love her, let men see Remember and haste to her defence All the slain beasts and frankincense, old gladness of her feasts remember ye.

Dear gods,

[Ant. 3.]

Ye

—

!

[Eteocles, habited as before,

comes forth from the palace the door
:]

and speaks, standing near

ETEOCLES
Nay, but
I

ask you, breed intolerable,

Is this well

done

?

Make

these things for our help,

25

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
For comfort to the people that abide In arms here, close shut up, that ye fall flat Before these holy faces of our gods, Wail, shriek ? which things well-govern' d spirits abhor. May I never house with womankind, Gods Neither in evil days nor pleasant. Grant Woman her will, she is all frowardness, Nowise consortable is she a-fear'd ? Then house and city have one plague the more. And now ye have moved the citizens to thrid The backward passage of flight ye fling wild cries That strike men's hearts with palsy yea by you The hands of them without have gotten strength, And we of our own selves are made a spoil. Henceforth let butt against my regiment Or man or woman or creature what will I ? Ambiguous, on such an one shall fall Sentence deliberate past escape, to die Stone-pelted by the popular hand. I say That the man's charge it is let woman not Meddle herewith what passeth out of doors. Abide within. Mar not our work. Ye have heard, Or hear ye not and speak I in deaf ears ?

—

!

:

:

:

—

—

—

CHORUS \
[Chanting and dancing, as also in the rhymed passages following,] O son of CEdipus,
O'erwhelmed me,
Yea,

fear travail indeed.

[Str. I.]

I heard them, the rumour and beat Of chariots and thundering feet,

The

The

bolts of the wheels did I hear In the fury and heat of their speed, And the clash of the bridles that turn, As a ship the hand astern, Swift steeds to a man's desire, bits that were born for the fierceness of war in the fierceness of fire. 26

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ETEOCLES

Yea so and found From poop to prow
!

When

the mariner who ran a way of help thereby, the ship strain'd against the breaching seas

?

CHORUS

Nay

!

but to these did

I fly,

[Ant.

I.]

The images, visage and form,
Devisements

And my
For
I

of olden dread, feet all feet outsped in the

—

gods most high When there beat on the gateways the storm Of a heavy incessable snow, And, with terror for wings, not slow Was the cry of my prayer to ascend, That these who are deathless would hold o'er the city strong hands to defend.

#

hoped

ETEOCLES
Pray that the strange spear find a wall

more

strong.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Is

not this also of the gods

?

ETEOCLES

The gods, Saith the old word, do quit the conquer'd town.
CHORUS
Never may us, this

fellowship

of

Strong

Ones leave
[Str. 2.]

Nor the breath in me endure, to behold the shame Of my city, and her sons in a loud night grievous Wrapt round with the burning flame
!

27

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ETEOCLES

Work thou

not folly, calling on the gods : For of Obedience Good-success is child, so men say. Yea, of her womb Salvation
:

CHORUS
True
[Ant. 2.] but God is mightier, past all divining Though a man be ne'er so straiten'd and in grief
;
;

held fast,

He

will give for labour lightness

and

for cloud clear

shining,

And

lift

up

his

head at the

last.

ETEOCLES
This is men's work to traffic with the gods In offerings and shed blood, when foes take hold But thine to sit indoors and speak no word.

—

;

CHORUS
For the gods do stand us in stead,
[Str. 3.]

In a city unravished, Free folk, this day we abide, And the towers endure, nor fail

When

Is there

the beatings of battle assail aught in my speech to chide
:

?

ETEOCLES That ye adore these Great Ones is no blame : But lest ye cause the people's heart to melt, Possess yourselves and let not fear run wild.

CHORUS strange sound shook the street, All sounds of all manner in one, Tumult and trampling and din
:

A

[Ant. 3.]

28

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
And,

A A

lo, for the fearful feet sanctuary, a high throne, stronghold to shelter in
!

ETEOCLES
Look, an word come of wounds, of stricken men, Catch it not up straightway with tremulous cries
:

For with such food

is

Ares

fed,

men's blood.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Nay, hear
I

not snortings and stamp of steeds

?

ETEOCLES
Hear, but thy hearing utter not so loud.

ANOTHER MAIDEN
Groanings from earthward
!

round the city

is

death.

ETEOCLES
Let this suffice, that

I

take thought herein.

ANOTHER MAIDEN
I faint
:

the battery waxeth at the gates.

ETEOCLES
Peace
!

noise thou nought thereof about the streets.

ANOTHER MAIDEN
Be
true,

Fellowship, to our battlements

!

ETEOCLES

The plague on thee

!

be silent and endure.

ANOTHER MAIDEN Keep slavehood from me, O our citizen-gods
29

I

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ETEOCLES

Thou

dost enslave thyself, and

all

the town.

ANOTHER MAIDEN
Almighty Zeus, thy bolt fall on our foes

!

ETEOCLES
Zeus, this

womankind

!

gift of

thy hand

!

A sorry
How

kind, as men,

LEADER OF THE CHORUS whose town is spoil'd.
ETEOCLES

!

touch these holy things and speak more bane

?

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

My heart
One
light

is

faint

:

fear wildereth

my

tongue.

ETEOCLES

boon that

I

crave wilt thou vouchsafe

?

Declare

it

LEADER OF THE CHORUS swiftly, and swiftly we shall know.
ETEOCLES

Be dumb, weak

one, lest on our part be fear.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
1

am dumb, and bow me to the general doom.
ETEOCLES

This rather than those former words of thine Also I bid thee stand I would hear spoken. Clear of these holy forms, and pray one prayer, 30

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Seemliest, that the gods fight on our side.

Listen withal my vows, and thereupon Let ring the paean divine and favourable, The old use Hellenic, peal'd from burning breasts, New strength to friends, taking away the fear Of foemen. I, behold, speak to the gods Which in this land be city-keepers, those That rule the field, and those that oversee The town's broad places, to the fountain-heads Of Dirce and the flood Ismenus, yea If good befall I do declare and vow And, peril past, the city breathe again, Then, while ye gods behold your hearths run red
:

With drench of slain flocks and men gladden you With blood of bulls, trophies shall be uprear'd, The raiment of our enemies, the spoils Of them that hate us, hung to glorify,
Spear-fasten'd, the inviolate sanctuaries. After this sort pray thou the gods, not rife In lamentations, not with profitless Clamour of frantic breath, whereby no whit The more shalt thou escape the thing decreed.

For me, I go to set six mighty men, Myself the seventh, at the outgoings Of our built girth, the seven gates, to be

Our

foes' affronters in the heroic way, Before the urgent feet of posts, the surf Of flying words, do come on us and shake Our hearts with fever in the prick of need.

[Eteocles goes out in the direction of the interior of the city. The Chorus chant their second choric song, with

rhythmic movements, as before.]

Yea,

O

king, thy rest is,

Yet no

CHORUS word I keep and no sleep,
:

[Str. i.]

my heart's dark turbulence. Thoughts that throng and will not hence
To
3i

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Feed the insatiate fire within Foes be round us, a strange kin, Fell as basilisks to the dove Fluttering wild and weak above Her close-bedded care, and those Watch, portentous nest-fellows.
:

Some

to the towers' prostration

March, by city and nation, Full tale O maidens undone Some rain flint, and our fighters Are smitten and see not the smiters, Astonish'd with flying stone. Yet the ways of your wit, are they scanted, High gods, an ye will to save

—

!

The

city that

Cadmus

planted,
?

His sons that bear glaive

To what
Far

land,

what

fields

more sweet

[Ant. I.

ye lift your feet, If ye leave wild war to spoil This deep corn-engendering soil, These Dircasan wells that pour off, will

Water of wholesome virtue, more Than all rivers that have birth

From the god that shaketh earth, Than all streams that run and shine, Fed by the Sea-maidens divine.
Wherefore,

On

gods that defend us, the stranger let lighten stupendous Ruin and blind affray,

Man-ravaging rout, shield-casting, That ye get you a name everlasting
In the sight of this people to-day,

That your thrones be made strong, and around you Prayer lift shrill music and moan From a free folk that faithful hath found you,

O

dread gods, our own.

32

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
[Sir. 2.j O the ruth of her falling and the pity This most ancient, high, and honourable city Shall she lie Shall the spear prevail against her ? Without helper, and the dry dust fill her mouth, Foul her head, and strange children of the South Have their will on her, made mighty from on high ? Shall she lie as a slave, without honour ? Shall her virgins be taken for a prey ? Shall men lead them as horses in the way By the hair, both the gold head and the grey, The grey wife with her raiment rent upon her ? A cry in the city the sore her store Great cry of her spoiling Distress in the street, Is spilt Lowings of driven neat, Confusion of flocks, and the thing that I dread at the door!
! ! !
!

one goeth with but tears, but dower, Ere in holy wise the freshness of her flower Is ingather'd, on a bitter road begun,

And

tears,

for

[Ant. 2.]

Never more
Beside her
I

in her still chambers to dwell dare affirm he fareth well,

:

fail'd from among them that see the sun. the city, the woes that she tasteth In that day, let him reckon them who can Seeing man getteth mastery of man, And blood runneth where before blood never ran, And those fling in her streets the flame that wasteth. All foul behold her stand With the smoke of her burning, fann'd By the gust of a fierce god's breath, Whose rage is a people's death, The sanctities old confounding with violent hand.

That hath

!

A

With a

cry long-drawn in the lanes of the burg beset girdle embattled, a nowise breakable net
(3,652)

[Str. 3.]

33

3

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
They
slay

and are

slain

and the quick sword hath no

rest.

But your wailings who shall regard, Small pitiful mouths blood-marr'd ? As lambs ye cry, who were borne but now on the breast. Where the prey is, there feet run
:

fellow one Spoil-charged justleth another lacketh haileth his brother, " Be partner with me in the treasure," And less none willeth to have, nor even measure. But the things that these ensue, What guess can reach thereto ? is Hand

foot's

own

:

:

Who

In the mire of the spill streets,

a woe to behold, they
[Ant. 3.]

The good ingarner'd from orchard and glebe and hill, And the eye is grieved of them that kept the house,
All kindly gifts of the Earth, Not sunder' d in sort or worth, As refuse shed on the surge tumultuous. The young handmaiden, she too

Strange pangs hath proven and new, To serve the bed abhorr'd Of the conqueror, some great lord That shall take her a prey, to know What the dark night teacheth, the hour of the strength of the foe No hope to the end of the years But a bitter fountain of tears.
:

[Eteocles returns

from the interior of the city : enter at the same time from the opposite direction the Bringer of
Tidings.]

A MAIDEN OF THE CHORUS

The spy

Friends, or mine eyes be mockers, or this man is of the host he bringeth news, So hot he plieth the carriage of his feet.
:

34

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ANOTHER MAIDEN

Lo too, the king, the child of (Edipus, At point exact to hear the runner's word Cometh, his foot to no less labour strung.
THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS
Of
I know all things yonder I can speak How, each to each, the gates by lot are fallen. At the gate of Prcetus, Tydeus even now BeUoweth howbeit to pass Ismenus o'er The seer forbiddeth, for the sacrifice Hath cross aspect but Tydeus, being big With lust of battle, clamoureth, as the dry
:

;

:

Gule of the dragon in the height of noon. the wise seer he girdeth with loud scorns, The son of (Ecles, as one cowering, false

And

Of eye, before the face of

Doom and War.
:

And

ever, as he crieth, three shadowing crests, beneath his targe His helmet's glory, shake The brazen bells clash terror. And his targe Displayeth to men's eyes a proud device,

A A

of bronze, ablaze with stars, and bright shineth in the middle shield, Night's eye, that of the stars hath seigniory. In such wise flown with bravery of his guise,

heaven full moon

Beside the river he rageth, like a horse Urgent with forced hard breath against the curb, Whenas the trumpet maketh leap his blood. Against him hast thou one to set ? What man Can bear such brunt of fury, and hold the gate Of Prcetus handfast, when the bolts be drawn ?

ETEOCLES
I

blench for no man's brave caparison Blazons can deal no wounds nor crest nor bells Have biting edge, unfellow'd with the spear.
:
:

35

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
And for that Night, which on his targe, thou sayest Is notable with burning signs of heaven, It hath, maybe, for other than his foes Bodemcnt. For fall there may upon his eyes, Even his that beareth those vainglorious arms, The night indeed of death, night very and true, And so the outrageous man be augurer Against himself. For champion, I will match With Tydeus the good son of Astacus, A man right noble, one that reverenceth The throne of shamefastness, abhorring all Arrogant words, for ever he would be Of shameful things unskill'd, but caitiff no. From those Earth-sown whom Ares left alive His root is body of this land's body indeed, Melanippus. The event of that shrewd play Ares shall rule but Right, that bindeth still Where one blood is, setteth him forth, to ward From her that gave him life the violent spear.

—

:

CHORUS
[Chanting and dancing.]

Confirm his arm and guide,

[Str. i.]

That striketh on

my side,

O

gods, for, as Right will, he succoureth
:

The city make vain my dread To see spear-ruin 'd and red The body of one whom love led death. forth

and gave to

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS

The gate Electran, this is fallen to Capaneus, A giant than that other furious one Huger, whose vaunt outsoareth man's estate, With threatenings breath'd against these towers, whereof For he saith Not one may Fortune stablish the gods so guide in strength
!

Him may

!

36

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES suffer it or not suffer it, storm town, yea stay not, though there fall The flaming challenge of Zeus athwart his feet. Lightnings and bolted thunders, these to him Are even as noon-tide heats. For sign he hath A naked man that beareth fire, unarm'd Save that the hand showeth a blazing torch, And, character'd in gold, he uttereth words / go to burn the town. 'Gainst such an one Send nay, whom canst thou send ? what man shall stand Before so vast a vaunter and not quail ?

That,

let

God

He

will the

—

ETEOCLES

From such vaunt likewise is advantage Know, of the imaginations of vain men

bred.

The tongue is true revealer. Capaneus Threateneth, intent to do, making the gods A mock, and straining in vain gusts of joy His mouth, this mortal rolleth up to heaven Against high Zeus great swelling peal of words. But sure I am that there will light on him, As justice is, the fiery thunderbolt, Made like in no wise to the heats of noon. Against him—run his mouth ne'er so unpent Is one ordain'd of burning heart, the might Of Polyphontes, one that holdeth firm His trust of wardship, by the favouring arm Of Artemis and grace of all the gods. Say to whom else is fallen what other gate.

CHORUS
Riven be he and cast down [Ant. i.] That boasteth o'er this town Great things may God's red bolt smite him and stay,
!

Or ere he overleap The inviolate walls that keep My maidenhood unbroke, and ravish me away
37

!

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
That
will I

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS tell. The third was Eteoclus.

the third lot that leap'd from the bright bronze, The shaken casque, appointed to beset With battle the Nei'stan gate. His mares He maketh wheel, which in their frontal bands Refrain'd, groan grievously, indignant, hot To hurtle even now against the gate
:

Him

And

fill'd

with fiery blowings of their pride,

The nostril-tubes make shrill barbaric bray. Nor humble at all the fashion of his shield

A man full-harness'd setteth foot to climb A ladder against a burg of foemen, fain
To storm it, heralding he too withal In graven scripture, that even Ares' self Were weak to thrust him from the battlements. Against him also send one mighty of hand, To keep the yoke of bondage from this town.

ETEOCLES Send will I straight such man and in good hour. Nay, he is sent already, one whose vaunt In his strong hands abideth, Megareus, The seed of Creon, of the Earth-sown sprung. He for no fury of horses or whinnyings, How loud soever, will give back a-fear'd

—

And

quit the gate, but either in shed life to this dear land her nurturing wage, Or, men twain and that city on the shield O'erthrown together, will make glorious With spoils uphung his father's house. Proclaim Another, and spare not for thy vaunts I crave.

Render

;

CHORUS

Go thou, and prosper thy path, Whose breast for my house is a
But on those let [Str. 2.]

wall

I

discomfiture

fall

38

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
They With

mad in their gloryings, their mouth they have utter'd great things May an eye, the all-righteous King's, Be upon them in wrath are !

The

fourth, his roarings shake the gate

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS whereby

Athene Onca hath her house the bulk proportion of Hippomedon. That orb immense, the compass of his shield To see him, how he swung it, for mine eyes Was horror I say no less. Nor common hand Was his, the artificer's, who wrought thereon Such work a Typhon bolting from his gorge Black murk flame-shot, the vivid brother of fire. And round the shield's great belly is based strong For marge an intricacy of writhen snakes. But the shield's terror his own dreadful shout Transcended. Fill'd he is with the fierce flame Of Ares, like to one of that wild rout God-driven, raving unto blood his eyes Shoot death. What prudent man would make assay Of such-like portent ? Yea, already fear Exulteth at the gates, as lord of all.

—

And proud

;

—

:

ETEOCLES

Onca Pallas, our most present Whose dwelling is by the gate, such
First
:

friend,

violent pride Abhorring, as a deadly basilisk Shall spurn him from her nestlings and with her The son of OEnops, good Hyperbius, Is match'd against him, strength with strength, wellpleased To track his doom out in the straits of chance, For bodily frame and spirit and use of arms Yea, Hermes guided well the lot Faultless. That join'd these twain for man to man is foe,
;

39

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
And
adversaries the gods that on their shields Shall shock together, seeing one man doth bear Fire-breathing Typhon, and Hyperbius Hath on his buckler Father Zeus, clear-throned, Unmovable, his hand charged with flame. And who saw ever Zeus discomfited ?

Such kindness of his god hath either man For surety and behold on our part is The vanquisher, on theirs the inferior strength For is the arm of Zeus not mightier In war than Typhon's ? Likely is it withal That, as their gods, so will the champions fare. By reason of his device Hyperbius Shall find true Saviour him upon his shield.
:

CHORUS

He sure on whose shield is shown The oppugner of Zeus, the foe, Dark birth of the Dark below,
Foul-favour'd, whom men hate And the gods that have days without date, He shall leave his head in the gate, As a vile thing thrown.

[Ant. 2.]

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS
So be
I proceed as thy prayer is And tell of the fifth man at the fifth gate, The gate Borrhaean, where the mounded earth Covereth Amphion of the seed of Zeus. He sweareth by the spear-shaft in his hand, Which his proud heart holdeth in honour more Than the dread gods and dearer than his eyes, Crying he will force the town Cadmean, yea it, !

In God's despite. Such word is his, who grown of the maiden limbs, that erst Were light upon the mountains, doth advance

So goodly

A

front so lovely, liker

boy than man.
40

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
His cheek the unfolding flower of life hath made Soft with new down, rich growth of the young blood.

But cruel, and as his virginal name nowise, The heart is, and the eye fix'd in fierce glare, Of him that standeth at the door nor deem He cometh without his glorying to the gate.
:

For on

his targe of beaten bronze, the orb'd Safe-keeper of his body, he did wield, Made fast with cunning clamps, the city's shame, The glutton of crude flesh, the Sphinx, a shape Emboss'd and burnish'd, carrying under her A man of the Cadmeans sure on him nor seemeth he as one Shall most darts drive That shall wage war by peddling measure or make Frustrate so long a travail of his feet, The Arcadian, Parthenopaeus. Such he is, And therewithal a stranger in the land Yet, rendering Argos for fair fosterage Good service, he doth breathe against these towers Such threats as God, I pray, may bring to naught.
: :

;

ETEOCLES

O

would that as their thoughts are in those same Ungodly gloryings, they might even reap That were indeed for them At the gods' hands Bottomless ruin and blank abolishment. And lo, to match him too, the Arcadian man, One not lip-valiant, though the vigilant hand Shrewd work portendeth Aktor, brother born Of him I praised but now. The tongue unyoked With deeds he will not suffer to run free Within the city and breed rank bane, nor him To pass the wall, that on injurious shield Beareth the image of that Abominable Nay, break she through, pass she within, much cause
! !

—

;

She

will have,

I

When by the wall An if it please the

trow, to curse her carrier, the blows ring thick. My rede, gods, shall be found true. 4i

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
CHORUS As a sword that cleaveth the bosom asunder,
[Sir. 3.]

Stirring the hair with horror and wonder, Is the word forth flung from a godless tongue,

The word unmeasured. Smite, stamp them dung On the land, Lord of the thunder
!

as

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS

The

name, wise, reverent, ordinate, Seer both and excellent in arms, the might Of Amphiaraus. He, elect against sixth I

The Homoloi'd gate, uttereth his voice To upbraid with bitter titles manifold
Tydeus, the mighty lord, as manslayer, Confounder of the state, to the Argive folk Chief master of things evil, summoner Of the black Vengeance, minister of blood, To the king Adrastus evil counsellor, Of all these woes begetter. Therewithal He crieth, with eye uplift, against the prince Thy brother, Polynices, making end Upon his name, reiterate riddling-wise, The Man of Strifes. He crieth aloud and saith "Loa good work in truth, a work wherein The gods take pleasure, a work fair to hear, Fair to be told of in the days to come, That one should give the city of his sires, The gods familiar 'mid his people of old, To storm and havoc, having brought on them What justice this, The trampling of strange men To blast the well-spring of thy being dry, The mother ? How, being captived, spear-abused Through thy hot spirit, shall thy fatherland Stand on thy part confederate ? For me, My doom is to enrich this glebe, deep hid,
:
!

The prophet,

in earth unfriendly.

Up,

my

soul,

42

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
To
for a fate I bode not void the battle Of honour \" In such wise roll'd the great voice Of the prophet, while the goodly orb, all bronze, His targe, he wielded. And on all that orb Sign was there none, for not the best to seem His care is, but the best to be his soul
! ;

He eareth still, a rich field, furrowing deep, And prudent counsels are the fruit thereof.
To
strive with is Find thou to send,

him war-crafty hands and strong Terrible I warn thee.
ETEOCLES

He

indeed that reverenceth the gods. j Ah me, what power confoundeth, hard to spell, Things upon earth, joining the righteous man With those most godless ? Nay, in every work Than evil converse there is nothing found More fell that harvest, let none gather it Delusion is a field whose fruit is death. For either one god-fearing setteth foot Aboard with mariners of violent blood, Some wicked practice, and so perisheth With all that breed of men god-curst, or one Righteous among the people of his town

—

Cruel to strangers, reckless of the gods, Is taken in one snare with these unjust, By the universal scourge of God brought low. Even so the seer, the son of CEcles, he

A man sage, righteous, worthy, god-fearing, A mighty prophet, mix'd with men profane,
Great mouths unbridled, feet that, in despite Of wisdom, foot far ways beyond return, Shall in their fall, God willing, be pull'd down. Nay, he will not so much as try the gate, I deem, not counting him or recreant Or base of spirit only he knoweth well That in this fight his end must come on him, Unless the oracles of Loxias
:

43

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Fail, without fruit but the god's use it is Either to hit the truth or hold his peace. Howbeit, we will set a mighty one Against him, Lasthenes, a door-keeper That giveth grievous welcome, yea, a mind Age-practised in the flesh of lusty youth, Swift foot in onset, and a hand not slow To pluck the blade bare from the shieldward side. But for good speed, that cometh of the gods.
:

CHORUS
For our righteous pleading, high gods heaven, At this gate speed and at
!

in

[Ant. I.] all her seven The city. We call war-travail to fall On the strangers Blast them without the wall, O Zeus, by the storm of thy levin
!

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS

Lo now the seventh at the seventh gate, Even thine own brother, king, what bitter doom
His lips denounce upon the city and pray That he may set his proud foot on her towers, Publish his name over the land, and lift throat the paean of her fall, Last front thee, face to face, and either slay And, where thou diest, die, or hound thee hence Living, who didst despoil him, and conform To his own pain the fashion of his revenge. With such-like shoutings his familiar gods, The old worship of this land, the mighty prince Polynices calleth to be favourable Fulfillers of his prayers. A targe he hath New-framed, a goodly round, and by smith-craft Thereon a double emblem, for a man In semblance as a warrior, of wrought gold, Is by a woman led in seemly wise.

From triumphing

44

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES so the signs Justice her name she nameth Graven declare, And this man will I bring From exile home and cause him to possess His city and in his fathers' house once more Walk up and down. Lo such as I have told Be the devices they have devised, those men. Of thine own prudence now look whom to send, Nor fear to find thy herald slow to bring Report. Thou only of thy prudence rule This ship, our city, through the wildering seas.

—

ETEOCLES

O

thou of God's wrath madden'd, by heaven's hate Singled Ah me, our lamentable house, Behold at last Seed stricken of GSdipus They are fulfill'd, the curses of our sire. Yet it were ill done to make dole, to weep, Lest there be bred some more unbearable woe.
!

!

Only

to

him

Polynices we shall know right soon wherein That his device shall end, if graven signs, Work of the goldsmith, flaunting on his shield In folly of mind distraught, shall bring him home. Aye, had she part in this man's works or mind, The child of Zeus, the virgin Justice, then This thing might be. But neither when he leapt Free from the dark house of the womb, nor while He grew by nurture, nay, nor when he stood In youth's full flower, nor when the gathering days Enrich'd his cheek with hair, did Justice bend An eye on him or know him from afar. Nor will she now, I think, stand at his side, Now in the harrying of his fatherland nay then it were all-just to call Justice Her name a lie, she federate with a man Whose wild will overleapeth every bar. Having such trust, I go encounter him,
!

—

I

say,

well-named

of strifes,

—

45

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
I

mine own

self.

For who hath right more

just

?

Prince with great prince, brother with brother, foe Bring hither, I say, with speed Shall meet with foe. My greaves, bring hither the brazen things that keep This flesh from brunt of spears and battering stones. [Attendants bring the King's armour from within the Some remove his long robes ; others do on palace. Whilst he is being armed, the Leader of his armour. the Chorus speaks :]

Nay now,

dear heart, nay, child of (Edipus, Let not thy mood become as his whose name Surely enough it is Is hate and hissing. That Argive men and men Cadmean strive In bitter battle, seeing for that blood shed but when the slayer and slain Cleansing may be Be of one blood, death is so horrible, No multitudinous days make old the stain.
;

ETEOCLES
[Standing
If

now fully armed with a great spear in his we must needs bear evil, let not shame
!

hand.]

that one good is left the dead. Go with it From evil join'd with shame honour is none.

—

CHORUS
[Chanting and dancing.] What thoughts, O beloved, go through thee ? Beware the rageful mind Blood-lust that maketh blind Uproot, ere it quite undo thee, The beginning of evil will
!

[Sir. i .]

ETEOCLES
For God Of is sore

and urgent,

let it

run,
!

Rapt down the

river of hell before the hate Phoebus, all the seed of La'ius

46

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
CHORUS
O'er-fierce the desire is that stingeth, Devoureth thee, driveth thee on,
Till a murderous work be done, Be done, and the dire fruit springeth From the blood not lawful to spill

[Ant. I.]

ETEOCLES

Hate from love's fount, the black Spell of my sire Cleaveth beside me, with dry dreadful eyes, Bidding me snatch some gain, ere the end come.

CHORUS no mortal [Str. Let her crying not move thee For prudence shall hold thee unmann'd. But, the gods with the gift of thy hand Well-pleased, she shall pass from thy portal, The storm-dark spirit of ill.
!

2.]

ETEOCLES

The gods they have forgotten me long since But of my dying glory and thanks redound.
!

:

Why

stand

I

yet to palter with

my doom ?
[Ant. 2.] last CHORUS
Its

Endure

due to the dark hour render and thy weird at the
: !

May change, may veer in his blast, And blow with a breath more tender, That now is infuriate still
ETEOCLES Fury pour'd forth the curse of (Edipus O visions and shapes of sleep, too true ye were, Too true, dividers of the heritage
!

!

!

47

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Be ruled of LEADER OF THE CHORUS women, though thy stout heart groan.
ETEOCLES

Speak within compass,

in

few words withal.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Let be thy going to the seventh gate
!

I

am

set

:

ETEOCLES mine edge no speech can turn

aside.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Yet victory, though vile, God honoureth.

No man

of

ETEOCLES war but must abhor that word.

Shall thy spear ravish thine

LEADER OF THE CHORUS own brother's blood
ETEOCLES and who can scape from

?

The gods send

evil,

it ?

[Eteocles goes out, attended, towards the gate. chant their third choric song.]

The Chorus

CHORUS
There
horror overshadowing, a strange god's token, [Str. I.] A god not as the other gods, a god by whose blow The house is brought to nothing and the great house broken, For true is all her showing, and the burden of it woe. She is Wrath ensuing hard A father's prayer ill-starr'd, is 48

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
And
strength is in her working, to fulfil

Each passionate curse the blind King spake whilom, his mind Being troubled by a visiting of ill
For
lo,

Strife

thy sons, O sire, ravageth as fire.

Of the heritage an alien is judge and awarder, [Ant. i.] One come from far away, from the Scythian breed That beside a sea not theirs set in ancient time their border, A
A

Divider of the substance, that heareth not plead, men

Chalybean, yea bitter thing, the grey his iron,

That

Hard

and the portion that Meteth of land to hold Is even so much of mould

doom

As sufficeth for a bloodless body's room But the broad lands and fair They craved of those no share

:

—

!

When dead
Through

they lie, brought low Brother by brother foe, thrust, [Sir. 2.]

flesh his own the shaft of either When, cruddled black, the blood,

Streams of one fatherhood, Earth shall have drunk, conglomerate with her dust, What spells, what rites can shrive the sin Or wash them clean ? O house, new storms begin To break on thee amain

With

all

the old, old pain

!

A

Of old in very deed There clave unto this seed trespass, and God's ire hot on the trace, Till children's children groan Seeing from the Navel Stone (3,552; 4Q
!

[Ant. 2.]

4

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
In Pytho, from Earth's midmost mystic place Apollo thrice did testify

To

La'ius,

If

and bade him childless he would turn away the evil day.

die,

From Thebes
But

he, so strong did press Persuaders' foolishness, Begat nay, his own ruin it was begot (Edipus, other none, The father-slayer, the son That sow'd the untouchable maternal plot, The field where he was fashion'd, and bare doom-led pair, The burden, a root of blood. Thwart, unblest bridal night, With madness for a light

[Str. 3.]

—

!

Now

blacken the seas, and run Billow on billow, one

[Ant. 3.]

Ruineth adown, and one behind doth swell Hard on the labouring hull His top three-fringed, full Of foam and noise and mischief huge as hell. And what between, to keep secure ? A little space of wall. O heart, endure
!

Heart, that may see this town Brought with its proud kings down.

The end is come on us, The end calamitous,
Full tale the curses utter' d of old have found. Darkness hath hidden day,

[Str. 4.]

O

passeth not away. sons of men that eat bread of the ground, Though lusty full your proud estate, The ship must void to the seas all her inordinate freight.

And

Who had

such worship of yore Before the gods, before

[Ant. 4.]

50

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Them that had fellowship in our And all whose feet did then Frequent the ways of men
As (Edipus city's fire,

whose goings did they admire ? Like his, that fear'd not to withstand Alone the fell man-ravening fiend, and saved the land

?

When no more his thought Was holden, when the horror in
Twin
For ills [Sir. 5.

his flesh

wax'd

plain,

he wrought

:

his heart in pain.

him was changed by the hugeness

of the

With that hand first That had lighted on his father

in ungentle wise Himself he amerced, Yea, bereft of more than children, of the seeing of his

eyes.

Then on

his sons

[Ant. 5.]

Because wrath burn'd hot for the sustenance denied
Fierce malisons,

The poison of the tongue, did he pour, yea cried " With iron sheer " Divide ye the inheritance, divide ye and rend That word, how I fear Lest the lithe-foot Fury bring it true in the end
!

:

!

[Enter from the battlefield the Bringer of Tidings.]

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS

Be comforted,

daughters, fosterlings no more take good heart Need this our city fear the yoke of shame. The gloryings of the proud are gone to ground. The city rideth in fair seas for all The storm of furious waters, she hath shipp'd No brine. Her wall held steadfast, and her gates We stopp'd with champions, man to man, that well Have kept the charge assign'd. For the most part,

my

Of tremulous mothers

:

:

:

5i

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Yea at six gates, is perfect feature of joy, But, for the seventh, he that triumph'd there

Was even that Dread One, Leader of the Seventh* The Lord Apollo, who hath visited

Home
Made

on the house of (Edipus the fault of blind heart long since by Laius.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

What

strange

ill

hath befallen the city

else ?

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS

The

city

is

saved, but her consanguine kings

Who
With

?

speak thy

LEADER OF THE CHORUS drift. My mind is troubled

of dread.

clear

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS mind hark The sons of (Edipus
!

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Woe's

me

!

my

thoughts divine the dreadful end.

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS
In no ambiguous sort pounded and bruised

LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Are
fallen
?

thy word,

how

sore soever, speak.

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS
The men are dead
:

the hands that slew, their own.

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

By hands
*

of one flesh in one of the

doom undone

?

The seventh day

month was

sacred to Apollo.

52

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS
Earth hath drunk blood of mutual fratricide. LEADER OF THE CHORUS

One weird

for

both then

!

one in bitter truth

!

THE BRINGER OF TIDINGS weird, that wasteth this disastrous race. Lo, here is argument for tears, for joy, The city indeed in good estate, but these Her chiefest, her two captains masterful, Have made division at last of stuff and store Even with the Scythian anvil-hammer'd iron. Of land they hold so much for heritage As a grave's length so to the end foredoom'd
:

One

Their father's

pitiless

prayer hath borne them on.

CHORUS
[Chanting]

God Most Highest and Helpers In the city upbuilded by Cadmus
Dominion and guard,

that hold of old

Shall the noise of thanksgiving and triumph abound For the city that whole is, and saved and sound ? Or weeping rather for those ill-starr'd, In battle famous and first ? Of strife was he named, the hapless one, And surely by strife are the twain undone, Sore strife and a mind god-curst.

[The Chorus chant and dance.] thou black malison, full sum On the house of (Edipus thou art come My heart is struck with shuddering and strange As one god-fill' d and frenzy-led, 1 have made a song to crown the dead Two piteous bodies marr'd in war, 53
!

[Sir-]

fear.

:

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
A wicked star I vision. So brought together spear and spear
Hearing,
It
!

hath work'd to the end, unspent, unstay'd, father pray'd
: :

[Ant.]

The dread prayer that a

Laius, thy sin remain'd, a bitter seed. The city, trouble is fall'n on her No time can blot God's word nor blur. Ye have wrought, O young hands lying cold, Who foretold thing incredible Sorrow ? Lo, sorrow is here indeed. [Men come in from the battlefield, bearing on two biers the dead bodies of Eteocles and Polynices. The Leader of the Chorus speaks :] Yea, plain in presence. Eyes prove hearing true.

A

!

CHORUS
[Chanting.]

Crown twofold

of

calamity

!

burden double

!

Two fair kings in What should I say,

the murderous feud self-slain but that trouble still with trouble, 111 guests by the hearth, grim fellowship, remain ? Speed ye the bark, O friends, with a wind of wailing, To a tune as the pulse of oars beat the bow'd head Beyond the River of Dole she is borne of it, sailing, The solemn bark, black-stoled, ungarlanded, Untrod of Apollo, whereon sun never shined, To a shore unseen, to the haven that all shall find. [Antigone and Ismene come out from the palace : they take their stations by the two biers, Ismene by that of Eteocles, Antigone by that of Polynices.]
!

:

But who be

these,

by the

bier,

we

see

?

Daughters of kings, Antigone, Ismene, come with a joyless intent, To weave for their brethren the due lament. Soon, soon, I trow, there will flow on the air From bosoms blown as a flower and fair 54

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Sorrow beseeming a measureless ill. as the old use will, To hearken their descant, and chaunt in accord The hymn of the goddess, the Terrible One, is it still,

And

ours

Drear sound death-boding,

for

burden intone

The psean

of

Hades abhorr'd.

Oye
Of
all

that gird

them beneath the breast

Sisters surely the sorrowfullest, I sigh, tears raining, and no false feigning Is the cry of heart distrest.

my

[Antigone and Ismene chant the funeral dirge, accompanying their chant with rhythmic movements : the Chorus chants responses.]

ANTIGONE

O minds

amiss,

[Str. i.]

Trustless of friends, unbent by blow on blow, Your fathers' house, even this The prey was of your spears O iron forged for

—

woe

!

CHORUS
Yea, woe did these attend, And woeful was their end, Ruining their fathers' house in their

own overthrow.

ISMENE

To the ground, to the ground Ye have brought the house. Was

[Ant. i.l this to reign alone
?

Bitter the prize ye found. But lo the iron, at last, the iron hath

made you

one.

CHORUS

And

true in very act father's malison,

The pitiless Power exact Hath made to stand the King your
55

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES thrust, nor shrank, [Str. Thrust home, nor stay'd Each launch'd a breast in that same mother-flank
:

Home

to the heart the strong

ANTIGONE hand

2.]

As

his first

made.

O

driven by more than man, Wild spirits O withering ban, And death-stroke by death-stroke repaid
!

!

CHORUS
Those hands of so dread reach Struck house and body through, With rage astonying speech
:

And
Did

true mingle in one peace, till the world's end, the two.

the sire's

word made

ISMENE

One grief, one cry doth thrill the city grieve [Ant. Her towers forlorn The deep earth grieveth, mother of men ye leave To the later-born
;
: :

2.}

Those goodly things wherefor, Poor hands, ye strove so sore, And the end is a night without morn.

CHORUS

They have

And

One But daysman
War.

shared, in passion of heart, the shares equal are part as the other part different far fair Their friends had craved, nor kind nor

the face of

ANTIGONE

The

iron hath wrought

;

the side red staineth

:

[Str. 3.]

And, wrought with

iron, for these

remaineth

56

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
A
room, a room dug deep, Where king by king doth sleep.

CHORUS
Their house shall know them not to-morrow A cry goeth with them as they go True grief of grief and sorrow of sorrow, Sharp grief, estranged from gladness, making flow Tears from my heart's deep springs, Heart faint with vain longings, Tears for these dead, my kings.
:

ISMENE

What

will

ye say of them,

all

Dread things these did

to the

[Ant. ye who pity ? men of their city,

3.]

And

strange folk,

many

a band

Ravenous, rued their hand.

CHORUS

O

mother miserable,

ill-fated

Beyond all women everywhere, Beyond all mothers of men, that, mated With her own child for spouse, conceived and bare
Of such bed sons, for whom Their own wild hands wrought doom, Hands fashion'd in one womb
!

ANTIGONE Aye, sown in one womb and uprooted, Dismember'd in merciless mood, For their hate drave them on and imbruted,
Till the

[Sir. 4.1

long feud closed in blood.

Now
Is

is all strife still'd,

CHORUS and their
57

life

for ever

mix'd

in earth

and made one with

her,

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
One blood, no hate can at all dissever, One blood but a bitter arbiter Was he that from dim seas came, The stranger fashion'd in flame, The sharp-edg'd iron yea, bitter and hard The god that did measure and make award,
:

;

Ares, that stablish'd The ban prophetical.

all

ISMENE

God

did give

them

An heirdom

their portion and of pain to prehend.

granted

[Ant. 4.]

Are they poor, when beneath them unscanted Is a deepness of earth without end ?

CHORUS stem, behold them, who crown' d thy story With the crown that was only a weft of woes For the conquering Curses exult and glory,
!

the peal of their triumph is loud at the close, Fierce shrill song over a race Broke, scatter'd, swept clean from its place Confusion her trophy hath set for a sign

And

!

In those red gates, and the Weird malign, One life on the other spill' d, Doth rest with ruin fulfiU'd.

ANTIGONE Shrewd stroke didst thou give, and

sustain.

ISMENE
In thy dying thy strength did appear.

ANTIGONE

With

the spear hast thou stricken and slain.

58

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ISMENE

Thou

art slain with the spear.

ANTIGONE
I

bewail thee.

ISMENE
I

weep

for

thy pain.

ANTIGONE
Wail on wail. ISMENE
Tear on tear. ANTIGONE

As a

victor thou comest again.

ISMENE
Borne dead on a bier
!

[Waitings.]

ANTIGONE

My

soul

is

amazed with

sore crying.

ISMENE
Sore the grief in

my

deep heart pent.

ANTIGONE

What

dirge can suffice for thy dying

?

ISMENE
For thine what lament
?

ANTIGONE body no stranger hath broken. Thy
•

59

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ISMENE

Not strange

is

this

form marr'd by

thee.

ANTIGONE
Twofold
is the grief to

be spoken.

ISMENE

The

grief that

we

see.

ANTIGONE

One sorrow

is

And both

join'd to the other are made fast.

ISMENE
For brother, united with brother, Hath one grave at last.

CHORUS

O Doom of A giver of
The dead

God, whose working grievous things
!

is

here, to

show thee might, O imminent

king's

Shadow

!

and thou, by proof we know
Wrath, black daughter of
[Waitings.]

thee Strong, thou

pursuing

Night

!

ANTIGONE
For
exile

he found instead

ISMENE
Anguish hard to behold.

ANTIGONE
Scarce come, and his hand was red
!

ISMENE
Safe home, and his days were told
!

60

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ANTIGONE

The web

of his

days mid-riven

!

ISMENE

Him

too hath he ravish'd away.

ANTIGONE

O

desolate race doom-driven

!

ISMENE
Dim, desolate day
!

ANTIGONE

Now

sister

And

weepeth, double for each the dole. sister by

ISMENE For pain, as a swift beast leapeth, Hath leap'd on my soul.

CHORUS

Doom of God, whose working A giver of grievous things
!

The dead

king's

Shadow

!

here, to show thee imminent might, and thou, by proof we know is thee Strong, thou

pursuing Wrath,

black

daughter of

Night

!

He doth know what

her dark

ANTIGONE is and prove
ISMENE

her.

And

did not he too understand

?

ANTIGONE

When

he came, not in guise of a lover 61

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
ISMENE

Hand arm'd against

this one's

hand.

ANTIGONE

O

burden

of lamentation

!

ISMENE
Sight lamentable to see
!

ANTIGONE
Yea, woe for their house, for their nation
!

ISMENE

Woe much more

for

me

!

Who
Ah
Ah

shall

measure

his

ANTIGONE labours and weigh them
ISMENE

?

!

king great in woe as in grace

!

ANTIGONE
!

where

in the land shall

we

lay

them

?

ISMENE

Ah

!

even in

its kingliest place.

ANTIGONE Through wild ways, O my brothers, ye erred, For a god set strange fire in your breast.
ISMENE

Where the grief of the father Cometh new grief to rest.
[The bearers prepare

is

buried,

to lift the

two biers

to

carry the two

62

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
Enter from the direction of the bodies to burial. interior of the city, the Herald of the State, attended. At a sign from him the bearers put down the biers again, and the Herald, standing by the palace door, makes his proclamation :]

THE HERALD deliberate and decreed By the prime council of the Cadmean state My office is to publish Eteocles, Eor that great love he bare the land, shall be Given to the earth's kind breast in burial, Because, abiding in the city, he chose Death toward the olden sanctities of his race Perfect in duty, without blame, he died There where for young men death is comeliest. charge is to speak. Concerning him so But for his brother this dead thing that erst Was Polynices he must be cast out Unburied, meat for dogs to ravin ah, The desolator of the Cadmean land Only some god did stop the way against His wicked spear. So shall there cleave to him, Though dead, the abhorrence of his fathers' gods, In whose dishonour he brought in alien troops, This man, and went about to take the town. In recompense whereof the fowls of heaven Shall give his body a tomb unhonourable Neither the piled labour of men's hands Shall be his portion, nor shall any name

The ordinance

:

:

—

—

my

—

!

:

His

name with of the

Bare

shrill and lamentable cries, dead man's honour, not borne forth

By hand

of friend.

Who
And

hold

command

Lo, such their pleasure in this Cadmean town.

is,

ANTIGONE to the great

Cadmean

lords say I all :

Though no one

else there

be in 63

the town

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
With heart to help in this man's burial, Yet will I bury him, I, setting my soul

Upon

the hazard, careless, so

I

win

grave for this my brother, unashamed To break the order of the state, and stand In such sort rebel. Dread constraint and dear Liveth in that one womb whereof we came, Of one unhappy mother and sire ill-starr'd. Therefore my soul, full willing, taketh part In this man's evil, who hath soul no more For will the living and the dead, one kin To love's thought yet His flesh shall never glut The wolf's pinch'd belly let none dream such dream For I, albeit a woman, will devise A manner of burial, earth delv'd and heap'd, Bearing it lapp'd in byssus of my robe. Myself will cover him dream not otherwise. Fear nothing a way there will be, and a sure.
: ! : :
:

A

THE HERALD
Prove not thy strength,
I

rede thee, against the state.

And

I

rede thee

:

serve

ANTIGONE me no words

of wind.

THE HERALD
Is not a people fierce,

new-scaped from dread

?

ANTIGONE

How
The

fierce soever, this

man

shall not lie bare.

THE HERALD city hateth, wilt

thou honour him

?

The gods have cut him

ANTIGONE off from honour
64

for ever

'

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
THE HERALD
Because he brought this land in jeopardy.

ANTIGONE
111

things were done him,

ill

he render' d back.

THE HERALD
Not against one he stretch'd his hand, but all. ANTIGONE
Strife is the god slowest to end debate. This dead man I will bury. Waste no breath.

THE HERALD

Good

be thou stubborn. Yet my word saith No. [The Herald, with his attendants, goes out in the direction from which he came.]
:

THE LEADER OF THE CHORUS
[Chanting.]

Tower up and triumph, magnipotent Weird ones and dark, that have riven and rent The house of (Edipus, stock and stay Whereto shall I turn me ? what thing choose ? O thou dead man, dare I refuse
!

Tears, or to walk with thee thy last way ? Only I fear too much and shun The wrath of the people. Surely one Shall have surge of mourners about his bier But thou shalt pass with never a sigh, Save one sharp dreadful desolate cry,

:

Thy

sister's

!

Hard law

to hear

!

(3,552)

05

5

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
[Another Maiden steps apart from the Chorus and is followed by a few others. These few take their station with Antigone by the bier of Polynices. The Maiden chants :] As its pleasure is, let the city do To them that mourn and make lament For Polynices Lo, we few, With her we fare, on his burying bent. Aye, follow we will with him along For the whole kin suffereth in this death, And Right, what is it ? The people's tongue, As the wind's way, varieth. [The bearers lift up the bier of Polynices and carry it out, followed by Antigone and the few Maidens who have joined her.]
!
:

THE LEADER OF THE CHORUS
[Chanting.] as biddeth Right And the people's voice for, under those High Shining Ones and God's great might, By him the city of Cadmus rose Unscath'd yea, lifteth she again Her head from the swelling of the sea, The storm and deluge of strange men, Her saviour, this is he [The bearers lift up the bier of Eteocles and carry followed by Ismene and the rest of the Chorus.]

With the other we,

:

:

!

it

out,

66

NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE GREEK NAMES
Classical names are pronounced in English according to a tradition amongst scholars which has become part of the general tradition of English speech. To pronounce names in accordance with this tradition is to pronounce them " correctly," but it should be understood that " correctly " the ancient Since gramophones had not been invented in the days of iEschylus, nobody now knows with any certainty how the ancient Greeks in any particular century pronounced their language. It is quite certain that their pronunciation was always very different from the correct pronunciation in English, and if an ancient Greek had heard Greek names pronounced in the way an educated man pronounces them to-day when speaking English, he would probably often not even have recognized what name was intended. In one respect the "correct" pronunciation, where words have more than two syllables, follows the ancient in putting the accent on what in the ancient pronunciation was a long vowel. Thus the name Polynices

does not Greeks."

mean "as they were pronounced by

'

'

'

was probably pronounced by .ZEschylus something like Pollii-nee-case, the first two syllables short and unaccented, the u pronounced like a German modified u, and last two syllables long. According to the English tradition the " correct" pronunciation is " Polly-nice-ease," putting the It will be seen that although the vowels accent on nice. and some of the cpnsonants are so differently pronounced, the stress on the syllables does correspond with the long scholar and short syllables in the ancient pronunciation. is thus quite justified in shuddering as at something horrible,

A

he hears any one pronounce the name Polynices with the two syllables short, or if he hears any one pronounce the name of the poet as ^Eschy'lus. The " correct" pronunciation of the poet's name rhymes with " Peace kill us," if you put all the accent on " peace," and hurry over the other two syllables. The poet himself pronounced it something like Ice-khiil-os, putting the stress on ice, and making the sound of an h between the k and the following vowel, if last

68

PRONUNCIATION OF THE GREEK NAMES which was pronounced, as was said before, like a German u Here, too, though the sounds in the "correct" modified. English pronunciation differ so much from the original sounds in Greek, the stress comes on the right syllable. All this having been explained, I proceed to give the "correct" pronunciation of the principal names in this play in alphabetical order those at any rate where there can be any question

—

:

Amphiaraiis, amfy-array-us (accents on

am and

ray).

Amphion, amf-eye-on (accent on eye). Antigone, an-tiggo-nee (accent on tig).
Aphrodite, afro-di'te-ee.
Ares, air-reeze (accent on air). Argive, g pronounced as in " give," not as in " gipsy." Artemis, accent on first syllable, the e short. Astacus, accent on first syllable, the second a short.

Borrhaean, borree'an.

Capaneus, cap-a-nuis(ance), leaving out the ance, and accenting cap. Chalybean, cally-bee'an.
Creon, cree'on. Erinys, er-ry'niss. Eteocles, accent on syllables short.

first first

syllable, syllable, the two middle the other three

Eteoclus,

accent on

syllables short.

Hippomedon, hippo'medon (the Homoloid Gate, hommo-lo'id.
Hyperbius, hype'r-bius. Ismene, is-mee'nee. Ismenus, is-mee'nus.
Laius, lay'i-us.

e short).

Lasthenes, la'ss-the-nees. Loxias, lo'xias. Megareus, me'g-a-ryoose (last syllable not stressed). Melanippus, melani'p-pus. Ne'istan Gate, nee-i'stan.
CEcles, ee'k-leeze. Gidipus, ee'dy-pus. Ginops, ee-nops.

Parthenopa?us, pa'rtheno-pee'ns (second syllable short). Polyphontes, polly-fo'nt-ease.

69

PRONUNCIATION OF THE GREEK NAMES
Poseidon, poss-i'de-on.
Proetus, pree'tus.

Tydeus,

ti'de-use. tie'fon. Typhon,

Zeus, zyoose (to

rhyme with

"

puce

").

CAST
Eteocles

A Spy A Bringer A Herald
:

of Tidings

.

Antigone ISMENE

CHORUS
Leader First Maiden Second Maiden Third Maiden Fourth Maiden Fifth Maiden

When the play is cast the number of the Chorus must b decided and their lines distributed among them. See th translator's note in the stage-direction on page 21. In a reading Eteocles may be " doubled " with th and the Spy wit! Herald, or with Antigone, or Ismene any other of the same three characters.
;

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ioo. 103. 104. 105. 114. 115. 116.
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AH

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