Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

him, who at sound

      Of trumpet's clang chafes hotly.] Whom wilt thou

      Set against him? Who is there strong enough

      When the bolts yield, to guard the Prœtan gates?

      Eteoc. No fear have I of any man's array;

      Devices have no power to pierce or wound,

      And crest and bells bite not without a spear;

      And for this picture of the heavens at night,

      Of which thou tellest, glittering on his shield,

      Perchance his madness may a prophet prove;

      For if night fall upon his dying eyes,

      Then for the man who bears that boastful sign

      It may right well be all too truly named,

      And his own pride shall prophet be of ill.

      And against Tydeus, to defend the gates,

      I'll set this valiant son of Astacos;

      Noble is he, and honouring well the throne

      Of Reverence, and hating vaunting speech,

      Slow to all baseness, unattuned to ill:

      And of the dragon-race that Ares spared96

      He as a scion grows, a native true,

      E'en Melanippos; Ares soon will test

      His valour in the hazard of the die:

      And kindred Justice sends him forth to war,

      For her that bore him foeman's spear to check.

Strophe I

      Chor. May the Gods grant my champion good success!

      For justly he goes forth

      For this our State to fight;

      But yet I quake with fear

      To see the deaths of those who die for friends.

      Mess. Yea, may the Gods give good success to him!

      The Electran gates have fallen to Capaneus,

      A second giant, taller far than he

      Just named, with boast above a mortal's bounds;

      And dread his threats against our towers (O Fortune,

      Turn them aside!) – for whether God doth will,

      Or willeth not, he says that he will sack97

      The city, nor shall e'en the wrath of Zeus,

      On the plain swooping, turn him from his will;

      And the dread lightnings and hot thunderbolts

      He likens to the heat of noon-day sun.

      And his device, the naked form of one

      Who bears a torch; and bright the blaze shines forth

      And in gold characters he speaks the words,

      “The city I will burn.” Against this man

      Send forth … but who will meet him in the fight?

      Who, without fear, await this warrior proud?

      Eteoc. Herein, too, profit upon profit comes;

      And 'gainst the vain and boastful thoughts of men,

      Their tongue itself is found accuser true.

      Threatening, equipped for work is Capaneus,

      Scorning the Gods: and giving speech full play,

      And in wild joy, though mortal, vents at Zeus,

      High in the heavens, loud-spoken foaming words.

      And well I trust on him shall rightly come

      Fire-bearing thunder, nothing likened then

      To heat of noon-day sun. And so 'gainst him,

      Though very bold of speech, a man is set

      Of fiery temper, Polyphontes strong,

      A trusty bulwark, by the loving grace

      Of guardian Artemis98 and other Gods.

      Describe another, placed at other gates.

Antistrophe I

      Chor. A curse on him who 'gainst our city boasts!

      May thunder smite him down

      Before he force his way

      Into my home, and drive

      Me from my maiden bower with haughty spear?

      Mess. And now I'll tell of him who by the gates

      Stands next; for to Eteocles, as third,

      To march his cohort to Neïstian gates,

      Leaped the third lot from upturned brazen helm:

      And he his mares, in head-gear snorting, whirls,

      Full eager at the gates to fall and die;

      Their whistling nozzles of barbaric mode,

      Are filled with loud blast of the panting nostrils.99

      In no poor fashion is his shield devised;

      A full-armed warrior climbs a ladder's rungs,

      And mounts his foeman's towers as bent to sack;

      And he too cries, in words of written speech,

      That “Not e'en Ares from the towers shall drive him.”

      Send thou against him some defender true,

      To ward the yoke of bondage from our State.

      Eteoc. Such would I send now; by good luck indeed

      He has been sent, his vaunting in his deeds,

      Megareus, Creon's son, who claims descent

      From those as Sparti known, and not by noise

      Of neighings loud of warlike steeds dismayed,

      Will he the gates abandon, but in death

      Will pay our land his nurture's debt in full,100

      Or taking two men, and a town to boot,

      (That on the shield,) will deck his father's house

      With those his trophies. Of another tell

      The bragging tale, nor grudge thy words to me.

Strophe II

      Chor. Him I wish good success,

      O guardian of my home, and for his foes

      All ill success I pray;

      And since against our land their haughty words

      With maddened soul they speak,

      May Zeus, the sovran judge,

      With fiery, hot displeasure look on them!

      Mess. Another stands as fourth at gates hard by,

      Onca-Athenà's, with a shout of war,

      Hippomedon's great form and massive limbs;

      And as he whirled his orb, his vast shield's disk,

      I shuddered; yea, no idle words I speak.

      No cheap and common draughtsman sure was he

      Who wrought this cunning ensign on his shield:

      Typhon emitting from his lips hot blast

      Of darkling smoke, the flickering twin of fire:

      And round the belly of the hollow shield

      A rim was made

96

The older families of Thebes boasted that they sprang from the survivors of the Sparti, who, sprung from the Dragon's teeth, waged deadly war against each other, till all but five were slain. The later settlers, who were said to have come with Cadmos, stood to these as the “greater” to the “lesser gentes” at Rome.

97

So in the Antigone of Sophocles (v. 134), Capaneus appears as the special representative of boastful, reckless impiety.

98

Artemis, as one of the special Deities to whom Thebes was consecrated.

99

Apparently an Asiatic invention, to increase the terror of an attack of war-chariots.

100

The phrase and thought were almost proverbial in Athens. Men, as citizens, were thought of as fed at a common table, bound to contribute their gifts to the common stock. When they offered up their lives in battle, they were giving, as Pericles says (Thucyd. ii. 43), their noblest “contribution,” paying in full their subscription to the society of which they were members.