Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

at men's hands the Gods

      Accept their sacrifice.

      Eteoc. As for the Gods, they scorned us long ago,

      And smile but on the offering of our deaths;

      What boots it then on death's doom still to fawn?

      Chor. Nay do it now, while yet 'tis in thy power;115

      Perchance may fortune shift

      With tardy change of mood,

      And come with spirit less implacable:

      At present fierce and hot

      She waxeth in her rage.

      Eteoc. Yea, fierce and hot the Curse of Œdipus;

      And all too true the visions of the night,

      My father's treasured store distributing.

      Chor. Yield to us women, though thou lov'st us not.

      Eteoc. Speak then what may be done, and be not long.

      Chor. Tread not the path that to the seventh gate leads.

      Eteoc. Thou shall not blunt my sharpened edge with words.

      Chor. And yet God loves the victory that submits.116

      Eteoc. That word a warrior must not tolerate.

      Chor. Dost thou then haste thy brother's blood to shed?

      Eteoc. If the Gods grant it, he shall not 'scape harm.

[Exeunt Eteocles, Scout, and CaptainsStrophe I

      Chor. I fear her might who doth this whole house wreck,

      The Goddess unlike Gods,

      The prophetess of evil all too true,

      The Erinnys of thy father's imprecations,

      Lest she fulfil the curse,

      O'er-wrathful, frenzy-fraught,

      The curse of Œdipus,

      Laying his children low.

      This Strife doth urge them on.

Antistrophe I

      And now a stranger doth divide the lots,

      The Chalyb,117 from the Skythians emigrant,

      The stern distributor of heaped-up wealth,

      The iron that hath assigned them just so much

      Of land as theirs, no more,

      As may suffice for them

      As grave when they shall fall,

      Without or part or lot

      In the broad-spreading plains.

Strophe II

      And when the hands of each

      The other's blood have shed,

      And the earth's dust shall drink

      The black and clotted gore,

      Who then can purify?

      Who cleanse thee from the guilt?

      Ah me! O sorrows new,

      That mingle with the old woes of our house!

Antistrophe II

      I tell the ancient tale

      Of sin that brought swift doom;

      Till the third age it waits,

      Since Laios, heeding not

      Apollo's oracle,

      (Though spoken thrice to him

      In Pythia's central shrine,)

      That dying childless, he should save the State.

Strophe III

      But he by those he loved full rashly swayed,

      Doom for himself begat,

      His murderer Œdipus,

      Who dared to sow in field

      Unholy, whence he sprang,

      A root of blood-flecked woe.

      Madness together brought

      Bridegroom and bride accursed.

Antistrophe III

      And now the sea of evil pours its flood:

      This falling, others rise,

      As with a triple crest,

      Which round the State's stern roars:

      And but a bulwark slight,

      A tower's poor breadth, defends:

      And lest the city fall

      With its two kings I fear.

Strophe IV

      And that atonement of the ancient curse

      Receives fulfilment now;118

      And when they come, the evils pass not by.

      E'en so the wealth of sea-adventurers,

      When heaped up in excess,

      Leads but to cargo from the stern thrown out.119

Antistrophe IV

      For whom of mortals did the Gods so praise,

      And fellow-worshippers,

      And race of those who feed their flocks and herds120

      As much as then they honoured Œdipus,

      Who from our country's bounds

      Had driven the monster, murderess of men?

Strophe V

      And when too late he knew,

      Ah, miserable man! his wedlock dire,

      Vexed sore with that dread shame,

      With heart to madness driven,

      He wrought a twofold ill,

      And with the hand that smote his father's life

      Blinded the eyes that might his sons have seen.

Antistrophe V

      And with a mind provoked

      By nurture scant, he at his sons did hurl121

      His curses dire and dark,

      (Ah, bitter curses those!)

      That they with spear in hand

      Should one day share their father's wealth; and I

      Fear now lest swift Erinnys should fulfil them.

Enter Messenger

      Mess. Be of good cheer, ye maidens, mother-reared;

      Our city has escaped the yoke of bondage,

      The boasts of mighty men are fallen low,

      And this our city in calm waters floats,

      And, though by waves lashed, springs not any leak.

      Our fortress still holds out, and we did guard

      The gates with champions who redeemed their pledge.

      In the six gateways almost all goes well;

      But the seventh gate did King Apollo choose,122

      Seventh mighty chief, avenging Laios'

115

Perhaps “since death is at nigh hand.”

116

The Chorus means that if Eteocles would allow himself to be overcome in this contest of his wishes with their prayers the Gods would honour that defeat as if it were indeed a victory. He makes answer that the very thought of being overcome implied in the word “defeat” in anything is one which the true warrior cannot bear.

117

The “Chalyb stranger” is the sword, thought of as taking its name from the Skythian tribe of the Chalybes, between Colchis and Armenia, and passing through the Thrakians into Greece.

118

The two brothers, i. e., are set at one again, but it is not in the bonds of friendship, but in those of death.

119

The image meets us again in Agam. 980. Here the thought is, that a man too prosperous is like a ship too heavily freighted. He must part with a portion of his possession in order to save the rest. Not to part with them leads, when the storm rages, to an enforced abandonment and utter loss.

120

Another reading gives —

“And race of those who crowd the Agora.”

121

This seems to have been one form of the legends as to the cause of the curse which Œdipus had launched upon his sons, An alternative rendering is —

And with a mind enragedAt thought of what they were whom he had reared,He at his sons did hurlHis curses dire and dark.

122

Sc., when Eteocles fell, Apollo took his place at the seventh gate, and turned the tide of war in favour of the Thebans.