Chapter 5

MES. I will tell of the sixth, a man most prudent, and in valor the best, the seer, the mighty Amphiaraus; for he, having been marshaled against the gate of Homoloeis, reviles mighty Tydeus full oft with reproaches, as the homicide, the troubler of the state, chief teacher of the mischiefs of Argos, the summoner of Erinnys, minister of slaughter, and adviser of these mischiefs to Adrastus. Then again going up[143] to thy brother, the mighty Polynices, he casts his eye aloft, and, at last, reproachfully dividing his name [into syllables,[144]] he calls to him: and through his mouth he gives utterance to this speech--"Verily such a deed is well-pleasing to the gods, and glorious to hear of and to tell in after times, that you are making havoc of your paternal city, and its native gods, having brought into it a foreign armament. And what Justice shall staunch the fountain of thy mother's tears?

"And how can thy father-land, after having been taken by the spear through thy means, ever be an ally to thee? I, for my part, in very truth shall fatten this soil, seer as I am, buried beneath a hostile earth. Let us to the battle, I look not for a dishonorable fall." Thus spake the seer, wielding a fair-orbed shield, all of brass; but no device was on its circle--for he wishes not to seem but to be righteous, reaping fruit from a deep furrow in his mind, from which sprout forth his goodly counsels. Against this champion I advise that thou send antagonists, both wise and good. A dread adversary is he that reveres the gods.

ET. Alas! for the omen[145] that associates a righteous man with the impious! Indeed in every matter, nothing is worse than evil fellowship--the field of infatuation has death for its fruits.[146] For whether it be that a pious man hath embarked in a vessel along with violent sailors, and some villany, he perishes with the race of men abhorred of heaven; or, being righteous, and having rightly fallen into the same toils with his countrymen, violators of hospitality, and unmindful of the gods, he is beaten down, smitten with the scourge of the deity, which falls alike on all. Now this seer, I mean the son of Oicleus, a moderate, just, good, and pious man, a mighty prophet, associated with unholy bold-mouthed men, in spite of his [better] judgment, when they made their long march, by the favor of Jove, shall be drawn along with them to go to the distant city.[147] I fancy, indeed, that he will not make an attack on our gates, not as wanting spirit, nor from cowardice of disposition, but he knows that it is his doom to fall in battle, if there is to be any fruit in the oracles of Apollo: 'tis his wont too to hold his peace, or to speak what is seasonable. Nevertheless against him we will marshal a man, mighty Lasthenes, a porter surly to strangers, and who bears an aged mind, but a youthful form; quick is his eye, and he is not slow of hand to snatch his spear made naked from his left hand.[148] But for mortals to succeed is a boon of the deity.

CH. O ye gods, give ear to our righteous supplications, and graciously bring it to pass that our city may be successful, while ye turn the horrors wrought by the spear upon the invaders of our country; and may Jove, having flung them [to a distance] from our towers, slay them with his thunder-bolt.

MES. Now will I mention this the seventh, against the seventh gate, thine own brother--what calamities too he imprecates and prays for against our city; that, he having scaled the towers, and been proclaimed[149] to the land, after having shouted out the paean of triumph at the capture, may engage with thee; and, having slain thee, may die beside thee, or avenge himself on thee alive, that dishonored, that banished him,[150] by exile after the very same manner. This does mighty Polynices clamor, and he summons the gods of his race and fatherland to regard his supplications. He has, moreover, a newly-constructed shield, well suited [to his arm] and a double device wrought upon it. For a woman is leading on a mailed warrior, forged out of brass, conducting him decorously; and so she professes to be Justice, as the inscription tells: I WILL BRING BACK THIS MAN, AND HE SHALL HAVE THE CITY OF HIS FATHERS, AND A DWELLING IN THE PALACE. Such are their devices; and do thou thyself now determine whom it is that thou thinkest proper to send: since never at any time shalt thou censure me for my tidings; but do thou thyself determine the management of the vessel of the state.

ET. O heaven-frenzied, and great abomination of the gods! Oh! for our race of OEdipus, worthy of all mourning--Alas for me! now verily are the curses of my sire coming to an accomplishment. But it becomes me not to weep or wail, lest birth be given to a lament yet more intolerable. But to Polynices, that well deserves his name, I say, soon shall we know what issue his blazonry will have; whether letters wrought in gold, vainly vaunting on his buckler, along with frenzy of soul will restore him. If indeed Justice, the virgin daughter of Jove, attended on his actions or his thoughts, perchance this might be. But neither when he escape the darkness of the womb, nor in his infancy, nor ever in his boyhood, nor in the gathering of the hair on his chin, did Justice look on him, or deem him worthy her regards: nor truly do I suppose that she will now take her stand near to him, in his ill-omened possession of his father-land. Truly she would then in all reason be falsely called Justice, were she to consort with a man all-daring in his soul. Trusting in this I will go, and face him in person. Who else could do so with better right? Leader against leader, brother against brother, foeman with foeman, shall I take my stand. Bring me with all speed my greaves, my spear, and my armor of defense against the stones.

[_Exit_ MESSENGER.

CH. Do not, O dearest of men, son of OEdipus, become in wrath like to him against whom thou hast most bitterly spoken. Enough it is that Cadmaeans come to the encounter with Argives. For such bloodshed admits of expiation. But the death of own brothers thus mutually wrought by their own hands--of this pollution there is no decay.

ET. If any one receives evil without disgrace, be it so; for the only advantage is among the dead: but of evil and disgraceful things, thou canst not tell me honor.

CH. Why art thou eager, my son? let not Ate, full of wrath, raging with the spear, hurry thee away--but banish the first impulse of [evil] passion.

ET. Since the deity with all power urges on the matter, let the whole race of Laius, abhorred by Phoebus, having received for its portion the wave of Cocytus, drift down with the wind.

CH. So fierce a biting lust for unlawful blood hurries thee on to perpetrate the shedding of a man's blood, of which the fruit is bitter.[151]

ET. Ay, for the hateful curse of my dear father, consummated, sits hard beside me with dry tearless eyes, telling me that profit comes before my after doom.[152]

CH. But do not accelerate it; thou wilt not be called dastardly if thou honorably preservest thy life--and Erinnys,[153] with her murky tempest, enters not the dwelling where the gods receive a sacrifice from the hands [of the inmates].

ET. By the gods, indeed, we have now for some time been in a manner neglected, and the pleasure which arises from our destruction is welcomed by them; why should we any longer fawn[154] upon our deadly doom?

CH. Do so now, while it is in thy power; since the demon, that may alter with a distant shifting of his temper, will perchance come with a gentler air; but now he still rages.

ET. Ay, for the curses of OEdipus have raged beyond all bounds; and too true were my visions of phantoms seen in my slumbers, dividers of my father's wealth.[155]

CH. Yield thee to women, albeit that thou lovest them not.

ET. Say ye then what one may allow you; but it must not be at length.

CH. Go not thou on in this way to the seventh gate.

ET. Whetted as I am, thou wilt not blunt me by argument.

CH. Yet god, at all events, honors an inglorious victory.

ET. It ill becomes a warrior to acquiesce in this advice.

CH. What! wilt thou shed the blood of thine own brother?

ET. By heaven's leave, he shall not elude destruction.

[_Exit_ ETEOCLES.

CH. I shudder with dread that the power that lays waste this house, not like the gods, the all-true, the evil-boding Erinnys summoned by the curses of the father, is bringing to a consummation the wrathful curses of distracted OEdipus.[156] 'Tis this quarrel, fatal to his sons, that arouses her. And the Chalybian stranger, emigrant from Scythia, is apportioning their shares, a fell divider of possessions, the stern-hearted steel,[157] allotting them land to occupy, just as much as it may be theirs to possess when dead, bereft of their large domains.[158] When they shall have fallen, slain by each other's hands in mutual slaughter, and the dust of the ground shall have drunk up the black-clotted blood of murder, who will furnish expiation? who will purify them? Alas for the fresh troubles mingled with the ancient horrors of this family! for I speak of the ancient transgression with its speedy punishment; yet it abides unto the third generation; since Laius, in spite of Apollo, who had thrice declared, in the central oracles of Pytho, that, dying without issue, he would save the state,[159] did, notwithstanding, overcome by his friends, in his infatuation beget his own destruction, the parricide OEdipus, who dared to plant in an unhallowed field, where he had been reared, a bloody root.--'Twas frenzy linked the distracted pair; and as it were, a sea of troubles brings on one billow that subsides, and rears another triply cloven, which too dashes about the stern of our state. But between [it and us] there stretches a fence at a small interval, a tower in width alone.[160] And I fear lest the city should be overcome along with its princes. For the execrations, that were uttered long ago, are finding their accomplishment: bitter is the settlement, and deadly things in their consummation pass not away. The wealth of enterprising merchants,[161] too thickly stowed, brings with it a casting overboard from the stern. For whom of mortals did the gods, and his fellow-inmates in the city, and the many lives of herding men,[162] admire so much as they then honored OEdipus, who had banished from the realm the baneful pest that made men her prey. But when he unhappy was apprised of his wretched marriage, despairing in his sorrow, with frenzied heart, he perpetrated a two-fold horror; he deprived himself with parricidal hand of the eyes that were more precious than his children. And indignant because of his scanty supply of food,[163] he sent upon his sons, alas! alas! a curse horrible in utterance, even that they should some time or other share his substance between them with sword-wielding hand; and now I tremble lest the swift Erinnys should be on the point of fulfilling that prayer.

_Re-enter_ MESSENGER.

Be of good cheer, maidens that have been nurtured by your mothers.[164] This city hath escaped the yoke of servitude; the vauntings of our mighty foes have fallen; and our city is calm, and hath not admitted a leak from the many buffets of the surge; our fortification too stands proof, and we have fenced our gates with champions fighting single-handed, and bringing surety; for the most part, at six of our gates, it is well; but the seventh, the revered lord of the seventh, sovereign Apollo, chose for himself, bringing to a consummation the ancient indiscretions of Laius.

CH. And what new event is happening to our city?

MES. These men have fallen by hands that dealt mutual slaughter.[165]--

CH. Who? What is it thou sayest! I am distracted with terror at thy tidings.

MES. Now be calm and listen, the race of OEdipus--

CH. Alas for me wretched! I am a prophetess of horrors.

MES. Stretched in the dust are they beyond all dispute.

CH. Came they even to that? bitter then are thy tidings, yet speak them.

MES. Even thus [too surely] were they destroyed by brotherly hands.

CH. Even thus was the demon at once impartial to both.

MES. And he himself, to be sure of this, is cutting off the ill-fated race.

CH. Over such events one may both rejoice and weep--[rejoice] at the success of our city--but [mourn because][166] our princes, the two generals, have portioned out the whole possession of their substance with the hammer-wrought Scythian steel, and they will possess of land just as much as they receive at their burial, carried off according to the unhappy imprecations of their sire.

MES. The city is rescued, but earth hath drank the blood of the brother princes through their slaughter of each other.

[_Exit_ MESSENGER.[167]

CH. Oh mighty Jove! and tutelary divinities of our city! ye that do in very deed protect these towers of Cadmus, am I to rejoice and raise a joyous hymn to the savior of our city, the averter of mischief, or shall I bewail the miserable and ill-fated childless[168] commanders, who, in very truth, correctly, according to their name,[169] full of rancor, have perished in impious purpose? Oh dark and fatal curse of the race and of OEdipus, what horrible chill is this that is falling upon my heart?[170] I, like a Thyiad, have framed a dirge for the tomb, hearing of the dead, dabbled in blood, that perished haplessly--verily this meeting of spears was ill-omened. The imprecation of the father hath taken full effect, and hath not failed: and the unbelieving schemes of Laius have lasted even until now; and care is through our city, and the divine declarations lose not their edge--Alas! worthy of many a sigh, ye have accomplished this horror surpassing credence; and lamentable sufferings have come indeed. This is self-evident, the tale of the messenger is before my eyes--Double are our sorrows, double are the horrors of them that have fallen by mutual slaughter; doubly shared are these consummated sufferings. What shall I say? What, but that of a certainty troubles on troubles are constant inmates of this house? But, my friends, ply the speeding stroke of your hands about your heads, before the gale of sighs, which ever wafts on its passage the bark, on which no sighs are heard, with sable sails, the freighted with the dead, untrodden for Apollo, the sunless, across Acheron, and to the invisible all-receiving shore.[171]

But [enough]! for here are coming to this bitter office both Antigone and Ismene. I am assured beyond all doubt that they will send forth a fitting wail from their lovely deep-cinctured bosoms. And right it is that we, before the sound of their wailing reach us, both ejaculate the dismal-sounding chaunt of Erinnys, and sing a hateful paean to Pluto. Alas! ye that are the most hapless in your sisterhood of all women that fling the zone around their robes, I weep, I mourn, and there is no guile about so as not to be truly wailing from my very soul.

SEMI-CHORUS. Alas! alas! ye frantic youths, distrustful of friends, and unsubdued by troubles, have wretched seized on your paternal dwelling with the spear.

SEMI-CH. Wretched in sooth were they who found a wretched death to the bane of their houses.

SEMI-CH. Alas! alas! ye that overthrew the walls of your palace, and having cast an eye on bitter monarchy, how have ye now settled your claims with the steel?

SEMI-CH. And too truly hath awful Erinnys brought [the curses] of their father OEdipus to a consummation.

SEMI-CH. Smitten through your left--Smitten in very truth, and through sides that sprung from a common womb.

SEMI-CH. Alas for them, wretched! Alas! for the imprecations of death which avenged murder by murder.

SEMI-CH. Thou speakest of the stroke that pierced through and through those that were smitten in their houses and in their persons with speechless rage, and the doom of discord brought upon them by the curses of their father.

SEMI-CH. And moreover, sighing pervades the city, the towers sigh, the land that loved her heroes sighs; and for posterity remains the substance by reason of which, by reason of which,[172] contention came upon them whom evil destiny, and the issue of death.

SEMI-CH. In the fierceness of their hearts they divided between them the possessions, so as to have an equal share; but the arbiter[173] escapes not censure from their friends, and joyless was their warfare.

SEMI-CH. Smitten by the steel, here they lie; and smitten by the steel[174] there await them--one may perchance ask what?--the inheritance of the tombs of their fathers.

SEMI-CH. From the house the piercing groan sends forth its sound loudly over them, mourning with a sorrow sufferings as o'er its own, melancholy, a foe to mirth, sincerely weeping from the very soul, which is worn down while I wail for these two princes.

SEMI-CH. We may say too of these happy men that they both wrought many mischiefs to their countrymen, and to the ranks of all the strangers, that perished in great numbers in battle.

SEMI-CH. Ill-fated was she that bare them before all women, as many as are mothers of children. Having taken to herself her own son for a husband, she brought forth these, and they have ended their existence thus by fraternal hands that dealt mutual slaughter.

SEMI-CH. Fraternal in very truth! and utterly undone were they by a severing in no wise amicable, by frenzied strife at the consummation of their feud.

SEMI-CH. But their emnity is terminated; and in the reeking earth is their life-blood mingled, and truly are they of the same blood. A bitter arbiter of strife is the stranger from beyond the sea, the whetted steel that bounded forth from the fire; and bitter is the horrible distributer of their substance, Mars, who hath brought the curse of their father truly to its consummation.

SEMI-CH. Hapless youths! They have obtained their portion of heaven-awarded woes, and beneath their bodies shall be a fathomless wealth of earth.[175] Alas! ye that have made your houses bloom with many troubles! And at its fall these Curses raised the shout of triumph in shrill strain, when the race had been put to flight in total rout; a trophy of Ate has been reared at the gate at which they smote each other, and, having overcome both, the demon rested.

_Enter_ ANTIGONE _and_ ISMENE.

ANT. When wounded thou didst wound again.[176]

ISM. And thou, having dealt death, didst perish.

ANT. With the spear thou didst slay.

ISM. By the spear thou didst fall.

ANT. Wretched in thy deeds!

ISM. Wretched in thy sufferings!

ANT. Let tears arise.

ISM. Let groans resound.

ANT. Having slain, he shall lie prostrate. Alas! alas! my soul is maddening with sighs.

ISM. And my heart mourns within me.

ANT. Alas! thou that art worthy of all lamentation!

ISM. And thou again also utterly wretched.

ANT. By a friend didst thou fall.

ISM. And a friend didst thou slay.

ANT. Double horrors to tell of.

ISM. Double horrors to behold!

ANT. These horrors are near akin to such sorrows.

ISM. And we their sisters here are near to our brothers.

CH. Alas! thou Destiny, awarder of bitterness, wretched! and thou dread shade of OEdipus! and dark Erinnys! verily art thou great in might.

ANT. Alas! alas! sufferings dismal to behold hath he shown to me after his exile.

ANT. And he returned not when he had slain him.

ISM. No--but after being saved he lost his life.

ANT. In very truth he lost it.

ISM. Ay, and he cut off his brother.

ANT. Wretched family!

ISM. That hath endured wretchedness. Woes that are wretched and of one name. Thoroughly steeped in three-fold sufferings.

ANT. Deadly to tell--

ISM. Deadly to look on.

CH. Alas! alas! thou Destiny, awarder of bitterness, wretched! and thou dread shade of OEdipus! and dark Erinnys! verily art thou great in might.

ANT. Thou in sooth knowest this by passing through it.

ISM. And so dost thou, having learned it just as soon as he.

ANT. After that thou didst return to the city.

ISM. An antagonist too to this man here in battle-fray.

ANT. Deadly to tell.

ISM. Deadly to look on.

ANT. Alas! the trouble.

ISM. Alas! the horrors upon our family and our land, and me above all.

ANT. Alas! alas! and me, be sure, more than all.

ISM. Alas! alas! for the wretched horrors! O sovereign Eteocles, our chieftain!

ANT. Alas! ye most miserable of all men.

ISM. Alas! ye possessed by Ate.

ANT. Alas! alas! where in the land shall we place them both? Alas! in the spot that is most honorable. Alas! alas! a woe fit to sleep beside my father.[177]

_Enter_ HERALD.

'Tis my duty to announce the good pleasure and the decree of the senators of the people of this city of Cadmus. It is resolved to bury this body of Eteocles for his attachment to his country, with the dear interment in earth! for in repelling our foes he met death in the city, and being pure in respect to the sacred rites of his country, blameless hath he fallen where 'tis glorious for the young to fall; thus, indeed, hath it been commissioned me to announce concerning this corpse: But [it has been decreed] to cast out unburied, a prey for dogs, this the corpse of his brother Polynices, inasmuch as he would have been the overturner of the land of Cadmus, if some one of the gods had not stood in opposition to his spear: and even now that he is dead, he will lie under the guilt of pollution with the gods of his country, whom he having dishonored was for taking the city by bringing against it a foreign host. So it is resolved that he, having been buried dishonorably by winged fowls, should receive his recompense, and that neither piling up by hands of the mound over his tomb should follow, nor any one honor him with shrill-voiced wailings, but that he be ungraced with a funeral at the hands of his friends. Such is the decree of the magistracy of the Cadmaeans.

ANT. But I say to the rulers of the Cadmaeans, if not another single person is willing to take part with me in burying him, I will bury him, and will expose myself[178] to peril by burying my brother. And I feel no shame at being guilty of this disobedient insubordination against the city. Powerful is the tie of the common womb from which we sprung, from a wretched mother and a hapless sire. Wherefore, my soul, do thou, willing with the willing share in his woes, with the dead, thou living, with sisterly feeling--and nought shall lean-bellied wolves tear his flesh--let no one suppose it. All woman though I be, I will contrive a tomb and a deep-dug grave for him, bearing earth in the bosom-fold of my fine linen robe, and I myself will cover him; let none imagine the contrary: an effective scheme shall aid my boldness.

HER. I bid thee not to act despite the state in this matter.

ANT. I bid thee not announce to me superfluous things.

HER. Yet stern is a people that has just escaped troubles.

ANT. Ay, call it stern[179]--yet this [corpse] shall not lie unburied.

HER. What! wilt thou honor with a tomb him whom our state abhors?[180]

HER. ANT. Heretofore he has not been honored by the gods.[181]

HER. Not so, at least before he put this realm in jeopardy.

ANT. Having suffered injuriously he repaid with injury.

HER. Ay, but this deed of his fell on all instead of one.

ANT. Contention is the last of the gods to finish a dispute,[182] and I will bury him; make no more words.

HER. Well, take thine own way--yet I forbid thee.

[Exit_ HERALD.

CH. Alas! alas! O ye fatal Furies, proudly triumphant, and destructive to this race, ye that have ruined the family of OEdipus from its root. What will become of me? What shall I do? What can I devise? How shall I have the heart neither to bewail thee nor to escort thee to the tomb? But I dread and shrink from the terror of the citizens. Thou, at all events, shalt in sooth have many mourners; but he, wretched one, departs unsighed for, having the solitary-wailing dirge of his sister. Who will agree to this?