Chapter 7

Fraternal rage, the guilty Thebes' alarms, Th' alternate reign destroy'd by impious arms, Demand our song; a sacred fury fires My ravish'd breast, and all the Muse inspires. O goddess! say, shall I deduce my rhymes From the dire nation in its early times, Europa's rape, Agenor's stern decree, And Cadmus searching round the spacious sea? How with the serpent's teeth he sow'd the soil, And reap'd an iron harvest of his toil? 10 Or how from joining stones the city sprung, While to his harp divine Amphion sung? Or shall I Juno's hate to Thebes resound, Whose fatal rage th' unhappy monarch found? The sire against the son his arrows drew, O'er the wide fields the furious mother flew, And while her arms a second hope contain, Sprung from the rocks, and plunged into the main.

But wave whate'er to Cadmus may belong, And fix, O Muse! the barrier of thy song 20 At Oedipus--from his disasters trace The long confusions of his guilty race: Nor yet attempt to stretch thy bolder wing, And mighty Caesar's conquering eagles sing; How twice he tamed proud Ister's rapid flood, While Dacian mountains stream'd with barbarous blood; Twice taught the Rhine beneath his laws to roll, And stretch'd his empire to the frozen pole; Or, long before, with early valour strove In youthful arms t' assert the cause of Jove. 30 And thou, great heir of all thy father's fame, Increase of glory to the Latian name! Oh! bless thy Rome with an eternal reign, Nor let desiring worlds entreat in vain. What though the stars contract their heavenly space, And crowd their shining ranks to yield thee place; Though all the skies, ambitious of thy sway, Conspire to court thee from our world away; Though Phoebus longs to mix his rays with thine, And in thy glories more serenely shine; 40 Though Jove himself no less content would be To part his throne, and share his heaven with thee: Yet stay, great Caesar! and vouchsafe to reign O'er the wide earth, and o'er the watery main; Resign to Jove his empire of the skies, And people heaven with Roman deities.

The time will come when a diviner flame Shall warm my breast to sing of Caesar's fame; Meanwhile, permit that my preluding Muse In Theban wars an humbler theme may choose: 50 Of furious hate surviving death she sings, A fatal throne to two contending kings, And funeral flames, that, parting wide in air, Express the discord of the souls they bear: Of towns dispeopled, and the wandering ghosts Of kings unburied in the wasted coasts; When Dirce's fountain blush'd with Grecian blood, And Thetis, near Ismenos' swelling flood, With dread beheld the rolling surges sweep In heaps his slaughter'd sons into the deep. 60

What hero, Clio! wilt thou first relate? The rage of Tydeus, or the prophet's fate? Or how, with hills of slain on every side, Hippomedon repell'd the hostile tide? Or how the youth, with every grace adorn'd, Untimely fell, to be for ever mourn'd? Then to fierce Capaneus thy verse extend, And sing with horror his prodigious end.

Now wretched Oedipus, deprived of sight, Led a long death in everlasting night; 70 But while he dwells where not a cheerful ray Can pierce the darkness, and abhors the day, The clear reflecting mind presents his sin In frightful views, and makes it day within; Returning thoughts in endless circles roll, And thousand Furies haunt his guilty soul: The wretch then lifted to th' unpitying skies Those empty orbs from whence he tore his eyes, Whose wounds, yet fresh, with bloody hands he strook, While from his breast these dreadful accents broke: 80

'Ye gods! that o'er the gloomy regions reign, Where guilty spirits feel eternal pain; Thou, sable Styx! whose livid streams are roll'd Through dreary coasts, which I though blind behold; Tisiphone! that oft hast heard my prayer, Assist, if Oedipus deserve thy care. If you received me from Jocasta's womb, And nursed the hope of mischiefs yet to come; If, leaving Polybus, I took my way To Cyrrha's temple, on that fatal day 90 When by the son the trembling father died, Where the three roads the Phocian fields divide; If I the Sphynx's riddles durst explain, Taught by thyself to win the promised reign; If wretched I, by baleful Furies led, With monstrous mixture stain'd my mother's bed, For hell and thee begot an impious brood, And with full lust those horrid joys renew'd; Then, self-condemn'd to shades of endless night, Forced from these orbs the bleeding balls of sight; 100 Oh, hear! and aid the vengeance I require, If worthy thee, and what thou might'st inspire! My sons their old, unhappy sire despise, Spoil'd of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes; Guideless I wander, unregarded mourn, Whilst these exalt their sceptres o'er my urn: These sons, ye gods! who with flagitious pride Insult my darkness and my groans deride. Art thou a father, unregarding Jove! And sleeps thy thunder in the realms above? 110 Thou Fury! then some lasting curse entail, Which o'er their children's children shall prevail; Place on their heads that crown, distain'd with gore, Which these dire hands from my slain father tore; Go! and a parent's heavy curses bear; Break all the bonds of nature, and prepare Their kindred souls to mutual hate and war. Give them to dare, what I might wish to see, Blind as I am, some glorious villany! Soon shalt thou find, if thou but arm their hands, 120 Their ready guilt preventing thy commands: Couldst thou some great proportion'd mischief frame, They'd prove the father from whose loins they came.'

The Fury heard, while on Cocytus' brink Her snakes, untied, sulphureous waters drink; But at the summons roll'd her eyes around, And snatch'd the starting serpents from the ground. Not half so swiftly shoots along in air The gliding lightning or descending star; Through crowds of airy shades she wing'd her flight, 130 And dark dominions of the silent night; Swift as she pass'd the flitting ghosts withdrew, And the pale spectres trembled at her view: To th' iron gates of Tenarus she flies, There spreads her dusky pinions to the skies. The day beheld, and, sickening at the sight, Veil'd her fair glories in the shades of night. Affrighted Atlas on the distant shore Trembled, and shook the heavens and gods he bore. Now from beneath Malea's airy height 140 Aloft she sprung, and steer'd to Thebes her flight; With eager speed the well-known journey took, Nor here regrets the hell she late forsook. A hundred snakes her gloomy visage shade, A hundred serpents guard her horrid head; In her sunk eyeballs dreadful meteors glow: Such rays from Phoebe's bloody circle flow, When, labouring with strong charms, she shoots from high A fiery gleam, and reddens all the sky. Blood stain'd her cheeks, and from her mouth there came 150 Blue steaming poisons, and a length of flame. From every blast of her contagious breath Famine and drought proceed, and plagues and death. A robe obscene was o'er her shoulders thrown, A dress by Fates and Furies worn alone. She toss'd her meagre arms; her better hand In waving circles whirl'd a funeral brand: A serpent from her left was seen to rear His flaming crest, and lash the yielding air. But when the Fury took her stand on high, 160 Where vast Cithaeron's top salutes the sky, A hiss from all the snaky tire went round: The dreadful signal all the rocks rebound, And through th' Achaian cities send the sound. Oete, with high Parnassus, heard the voice; Eurotas' banks remurmur'd to the noise; Again Leucothoe shook at these alarms, And press'd Palaermon closer in her arms. Headlong from thence the glowing Fury springs, And o'er the Theban palace spreads her wings, 170 Once more invades the guilty dome, and shrouds Its bright pavilions in a veil of clouds. Straight with the rage of all their race possess'd, Stung to the soul, the brothers start from rest, And all their Furies wake within their breast: Their tortured minds repining Envy tears, And Hate, engender'd by suspicious fears: And sacred thirst of sway, and all the ties Of nature broke; and royal perjuries; And impotent desire to reign alone, 180 That scorns the dull reversion of a throne: Each would the sweets of sovereign rule devour, While Discord waits upon divided power.

As stubborn steers, by brawny ploughmen broke, And join'd reluctant to the galling yoke, Alike disdain with servile necks to bear Th' unwonted weight, or drag the crooked share, But rend the reins, and bound a different way, And all the furrows in confusion lay: Such was the discord of the royal pair 190 Whom fury drove precipitate to war. In vain the chiefs contrived a specious way To govern Thebes by their alternate sway: Unjust decree! while this enjoys the state, That mourns in exile his unequal fate, And the short monarch of a hasty year Foresees with anguish his returning heir. Thus did the league their impious arms restrain, But scarce subsisted to the second reign.

Yet then no proud aspiring piles were raised, 200 No fretted roofs with polish'd metals blazed; No labour'd columns in long order placed, No Grecian stone the pompous arches graced: No nightly bands in glittering armour wait Before the sleepless tyrant's guarded gate; No chargers then were wrought in burnish'd gold, Nor silver vases took the forming mould; Nor gems on bowls emboss'd were seen to shine, Blaze on the brims, and sparkle in the wine-- Say, wretched rivals! what provokes your rage? 210 Say, to what end your impious arms engage? Not all bright Phoebus views in early morn, Or when his evening beams the west adorn, When the south glows with his meridian ray, And the cold north receives a fainter day; For crimes like these, not all those realms suffice, Were all those realms the guilty victor's prize!

But Fortune now (the lots of empire thrown) Decrees to proud Eteocles the crown: What joys, O tyrant! swell'd thy soul that day, 220 When all were slaves thou couldst around survey, Pleased to behold unbounded power thy own, And singly fill a fear'd and envied throne!

But the vile vulgar, ever discontent, Their growing fears in secret murmurs vent; Still prone to change, though still the slaves of state, And sure the monarch whom they have, to hate; New lords they madly make, then tamely bear, And softly curse the tyrants whom they fear. And one of those who groan beneath the sway 230 Of kings imposed, and grudgingly obey, (Whom envy to the great, and vulgar spite, With scandal arm'd, th' ignoble mind's delight) Exclaim'd--'O Thebes! for thee what fates remain, What woes attend this inauspicious reign? Must we, alas! our doubtful necks prepare Each haughty master's yoke by turns to bear, And still to change whom changed we still must fear? These now control a wretched people's fate These can divide, and these reverse the state: 240 E'en fortune rules no more--O servile land, Where exiled tyrants still by turns command! Thou sire of gods and men, imperial Jove! Is this th' eternal doom decreed above? On thy own offspring hast thou fix'd this fate From the first birth of our unhappy state, When banish'd Cadmus, wandering o'er the main, For lost Europa search'd the world in vain, And, fated in Boeotian fields to found, A rising empire on a foreign ground, 250 First raised our walls on that ill omen'd plain Where earth-born brothers were by brothers slain? What lofty looks th' unrivall'd monarch bears! How all the tyrant in his face appears! What sullen fury clouds his scornful brow! Gods! how his eyes with threatening ardour glow! Can this imperious lord forget to reign, Quit all his state, descend, and serve again? Yet who, before, more popularly bow'd? Who more propitious to the suppliant crowd? 260 Patient of right, familiar in the throne, What wonder then? he was not then alone. Oh wretched we! a vile, submissive train, Fortune's tame fools, and slaves in every reign!

'As when two winds with rival force contend, This way and that the wavering sails they bend, While freezing Boreas and black Eurus blow, Now here, now there, the reeling vessel throw; Thus on each side, alas! our tottering state Feels all the fury of resistless fate, 270 And doubtful still, and still distracted stands, While that prince threatens, and while this commands.'

And now th' almighty Father of the gods Convenes a council in the bless'd abodes. Far in the bright recesses of the skies, High o'er the rolling heavens, a mansion lies, Whence, far below, the gods at once survey The realms of rising and declining day, And all th' extended space of earth, and air, and sea. Full in the midst, and on a starry throne, 280 The Majesty of heaven superior shone: Serene he look'd, and gave an awful nod, And all the trembling spheres confess'd the god. At Jove's assent the deities around In solemn state the consistory crown'd. Next a long order of inferior powers Ascend from hills, and plains, and shady bowers; Those from whose urns the rolling rivers flow, And those that give the wandering winds to blow: Here all their rage and ev'n their murmurs cease, 290 And sacred silence reigns, and universal peace. A shining synod of majestic gods Gilds with new lustre the divine abodes: Heaven seems improved with a superior ray, And the bright arch reflects a double day. The monarch then his solemn silence broke, The still creation listen'd while he spoke; Each sacred accent bears eternal weight, And each irrevocable word is fate.

'How long shall man the wrath of Heaven defy, 300 And force unwilling vengeance from the sky? O race confederate into crimes, that prove Triumphant o'er th' eluded rage of Jove! This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain, And unregarded thunder rolls in vain: Th' o'erlabour'd Cyclops from his task retires, Th' AEolian forge exhausted of its fires. For this, I suffer'd Phoebus' steeds to stray, And the mad ruler to misguide the day, When the wide earth to heaps of ashes turn'd, 310 And Heaven itself the wandering chariot burn'd: For this my brother of the watery reign Released the impetuous sluices of the main; But flames consumed, and billows raged in vain. Two races now, allied to Jove, offend; To punish these, see Jove himself descend. The Theban kings their line from Cadmus trace, From godlike Perseus those of Argive race. Unhappy Cadmus' fate who does not know, And the long series of succeeding woe? 320 How oft the Furies, from the deeps of night, Arose, and mix'd with men in mortal fight; Th' exulting mother stain'd with filial blood, The savage hunter and the haunted wood? The direful banquet why should I proclaim, And crimes that grieve the trembling gods to name? Ere I recount the sins of these profane, The sun would sink into the western main, And, rising, gild the radiant east again. Have we not seen (the blood of Laius shed) 330 The murdering son ascend his parent's bed, Through violated nature force his way, And stain the sacred womb where once he lay? Yet now in darkness and despair he groans, And for the crimes of guilty fate atones; His sons with scorn their eyeless father view, Insult his wounds, and make them bleed anew. Thy curse, O OEdipus! just Heaven alarms, And sets th' avenging Thunderer in arms. I from the root thy guilty race will tear, 340 And give the nations to the waste of war. Adrastus soon, with gods averse, shall join In dire alliance with the Theban line; Hence strife shall rise, and mortal war succeed; The guilty realms of Tantalus shall bleed: Fix'd is their doom. This all-remembering breast Yet harbours vengeance for the tyrant's feast.'

He said; and thus the queen of heaven return'd: (With sudden grief her labouring bosom burn'd) 'Must I, whose cares Phoroneus' towers defend, 350 Must I, O Jove! in bloody wars contend? Thou know'st those regions my protection claim, Glorious in arms, in riches, and in fame: Though there the fair Egyptian heifer fed, And there deluded Argus slept and bled: Though there the brazen tower was storm'd of old, When Jove descended in almighty gold! Yet I can pardon those obscurer rapes, Those bashful crimes disguised in borrow'd shapes; But Thebes, where, shining in celestial charms, 360 Thou cam'st triumphant to a mortal's arms, When all my glories o'er her limbs were spread, And blazing lightnings danced around her bed; Cursed Thebes the vengeance it deserves may prove-- Ah! why should Argos feel the rage of Jove? Yet since thou wilt thy sister-queen control, Since still the lust of discord fires thy soul, Go, raze my Samos, let Mycene fall, And level with the dust the Spartan wall; No more let mortals Juno's power invoke, 370 Her fanes no more with Eastern incense smoke, Nor victims sink beneath the sacred stroke! But to your Isis all my rights transfer, Let altars blaze and temples smoke for her; For her, through Egypt's fruitful clime renown'd, Let weeping Nilus hear the timbrel sound. But if thou must reform the stubborn times, Avenging on the sons the fathers' crimes, And from the long records of distant age Derive incitements to renew thy rage; 380 Say, from what period then has Jove design'd To date his vengeance? to what bounds confined? Begin from thence, where first Alpheus hides His wandering stream, and through the briny tides Unmix'd to his Sicilian river glides. Thy own Arcadians there the thunder claim, Whose impious rites disgrace thy mighty name; Who raise thy temples where the chariot stood Of fierce Oenomaues, defiled with blood; Where once his steeds their savage banquet found, 390 And human bones yet whiten all the ground. Say, can those honours please? and canst thou love Presumptuous Crete, that boasts the tomb of Jove? And shall not Tantalus's kingdoms share Thy wife and sister's tutelary care? Reverse, O Jove! thy too severe decree, Nor doom to war a race derived from thee; On impious realms and barbarous kings impose Thy plagues, and curse them with such sons[57] as those.'

Thus in reproach and prayer the queen express'd 400 The rage and grief contending in her breast; Unmoved remain'd the ruler of the sky, And from his throne return'd this stern reply: ''Twas thus I deem'd thy haughty soul would bear The dire, though just revenge which I prepare Against a nation thy peculiar care: No less Dione might for Thebes contend. Nor Bacchus less his native town defend; Yet these in silence see the Fates fulfil Their work, and reverence our superior will: 410 For by the black infernal Styx I swear, (That dreadful oath which binds the Thunderer) 'Tis fix'd, th' irrevocable doom of Jove; No force can bend me, no persuasion more. Haste then, Cyllenius, through the liquid air; Go, mount the winds, and to the shades repair; Bid hell's black monarch my commands obey, And give up Laius to the realms of day, Whose ghost yet shivering on Cocytus' sand Expects its passage to the further strand: 420 Let the pale sire revisit Thebes, and bear These pleasing orders to the tyrant's ear; That, from his exiled brother, swell'd with pride Of foreign forces and his Argive bride, Almighty Jove commands him to detain The promised empire, and alternate reign: Be this the cause of more than mortal hate; The rest, succeeding times shall ripen into fate.'

The god obeys, and to his feet applies Those golden wings that cut the yielding skies; 430 His ample hat his beamy locks o'erspread, And veil'd the starry glories of his head. He seized the wand that causes sleep to fly, Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye; That drives the dead to dark Tartarean coasts, Or back to life compels the wandering ghosts. Thus through the parting clouds the son of May Wings on the whistling winds his rapid way; Now smoothly steers through air his equal flight, Now springs aloft, and towers th' ethereal height: 440 Then wheeling down the steep of heaven he flies, And draws a radiant circle o'er the skies.

Meantime the banish'd Polynices roves (His Thebes abandon'd) through the Aonian groves, While future realms his wandering thoughts delight, His daily vision, and his dream by night; Forbidden Thebes appears before his eye, From whence he sees his absent brother fly, With transport views the airy rule his own, And swells on an imaginary throne. 450 Fain would he cast a tedious age away, And live out all in one triumphant day. He chides the lazy progress of the sun, And bids the year with swifter motion run: With anxious hopes his craving mind is toss'd And all his joys in length of wishes lost.

The hero then resolves his course to bend Where ancient Danaus' fruitful fields extend; And famed Mycene's lofty towers ascend; (Where late the sun did Atreus' crimes detest, 460 And disappear'd in horror of the feast). And now by chance, by fate, or furies led, From Bacchus' consecrated caves he fled, Where the shrill cries of frantic matrons sound, And Pentheus' blood enrich'd the rising ground; Then sees Cithaeron towering o'er the plain, And thence declining gently to the main; Next to the bounds of Nisus' realm repairs, Where treacherous Scylla cut the purple hairs; The hanging cliffs of Scyron's rock explores, 470 And hears the murmurs of the different shores; Passes the strait that parts the foaming seas, And stately Corinth's pleasing site surveys.

'Twas now the time when Phoebus yields to night, And rising Cynthia sheds her silver light; Wide o'er the world in solemn pomp she drew Her airy chariot, hung with pearly dew: All birds and beasts lie hush'd; sleep steals away The wild desires of men, and toils of day, And brings, descending through the silent air, 480 A sweet forgetfulness of human care. Yet no red clouds, with golden borders gay, Promise the skies the bright return of day; No faint reflections of the distant light Streak with long gleams the scattering shades of night: From the damp earth impervious vapours rise, Increase the darkness, and involve the skies. At once the rushing winds with roaring sound Burst from th' AEolian caves, and rend the ground; With equal rage their airy quarrel try, 490 And win by turns the kingdom of the sky; But with a thicker night black Auster shrouds The heavens, and drives on heaps the rolling clouds, From whose dark womb a rattling tempest pours, Which the cold north congeals to haily showers. From pole to pole the thunder roars aloud, And broken lightnings flash from every cloud. Now smokes with showers the misty mountain-ground, And floated fields lie undistinguish'd round; Th' Inachian streams with headlong fury run, 500 And Erasinus rolls a deluge on; The foaming Lerna swells above its bounds, And spreads its ancient poisons o'er the grounds: Where late was dust, now rapid torrents play, Rush through the mounds, and bear the dams away: Old limbs of trees, from crackling forests torn, Are whirl'd in air, and on the winds are borne: The storm the dark Lycaean groves display'd, And first to light exposed the sacred shade. Th' intrepid Theban hears the bursting sky, Sees yawning rocks in massy fragments fly, And views astonish'd, from the hills afar, The floods descending, and the watery war, 510 That, driven by storms, and pouring o'er the plain, Swept herds, and hinds, and houses to the main. Through the brown horrors of the night he fled, Nor knows, amazed, what doubtful path to tread; His brother's image to his mind appears, Inflames his heart with rage, and wings his feet with fears.