Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the Seven Against Thebes Part 7

CH. O ye G.o.ds, give ear to our righteous supplications, and graciously bring it to pa.s.s 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 G.o.ds of his race and fatherland to regard his supplications. He has, moreover, a newly-constructed s.h.i.+eld, well suited [to his arm] and a double device wrought upon it. For a woman is leading on a mailed warrior, forged out of bra.s.s, 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 G.o.ds! 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]

pa.s.sion.

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 l.u.s.t 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 G.o.ds receive a sacrifice from the hands [of the inmates].

ET. By the G.o.ds, 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.ds, 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 Laus, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.ds, 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 Laus.

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 Laus 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 surpa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage 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 sh.o.r.e.[171]

But [enough]! for here are coming to this bitter office both Antigone and Ismene. I am a.s.sured 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e 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.