(Copyright by the University of Chicago) HERALD It is my duty to declare to you, counselors of the people, the resolves already taken and the present pleasure of this Cadmean City. Our lord Eteocles for his loyalty it is determined to bury in the earth that he so loved Fighting its enemies he found his death here. In the sight of his ancestral shrines he is pure and blameless and died where young men die right honorably. These are my instructions to communicate with respect to him. His brother Polynices, or rather his dead body, you must cast out unburied, for the dogs to drag and tear as fits one who would have destroyed our country, had not some god proved obstacle to his spear. Even in death he shall retain this guilt against his gods ancestral, whom he dishonored when he brought a foreign host here for invasion and would have sacked the City. So it is resolved that he shall have, as his penalty, a burial granted dishonorably by the birds of the air and that no raising of a mound by hand attend him nor high-pitched singing of a dirge. Unhonored shall his funeral be by friends. This is the pleasure of the Cadmean state

CHORUS [Singing in Unison] O wretched Fate, giver of heavy grief awful shade of Oedipus, black Fury, truly you are a spirit mighty in strength! ANTISTROPHE F --woe -- woe! Evils unfit to look upon -- he showed us after banishment. -- came not back when he had slain ... -- this one came und lost his own life. -- this one died ... -- and killed the other -- unhappy family! -- unhappy deeds! -- grievous sorrows of kindred ... -- grievous‚ thrice grievous sorrow. CHORUS [in Unison] O wretched Fate, giver of heavy grief awful shade of Oedipus, black Fury, truly you are a spirit mighty in strength. EPODE -- You have learned the lesson by experience. -- and you too have learned it, no whit later. -- when you returned to the City -- yes, to face him with your spear. -- deadly to tell -- deadly to see -- pain -- ill -- to house and land -- and most of all to me -- o king, of grievous sorrows! -- o of all most rich in pain! -- oh brothers possessed by evil spirits, in doom -- oh‚ where shall we lay them in the earth? -- oh, where their honor shall be greatest. -- oh sleeping by the side of their father to his hurt.

CHORUS [Chanting] [O great Zeus and spirits that guard the City, you protector that guard our walls: shall I rejoice, shall I cry aloud for our city's safety? or for those wretched ones, luckless and childless, our generals, shall I lament? They have earned their name too well and "men of strife” they have perished through impious intern] [singing] STROPHE A O black curse consummated on the race, the curse of Oedipus! An evil chill assails my heart. I raise the dirge at the tomb like a maenad, hearing of their blood-dripping corpses, of their ill-fated death. Ill-omened indeed is this melody of the spear. ANTISTROPHE A It has worked to an end, not failed, the curse called on them by their father of old. The decisions of Laius, wanting in faith, have had effect till now‚ My heart is troubled for the City; divine warnings are not blunted. O full of sorrows, this you have done, a deed beyond belief. Woes Worthy of groaning have come in very truth. (Enter attendants, carrying the bodies of Eteocles und Polynices.) MESODE A Here is visible evidence of the messenger’s tale. Twofold our griefs und double the ills these two men wrought; double the fated sorrow now brought to fulfillment. What shall l say, but that here sorrows abide at the hearth of the house? But rowing in lamentation, friends, as the winds of woe keep blowing, beat your head with rhythmic hands and ply the speeding stroke which sends forth across Acheron, over and over, the black-sailed ship, untrodden by Apollo and sunless, on its mission to the unseen shore that welcomes all. [chanting] [Here they come to their bitter task, Ismene and Antigone, to make the dirge for their brothers. With true sincerity, I think, from their deep bosoms, they shall utter a song of grief that fits the cause. Us it concerns to sing, before their song. the ill—sounding Furies’ dirge, and the hateful Hades paean. O most luckless in your brothers of all women that fasten the girdle about their robes, I cry, I groan: there is no guile in my heart to check my true dirge.] FIRST HALF-CHORUS STROPHE B O misguided ones, faithless to friends, unwearied in evil, who plundered your father’s house to your misery, with the spear. SECOND HALF-CHORUS Wretched indeed, who found wretched deaths to the ruin of your house. FIRST HALF-CHORUS ANTISTROPHE B O you that tore the roof from your house, you that glimpsed monarchy in bitter rivalry, now at last you are reconciled—by the sword. SECOND HALF-CHORUS Too truly has that dread spirit, the Fury of Oedipus, brought all this to fulfillment. FIRST HALF-CHORUS STROPHE C Stricken through their left sides, stricken indeed, through ribs born from a common womb. Ah, strange ones, alas for the curse of death that answered death! SECOND HALF-CHORUS A straight thrust to house und body delivered by unspeakable wrath, by the doom invoked by a father’s curse, which they shared without discord. FIRST HALF-CHORUS ANTISTROPHE C Through the City the sound of groaning; the walls groan aloud; the plain that loved them grouns. There remain for their descendants the possessions for which their bitter fate was paid, for which their strife arose, for which they found the end of death. SECOND HALF-CHORUS With bitterness of heart they shared their possessions in equality: but to their loved ones not without blame is their arbitrator, nor does Ares receive thanks. FIRST HALF—CHORUS STROPHE D By the stroke of the sword they are as they are. By the stroke of the sword there awaits them what? Equal shares in their ancestral tomb, says someone. SECOND HALF-CHORUS A shrill cry escorts them from their house, a cry heartrending, a cry for its own griefs, its own woes, in anguish of mind with no thought of joy, weeping tears from a heart that breaks, for these our two princes. FIRST HALF-CHORUS ANTISTROPHE D One may say over the bodies of this unhappy pair: much have they done to their fellow citizens, and much to all the ranks of foreigners who died in this devastating war. SECOND HALF-CHORUS Unlucky she that bare them above all womankind that are called by a mother’s name. She took us husband her own child And bare these who have died, their brotherly hands working each other’s murder. FIRST HALF-CHORUS STROPHE E Brotherly indeed in utter destruction, in unkindly severance, in frantic strife, in the ending of their quarrel. SECOND HALF-CHORUS Their enmity is ended, in the earth blood-drenched their life is mingled. Very brothers are they now Bitter the reconciler of their feud, stranger from over the sea, sped hither by the fire, whetted iron And a bitter, evil divider of possessions, Ares, who made their father’s curse a thing of utter truth. FIRST HALF-CHORUS ANTISTROPHE E They have their share, unhappy ones, oneus-given sorrows: beneath their bodies, earth in fathomless wealth shall lie. SECOND HALF-CHORUS You who have made your race blossom with many woes: over you at last the curses have cried their shrill lament, and the race is turned to confusion and rout. The trophy of destruction stands at the gates where they were smitten, and conqueror of the two, the haunting spirit at last has come to fest. MESODE B [the two Half-Choruses singing in alternation] -- you smote und were smitten -- you killed und were slain -- by the spear you killed -- by the spear you died -- wretched in suffering -- let the groans go forth -- let the tears fall -- you lie in death -- having killed. STROPHE F -- woe -- woe -- mind is maddened with groans -- with groans my heart is full. Ah, ah, creature of tears -- you too, all-miserable! By hand of kin you died... -- and you killed one next of kin. -- A double sorrow to relate in double sorrow to see. -- Two sorrows hard by one another -- brother’s sorrow close to brother’s. CHORUS [Singing in Unison] O wretched Fate, giver of heavy grief awful shade of Oedipus, black Fury, truly you are a spirit mighty in strength! ANTISTROPHE F --woe -- woe! Evils unfit to look upon -- he showed us after banishment. -- came not back when he had slain ... -- this one came und lost his own life. -- this one died ... -- and killed the other -- unhappy family! -- unhappy deeds! -- grievous sorrows of kindred ... -- grievous‚ thrice grievous sorrow.

(Enter Messenger from the side.) 99 MESSENGER Take heart, daughters of Cadmus’ land: this City has escaped the yoke of slavery. Fallen are the vauntings of those monstrous men. Our city's in smooth water now; though buffeted by many assaults of the waves, it shipped no sea. Our wall still stands protecting us, our gates we barricaded With trustworthy Champions. For the most part all is well - at six of the gates. The seventh the lord Apollo, Captain of Sevens, took for himself: on Oedipus’ offspring he has fulfilled the ancient follies of Laius. 100 CHORUS LEADER What new and awful thing concerns the City? 101 MESSENGER The men have died, killed by each other’s hands. 102 CHORUS LEADER Who? What do you mean? I’m terrified at your words. 103 MESSENGER Get your wits and hear. Oedipus’ two sons 104 CHORUS LEADER Ah, ah, the evils that I prophesied! 105 MESSENGER In very truth, crushed to the ground. 106 CHORUS LEADER They both lie there? Bitter though it be, yet speak. 107 MESSENGER With brothers’ hands they achieved their mutual murder. The City is saved, but of the royal pair the ground has drunk the blood shed each by each. So all too equal was their guiding spirit, and surely he has destroyed this hapless family. So here is store of sorrow and joy at once. The City has good fortune, but its lords, the two generals, have divided the possessions with hammered iron of Scythia. They shall have what land suffices for a grave, swept there down the Wind of their father’s ill-fated curses. 108 (Exit Messenger.)

CHORUS [singing] STROPHE A I shudder at the goddess, unlike all other gods, who compasses destruction of the house, utterly unforgetting, prophet of ill, the Fury invoked by a father’s curse. I dread that it bring to pass the furious invocations of Oedipus astray in his mind‚ This strife, death to his sons, spurs it on. ANTISTROPHE A A stranger grants them land allotment, a Chalyb, Scythian colonist, a bitter divider of possessions - fierce-hearted Iron. Yes, he has allotted them land to dwell in, as much as the dead may possess: no share theirs of the broad plains. STROPHE B When they die with mutual hand mutually slaughtering and earth’s dust drinks black clotted murder-blood, who shall then give purification, who shall wash away the stain? O new evils of the house, new mingled with the old! ANTISTROPHE B Old is the transgression I tell but swift in retribution: to the third generation it abides. Three times in Pythian prophecies given at the navel-of-earth Apollo had directed King Laius to die without child And save his city so ... STROPHE C but he was mastered by loving folly and begot for himself a doom, father-killing Oedipus, who sowed his mother’s sacred soil, whence he had sprung himself und endured a bloody root crop. Madness was the coupler of the crazed bridal pair. ANTISTROPHE C Now, as it were, a sea drives on the waves of trouble:
one sinks, another rises, triple-crested around the hull of the City, and breaks in foam. Our defense between is but a little thing no bigger than a wall in width. If fear that with our princes Our City may be subdued. STROPHE D For heavy is the settlement of ancient curses, to fulfilling brought. The destructive evils don’t pass away. Prosperity, grown fat for thriving men, requires the jettisoning of all goods, utterly. ANTISTROPHE D What man has earned such admiration of gods And men that shared his City and of the general throng of mortals, as Oedipus - who ever had such honor as he that from his land had banished the man-snatching Sphinx? STROPHE E But then, when first he realized the meaning of his dreadful marriage, distraught with pain and maddened in heart he brought a double harm to fulfillment With patricidal hand he reft himself of eyes that dearer to him were than his own children. ANTISTROPHE E And on those children savage maledictions he launched, ah! for their cruel care of him and wished they might divide with iron-wielding hand his own possessions‚ And now I fear that the nimble-footed Fury is bringing those wishes to fulfillment.

71 CHORUS [singing] STROPHE A What do you long for, child? Let not the frantic lust for battle, filling the heart, carry you away. Expel the evil passion at its birth. 72 ETEOCLES [speaking] It is the god that drives this matter on. Since it is so - on, on with favoring Wind this wave of hell that has engulfed for its share all kin of Laius, whom Phoebus has so hated! 73 CHORUS ANTISTROPHE A Bitter-biting indeed is the passion that urges you to accomplish man slaying, bitter in fruit, where the blood to be shed is unlawful. 74 ETEOCLES Yes, for the hateful black curse of my beloved father sits with dry and tearless eyes and tells me first of gain and then of death. 75 CHORUS STROPHE B Resist its urging: coward you shall not be called if you rule your life well. Out from your house the black-robed Fury shall go, when from your hands the gods shall receive a sacrifice. 76 ETEOCLES We are already past the care of gods. For them our death is the delightful offering. Why then delay, cringing at final destruction? 77 CHORUS ANTISTROPHE B Not when the Chance is yours -
for in the veering change of spirit though late perhaps the god may change and come with kinder breath. Now his blast is full. 78 ETEOCLES Yes, Oedipus’s curses have fanned that blast. Too true the Vision of sleepy nightmares Showing division of my father’s heritage. 79 CHORUS LEADER Listen to women, though you like it not. 80 ETEOCLES Speak then of what may be. But keep it short. 90 CHORUS LEADER Don’t go yourself on this path to the seventh gate. 91 ETEOCLES No words of yours will blunt my whetted purpose. 92 CHORUS Yet even bad victory the gods hold in honor. 93 ETEOCLES No soldier should endure to hear such words. 94 CHORUS Do you wish to reap as harvest a brother’s blood? 95 ETEOCLES If gods give ill, no man may escape their giving. 96 (Exit Eteocles to the side)

68 ETEOCLES Our family, the family of Oedipus, by the gods maddened, by them greatly hated; ah, my father’s curses are now fulfilled! But from me no crying and no lamentation, lest grief arise yet harder to endure. I can say about Polynices, so well named, soon we shall know the pertinence of his sign, whether his golden characters on the shield, babbling, in wild distraction of the mind, will indeed bring him home. This might have been, if Justice, Zeus’s virgin daughter, Had stood by his actions and his mind. But in his flight out of the darkness of his mother’s womb, in his growth as a child, in his young manhood, in the first gathering of his beard - no, never did Justice look upon him nor regard him. I do not think that now, as he comes to outrage this fatherland of his, she will stand his ally - or else she is falsely called Justice, joining with a man whose mind conceives no limit in villainy. In this I trust, and to the conflict with him I’ll go myself. What other has more right ? King against king, and brother against brother, foe against foe we’ll fight. Bring me my greaves to shield me from the lances and the stones. 69 CHORUS LEADER O dearest son of Oedipus, do not be like in temper to this dire speaker of dreadful sayings. There are enough Cadmeans to grapple with the Argives: such blood is expiable. But for the blood of brothers mutually shed there is no growing old of the pollution. 70 ETEOCLES If a man suffer ill, let it be without shame; this is the only gain when we are dead. But for deeds both evil and disgraceful, never will you speak a word of glory or of good.

67 MESSENGER And now, the seventh at the seventh gate I shall unfold - your own, your very brother. Hear how he curses the City and what fate he invokes upon her. He prays that once his foot is set upon our walls, once he is proclaimed the conqueror of this land, once he has cried a paean of triumph in its overthrow, he then may close in fight with you and killing encounter his own death beside your corpse. Or if you live, that he may banish you - in the selfsame way as you dishonored him - to exile. So he shouts and calls the gods of his race and of his fatherland to witness his prayers - a very violent Polynices. He bears a new-made, rounded shield, and on it a twofold device, skillfully contrived: a woman leading modestly a man pictured as a warrior, wrought all in gold. She guides him, and she claims that she is Justice; and the inscription reads I will bring him home, and he shall have his City and shall walk in his ancestral house. Such are the signs. But you yourself determine whom to send. You shall not find a fault in my report: but you determine how to steer the state.

64 MESSENGER A sixth I’ll tell you of - a most modest man greatest in might of battle, yet a prophet: strong Amphiaraus at the Homoloian gates is stationed, shouting insults at strong Tydeus: “Murderer, wrecker of your City, greatest teacher of evil to Argos; of the Fury a summoning herald; servant of bloodshed; adviser to Adrastus of all these evils.” And then again with eyes uplifted calling on your own brother, strong prince Polynices, he dwells twice on the last part of his name, “the one of much strife.“ And this is the speech to which his lips give utterance: “Is such a deed as this dear to the gods, and fair to hear and tell of for posterity, for one to sack his native town, destroy the gods of his own country, bringing in an alien enemy host? What claim of justice shall quench the guilt that wells up from your mother and your fatherland destroyed by the spear which your own zeal impelled - shall it be your ally? But for myself I shall make fat this soil a prophet buried under enemy ground. Let us fight. The fate I look for is right honorable.” So spoke the prophet brandishing his round brazen shield. No device is on its circle. He is best not at seeming to be such but being so. Deep indeed is the furrow of his mind from which he gathers fruit, and good the counsels that do spring from it. For him send out, I recommend, wise and good challengers, for he is dangerous who reveres the gods. 65 ETEOCLES Alas, the luck which among human beings can join an honest man with impious ones! In every enterprise is no greater evil than bad companionship: there is no fruit worth gathering from it. The field of doom bears death as its harvest. Indeed, a pious man, going on board as shipmate of a crew of criminals and of some mischief they have perpetrated, has often died with the god detested breed; or a just man, with fellow citizens themselves inhospitable, forgetful of the gods, has fallen into the same snare as the unrighteous, and smitten by the common scourge of god has yielded up his life. Even so this seer, this son of Oecles, wise, just, good, and holy, a prophet mighty, mingling with the impious - against his better reason - loud-mouthed men who pursue a road long to retrace, with Zeus’s will shall be dragged to collective doom. I think he will not even assault the gate— not that he is a coward or faint of spirit— but well he knows how he must die in the battle if Loxias’ prophecies shall bear fruit (and either the god says nothing, or speaks what’s true). Yet still, against him, the mighty Lasthenes we shall post in combat, an inhospitable sentry, in mind an old man but a young one in his body’s Vigor, in his swift - flying gaze, and in his hand, not slow to take his spear and drive it where the shield reveals a chink. But success - for men that's the gift of god alone. 66 CHORUS [singing] ANTISTROPHE C Hear, O gods, our righteous prayers and bring them to fulfillment, that the City prosper, diverting the horrors of war onto our invaders. May Zeus strike them and slay them with his bolt outside our walls.

61 MESSENGER So may it prove. Now I speak of the fifth that is stationed at the fifth, the Northern gate, right by Amphion’s tomb that sprung from Zeus. By his spear he swears - and with sure confidence he holds it more in reverence than a god, more precious than his eyes - he will sack the town of Thebes in despite of Zeus. Such the loud vaunt of this creature Sprung of a mountain mother, handsome, something between a man and a young boy. The beard is newly sprouting on his cheeks, the thick, upspringing hair of youth in its bloom His spirit unlike his maiden name is savage, and with a Gorgon look he now advances. He too boasts high as he draws near our gates: for on his brazen shield, his body’s rounded defense, he swings an insult to our City, the Sphinx that ate men raw cunningly wrought, burnished, embossed, secured with rivets there; a man she bears beneath her, a Cadmean, so that at him most of our shafts shall fly. When he comes to the battle, so it seems, he will not play the petty shopkeeper of war nor shame his lengthy journey here - Parthenopaeus of Arcadia. He lives among our enemy presently and pays to Argos a fair wage for his keep, with threats against our walls - may god not grant them! 62 ETEOCLES May they themselves obtain what from the gods they pray against us - they, and their impious boasts! Then would they perish utterly and i11. We have a man to encounter your Arcadian, a man unboasting but his hand looks for the thing that should be done - Actor, the brother of him I spoke of earlier. He will not allow a heedless tongue to flow within our gates and to breed mischief, nor to cross our walls one bearing on his enemy shield the likeness of that most hateful Sphinx. And when the beast is hammered hard and beaten outside our walls she’ll blame the man who tried to carry her in. With the gods’ will, what I say will turn out true. 63 CHORUS [singing] STROPHE C The words go through my heart; the hair stands upright on my head; as I listen to mighty words of impious boasting men. If gods are gods, may they destroy them within our land!

58 MESSENGER Another, the fourth, holds the gate that neighbors Onca Athena, and takes his station with a shout: Hippomedon’s vast frame and giant form. He whirled a disc around - I mean the circle of his shield - until I shuddered. I speak truth. The armorer cannot have been a poor one that put upon the shield this work of art - Typhon hurling from his fiery mouth black smoke, the flickering sister of fire; and the rim that ran around the hollow boss of the shield is solid wrought with coiling snakes. The man himself cried out his war cry: he, inspired by Ares, revels in violence like a Bacchanal with murder in his glance. Take good heed how you deal with such a man; he boasts even now at the gate he will raise panic. 59 ETEOCLES First, Onca Pallas, with her place beside our city neighbor to our gates, will hate the fellow’s violence and keep him off as it were a chill snake from her nestling brood. And then Hyperbius, the stout son of Oenops, has been chosen to match him man for man, right willing, at fortune’s need, to put his fate to question - a man not to be reproached either in form or spirit or in bearing of his arms. Hermes has matched the two with excellent reason, for man with man they shall engage as foes and on their shields shall carry enemy gods. The one has Typhon breathing fire, the other, Hyperbius, has father Zeus in Station sitting upon his shield, and in his hand a burning bolt. No one has ever yet seen Zeus defeated Such on each side are the favors of the gods; we are on the winning side, they with the vanquished if Zeus is truly mightier in war than Typhon. According to the logic of the emblems, Zeus on Hyperbius' shield should be our savior. 60 CHORUS [Singing] ANTISTROPHE B My faith is strong that the one who has Zeus’s adversary on his shield, the unloved form of the earth-born demon, an image hated by men And by the long-living gods, shall lose his head before our gates.

55 MESSENGER Now I shall speak of him that by lot won next Station at the gates. The third lot cast jumped from the upturned brazen helmet in favor of a third man, Eteoclus, that he should lead his regiment in a Charge against the gates of Neïs. He wheels his mares snorting in their nose bands, ready to Charge the gate. Pipes on the bridle bands filled with insolent nostril breath whistle in a foreign note. His shield, too, has its design - and not a small one - a man in armor mounts a ladder’s steps to the enemy’s town to sack it. Loud cries also this man in his written legend, "Ares himself shall not cast me from the tower.” Against him send some Champion trustworthy to turn the yoke of slavery from this City. 56 ETEOCLES He's already sent - and may good luck go with him! His boast is in his hands: he’s Megareus, Creon's son, and of the seed and race of the Sown Men. He will never blench at the furious neighing of horses nor yield the gates. Either by death he’ll pay his nurture’s due to his own land or he will capture two men and city as depicted on the shield and crown his father’s house with the spoils of war. On with another’s boasts - don't begrudge me the story. 57 CHORUS [singing] STROPHE B Good success to you, I pray, O Champion of my house, and to the enemy ill success! As with wild extravagance They boasts loudly against the City with maddened heart, so may Zeus the punisher look on them in wrath.

52 MESSENGER Yes, may the gods grant him good luck. At Electra’s gates stands by lot Capaneus, a giant this man, taller than the other, and his threats breathe inhuman arrogance. Our towers he menaces with terrors - Fortune fulfill them not - for he declares he’ll sack our City With gods' favor or without it: not even Zeus’s weapon striking the earth shall be obstacle to his purpose. The lightning flashes and the thunderbolts he likened to the sun’s warm rays at noontide. The device he bears - a naked man that carries fire, in his hands, ablaze, a torch all ready. In gold are letters that declare “I’ll burn the City." Against this man send - who will meet him? Who will await his threats and never tremble? 53 ETEOCLES This man’s boasts, too, beget us other gain. For of the arrogance of vain men, the true accuser is their own tongue. Capaneus threatens to act - and is prepared to act - in contempt of the gods; and giving exercise to his mouth, in vain joy up the heaven mortal though he is, against Zeus sends his words, shouted in swelling pride. I trust that to him Will justly come the bolt that carries fire in no way like the sun’s warm rays at noontide. Against him, be his lips ever so insolent, a man of fiery spirit has been stationed, strong Polyphontes, a guardian trustworthy, by favor of protecting Artemis and of the other gods. Tell me another that has his place by lot at another gate. 54 CHORUS [singing] ANTISTROPHE A Destruction on him that against the City vaunts huge threats; may the thunderbolt’s blast restrain him before he bursts into my house, before he ravishes me from my maiden room.

45 (Enter the Messenger, from one side) 46 FIRST HALF-CHORUS [Speaking] Here, I think, friends, 
our scout comes bringing some news 
of the enemy - hastily urging the joints of his legs to carry him here. 47 (Enter Eteocles, from the other side) 48 SECOND HALF-CHORUS [speaking] And here is the king himself 
the son of Oedipus, in the nick of time 
to hear the messenger’s story. 
He too is in haste and nimbly steps along. 49 MESSENGER I can declare - I know it well - the enemy’s position: 
how each at the gates has won by lot his station. At the Proetid gate Tydeus now thunders 
but dares not cross Ismenus' ford; 
the prophet forbids. The sacrifices are unfavorable. Tydeus, enraged and thirsting for the fight, threatens, like serpents’ hiss at noonday; he strikes with abuse the wise seer, son of Oecles: “Battle and death make him cringe through cowardice” 
- so he shouts aloud and shakes his threefold shadowing plumes, 
the mane of his crested helm. Beneath his shield, inside, ring brazen bells, a peal of terror, and on the shield 
he bears this arrogant device - a fashioned sky Afire with stars. In the shield’s midst a glorious full moon, night's eye, the eldest of the Stars, stands out. With such mad bragging and with overweening trappings of war he roars along the banks in love with battle, like the horse 
that chafes against the bit, high-mettled, 
impatient, hearing the trumpet’s sound. Against this Champion whom will you set? When the bolts are shot back at the Proetid gates, who will be Champion fit to deserve our trust? 50 ETEOCLES No equipment of a man will make me tremble. Devices on a shield deal no one wounds. The plumes and bells bite not without the spear. And for this night you speak of on his shield Glistening with all the Stars of heaven - someone may find his folly prophetic to himself. For if in death night fall upon his eyes, to him that bears this pompous blazonry it shall be truly and most justly eloquent, and he shall make his insolence prophesy against himself. I nominate against him as Champion of these gates to challenge Tydeus, the worthy son of Astacus - right noble, one honoring the throne of Modesty and hating insolent words. He’s not a doer of anything shameful; and his way is never a coward’s. From those Sown Men whom Ares spared his root is sprung - quite native is Melanippus to this land. The outcome shall Ares with his dice determine; but Justice, blood of his blood, now sends him forth, surely, to turn the enemy’s spear away from the mother that has borne him, his homeland. 51 CHORUS [singing] STROPHE A May the gods grant good luck to our Champion, since justly he comes forward, a fighter for our City. But I fear to look upon the bloody ends of those dying on behalf of those they love.

44 CHORUS [singing] STROPHE A I heed him, but through fear my spirit knows no sleep; And neighbors to my heart, anxieties kindle terror of the host that beleaguers us, as the all—fearing dove dreads for its nestlings’ sake the snakes that menace them. For some of them 
advance against our walls 
with full armor and full ranks what will become of me? - while others hurl jagged rocks upon our citizens O gods of Zeus’s family, 
I pray you - protect on every front the City and the army, the Cadmus-born! ANTISTROPHE A What country will you take in exchange, 
better than this one, If you abandon this deep-soiled land to her enemies, und Dirce’s water 
fairest to drink of all that come 
from Poseidon the earth-upholder, 
and Tethys’ sons? 
Therefore, you city-guarding gods, upon the men outside our forts rain slaughtering destruction and ruin 
that will cast away their shields: 
and for these citizens here win glory and of the City be the rescuers. Stand fair in your places to receive our shrill prayers STROPHE B Pittf'ul it would be for this City, 
so ancient, to be cast to the house of Death, a spear-booty, a slave, in crumbling ashes, 
shamefully sacked by an Achaean man, 
with the gods’ consent; 
that its women be dragged away, ah! 
captives, young und old, dragged by the hair, as horses by the mane, 
and their clothing torn about them. The City wails as it’s emptied out and the captive spoil with mingled cries is led to its doom. This heavy fate is what I fear. ANTISTROPHE B Woeful is it for maidens new-reared and unripe, before the marriage rites, 
to tread this bitter journey from their homes. 
I would say that even the dead are better off than this. Ah, unlucky indeed the fate of a City captured here, there, everywhere murder, fire, and rapine, all the City polluted by smoke, and the breath of Ares on it
maddened, 
desecrating piety, slaying the people. STROPHE C There is tumult through the town. All around it hangs a towering net: man stands against man with the spear 
and is killed. Screams, bloody and wild, echo around, from babies new—nourished at the breast. The roving bands of pillagers are all brothers; 
he that has plunder meets with another; he that has none calls him that has none, 
wishing to have a partner, eager for a share 
neither less nor yet equal. From such things what shall one predict? ANTISTROPHE C All sorts of grain fallen, strewn on the ground, 
pain the eye, 
with fierce new owners. The great, profuse gifts of the earth in reckless Streams of waste 
are poured out. The girls, new servants, new to misery, 
must endure a war captive’s bed, the bed of a successful man. Theirs the expectation 
of night’s consummation 
with the triumphant enemy, as help for their tearful sorrows.

21 CHORUS ANTISTROPHE C 
 It was but now that I heard 
the noise and the confusion, so that trembling in fear I came to this citadel, 
 this honored und sacred seat. 22 ETEOCLES If you shall learn of men dying or wounded, do not be eager to anticipate it with cries, 
 for slaughtered men are Ares’ favorite food. 23 CHORUS LEADER [now speaking] The snorting of horses! There, I hear it. 24 ETEOCLES Do not listen; do not hear too much. 25 CHORUS LEADER Our city roans from its foundation: we’re surrounded. 26 ETEOCLES 
 It's sufficient for me to think of this, not you. 27 CHORUS LEADER I am afraid: the din at the gates grows louder. 28 ETEOCLES 
 Silence! Do not speak of this throughout the City. 29 CHORUS LEADER 
 O blessed assembly, do not betray this fort. 30 ETEOCLES Damnation! Can you not endure in silence? 31 CHORUS LEADER Fellow-citizen gods, grant me not to be a slave. 32 ETEOCLES You’re enslaving yourselves, and me, and all the city. 33 CHORUS LEADER O Zeus, all-mighty, your bolt upon our foes! 34 ETEOCLES O Zeus, what a tribe you have given us in women! 35 CHORUS LEADER Useless too are men, when their town’s been captured. 36 ETEOCLES These are ill-omened words, when your hands are on the images! 37 CHORUS LEADER Fear captures my tongue, and my spirit is quite gone. 38 ETEOCLES Grant me, I pray you, the small thing I ask. 39 CHORUS LEADER Speak it quickly, that I may know at once. 40 ETEOCLES Silence, you wretches, don’t frighten your friends. 41 CHORUS LEADER I am silent; with others I’ll endure what is fated. 42 ETEOCLES I like this word better than those before. Furthermore, get you away from the statues, 
and being so, utter a better prayer: 
“May the gods stand as our allies.” 
So first hear my prayer and then offer your own - 
a holy gracious paean of victory, the cry of sacrifice, 
as is Greek custom, joy to our friends, dissolving fear of foes. Gods of the city and community, lords of its fields and its assembly places; springe of Dirce, waters of Ismenus - to you my vow: if all go well with us, 
 if the City is saved, my people shall redden 
your hearths with the bloodof sacrificed sheep, and with the blood of bulls slaughtered to honor the gods I shall myself dedicate trophies, spoils of my enemies, their garments fixed
 on spear points, in your sanctuaries.
 (To the chorus) These be your prayers, unlamenting 
with no vain wild panting and moaning: 
for none of that will bring escape from destiny. I will take six men, myself to make a seventh, 
and go to post them at the city’s gates, 
opponents of the enemy, in gallant style 
before quick messengers are on us 
and their words of haste burn us with urgency. 43 (Exit Eteocles to the side)

11 CHORUS (singing in alternation with Eteocles, who speaks in response) STROPHE A Dear son of Oedipus, the bumping rattle of the chariots, rattle, rattle, I am afraid When I hear, When the naves of the axles screech in their running, 
 When the fire - forged bits speak ringingly rudder oars in horses’ mouths. 12 ETEOCLES What - shall the sailor, then, 
who leaves the stern and runs to the prow 
find any device for safety 
 when his vessel is foundering in the sea waves? 13 CHORUS ANTISTROPHE A But it was to the images of the gods, the ancient images, I ran, trusting in the gods, when the stony blizzard crashed upon our gates: that was when I leaped up in fear 
and betook myself to prayer 
to the Blessed Ones, for our City, 
that they may make their strength its protection. 14 ETEOCLES
 For protection pray that our towers hold off 
the enemy’s spears. That shall be as the gods dispose. 
 But the gods, they say, of a captured town desert it. 15 CHORUS STROPHE B Never in my lifetime, never may this 
assembly of gods desert us: 
never may I live to see this City overrun, 
 an enemy soldiery putting the torch to it. 16 ETEOCLES Do not call upon the gods 
and then take foolish counsel. Obedience is mother to success, 
and wife of salvation - so runs the proverb. 17 CHORUS ANTISTROPHE B This is true, but the strength of god 
is still greater‚ Oftentimes 
when someone is hopelessly sunk in misfortune, 
 a god raises him, even from the greatest trials 
 with the clouds hanging high above his eyes. 18 ETEOCLES But it is men’s part, the sacrifice, 
the consultation of the gods, 
 when the enemy assaults us; 
it is yours to be silent 
and stay within doors. 19 CHORUS STROPHE C It is thanks to the gods 
that we have our City unconquered; 
 It is thanks to them that our towers reject the mob foemen. What should be resented in these words? 20 ETEOCLES I do not grudge your honoring the gods. 
 But lest you turn our citizens into cowards, 
 be quiet and not over-fearful.

1 (Enter Eteocles with attendants from the side, to confront a crowd of Thebans.) 2 ETEOCLES You citizens of Cadmus, there is need for good and timely counsel from the one who watches over the progress of the ship and guides the rudder, his eye not drooped in sleep. For if we win success, god is the cause, but if - may it not Chance so - there is disaster, 
throughout the town, voiced by its citizens, 
a multitudinous much—repeated prelude cries on one name 
“Eteocles” with groans: may Zeus the Protector 
keep this from the City of Cadmus, 
proving faithful to his title. You all must help her now - both you 
who still are short of your full manhood and you 
who have bodies grown to greater bulk and strength - 
each of you to such duties as befit you: help the City, 
help the altars of your country’s gods; 
save their honors from destruction; help your children, 
help Earth your mother. She reared you, on her kindly surface, 
crawling babies, welcomed all the trouble of your nurture, 
reared you to live here and to carry a shield in her defense, 
loyally, against such needs as this. 
And up to this day god kindly has inclined for us 
who have been held in Siege so long: the war, with gods’ help, 
goes quite favorably. But now the prophet, 
tending the oracular birds with skill infallible, 
through ears and mind - no need of fire - 
the master of these prophecies, says 
the enemy frames a plot this night 
for the greatest Achaean assault upon us. 
All to the battlements, to the gates of the towers! Haste, in full armor, man the breastworks: stand on the scaffolding
and at the exit gates be firm, abide, your hearts confident: fear not that mighty mob of foreigners. God will dispose all well. I have sent scouts and spies upon that host, 
who will not - well I know it - make the journey vainly; 
and by their information
I shall be armed against enemy stratagems. 3 (Enter Messenger from the other side.) 4 MESSENGER Eteocles, great lord of the Cadmeans,
I come bringing a clear word about the army out there, and about the way things stand: myself 
I have seen the things that I speak of.
 There were seven men, fierce regiment commanders;
 they cut bulls’ throats into an iron-rimmed
shield, and with hands touched the bulls’ blood,
 taking their oaths by Ares and Enyo,
 and by the bloodthirsty god of Terror,
 either to smash and lay your City level with the ground, sacked, or by their death 
to make a bloody paste of this same soil of yours. Remembrances of themselves for parents at home 
their hands have hung upon Adrastus’ chariot: their tears ran down, but never a word 
of pity was in their mouths. Their spirits were hard as iron and ablaze breathed courage: war looked through their lion eyes. You will not wait long for confirmation of this my news; I left them casting lots how each should lead his regiment against your gates. In view of this, choose the best men within your city 
and set them at the entrance gates - quickly, for near already the armed host of Argives comes in a cloud of dust, with flecks of white, 
panted from horses’ lungs, staining the ground. You, like the skillful captain of a ship barricade your town before the blast of Ares strikes it in storm: we already hear the roar of the armed land wave. Take quickest opportunity 
for all these things and I for the rest will keep my eye, a trusty day watcher. Thanks to my clear reports you shall know 
whatever happens outside the gates, 
and come to no harm. 5 (Exit messenger)
 6 ETEOCLES O Zeus and Earth and gods that guard the City,
and mighty curse, the fury of my father,
do not root out this City of mine, do not
give her to ruin and destruction, do not
give her to capture nor her homes and hearths. 
This is a town that speaks with a Greek tongue. 
City and land of the Cadmeans are free: do not bind her in slavish yoke; be her protector. 
I think I speak for everybody’s good, for a City prospering 
gives honor to the gods. 7
(Exit Eteocles to one side. Enter the Chorus from the other side.) 8 CHORUS (singing)

 My worries are great and fearful: I cry aloud: the army has left the camp und runs free. Look at this forward-rushing river, 
 the great tide of horsemen! 
I see a cloud of dust, sky-high, and am convinced; 
 a messenger clear und truthful, though voiceless. Trampling hoofs on the earth of my country, 
 the sound approaches my ears. It floats, it roars like a resistless mountain waterfall. O gods, O goddesses, turn aside the trouble raised! Over the walls comes the noise; the army of the white shield springs forward, 
 well equipped, hastening upon our City. Who will protect us? 
Who will be our Champion, what god or goddess? Shall I kneel at the images of the gods? 
 O Blessed Ones, throned in peace, it is time to cling to your images. Why delay und wail too much? Do you hear or do you not 
the rattle of shields? When, if not now, shall we hang Robes und garlands on your statues, supplicating? 
I see the sound - the clatter of many spears! What will you do, Ares, 
ancient lord of this country, will you betray your own land? O spirit of the golden helmet, 
look down upon us, 
look down upon a City which once you dearly loved. STROPHE A City-guarding gods of land, come, come all of you, Loo upon us, a band of virgins, suppliants against slavery! Around our city the wave of warriors, 
Wich waving plumes, roars; 
 blasts of the war god stir them. Ah, Zeus, Father all-ruling, all-fulfilling, protect us at all costs from capture by our foes! For the Argives are encircling Cadmus' City; 
 fear of their warlike arms dismays us. There is murder in the clanging harnesses 
 and the bits between their horses’ jaws. Seven proud captains of the host, 
with harness and spear, have won their place by lot; they stand Champions at seven gates. ANTISTROPHE A
 O powerful battle—loving daughter of Zeus, 
 save our City, Pallas! And the horse—loving ruler of the sea, 
 king of the trident, Poseidon, grant deliverance from fear, deliverance. You, Ares, ah! Protect the City 
that bears Cadmus’ name; Show your care for it, in manifest presence. 
 And Cypris, who are our ancestress, turn destruction away. 
 We are sprung from your blood 
and we approach you and cry
 with prayers for the ears of the gods. 
 And you, wolf god, be a very wolf to the enemy hast; und you, daughter of Leto, 
 make ready your bow.

 STROPHE B
 Ah, ah, the rattle of chariots round the City: I hear it. O Lady Hera, the groaning axles of the loaded wheels! Beloved Artemis, the air is mad with the whirr of spears! What will happen to our City, what will become of it, 
what is the end that the gods are bringing? ANTISTROPHE B Ah, Ah, There comes a shower of stones
 On the top of the battlements.
 O beloved Apollo! There is the rattle of bronze-bound shields at our gates! 
O son of Zeus 
from whom comes war's fulfillment 
 in the battle’s holy outcome! O Athena, 
blessed queen, champion of the city, 
 protect your seven-gated home! STROPHE C
 O gods all-sufficient, O gods and goddesses, perfecters, protectors of our country's forts
 do not betray this city, spear-won, to a foreign-tongued enemy. Hear O hear the prayers, hand outstretched, 
 of these maidens supplicating injustice.
 ANTISTROPHE C O beloved spirits that encompass our city to its deliverance, show how much you love it: bethink you of the public sacrifices, as we have thought of you, rescue us. 
 Remember, I pray you, the rites with loving sacrifice offered by this city. 9 (Enter Eteocles from the side)