Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (7 page)

[271]
[
Here Eteocles
makes his vow
.] And now to the gods who guard our city’s land, both those
who dwell in the plain and those who watch over its meeting-place, to Dirce’s
springs and the waters of Ismenus, I vow that, if things go well and the city
is saved, the citizens shall redden the gods’ altars with the blood of sheep
and sacrifice bulls to the gods — this is my vow — and offer trophies, while I
will crown their holy temples with the spoil of the enemy’s spear-pierced
garments.

[280]
 Make this kind of prayer to the
gods, without your previous lamentation, nor with wild and useless panting; for
you will not escape your destiny any the more. As for me, I will go station six
men, with me as the seventh, as champions to oppose the enemy in proud fashion
at the seven exits in the wall, even before speedy messengers or swift-rushing
reports arrive and inflame us with urgent need.
[
Exit.
]

CHORUS
[288]
I heed
him, but through terror my heart finds no repose. Anxieties border upon my
heart and kindle my fear of the army surrounding our walls, as a trembling dove
fears for her children in the nest because of snakes that are dangerous
bed-fellows. For against our fortifications some are advancing with all their
men, all in formation. Ah, what will become of me? Others are hurling jagged
boulders at the citizens on all sides. O Gods born of Zeus, by every means
rescue our city and people, sprung from Cadmus!

[304]
What more
fertile plain will you find in place of ours,  if you abandon to the enemy
this deep-soiled land and the water of Dirce which is the most nourishing of
the streams that earth-encircling Poseidon and Tethys’ children pour forth?
Therefore, divine guardians of the city, hurl murderous destruction on the men
outside our walls and panic that makes them throw away their weapons, and so
win glory for these citizens. Defend the city and remain in possession of your
home and throne  in answer to our shrill, wailing prayers!

[321]
It is a great
cause for grief to hurl a primeval city to Hades in this way, quarry and slave
of the spear, ravaged shamefully in the dusty ashes by an Argive man through
divine will. And grief, too, to let the women be led away captive — ah me! — young
and old, dragged by the hair, like horses, with their cloaks torn off them. A
city, emptied, shouts out as the human booty perishes with mingled cries. A
heavy fate, indeed, my fear anticipates.

[332]
It is a
lamentable thing that modest girls should be plucked unripe, before the
customary rites, and should make a loathsome journey from their homes. What? I
declare that the dead will do better than the captives; for when a city is
subdued — ah, ah! — many and miserable are its sufferings.  Man drags off
man, or kills, or sets fires; the whole city is defiled with smoke. Mad Ares
storms, subduing the people and polluting reverence.

[345]
 Tumults
swell through the town, and against it a towering net is advancing. Man falls
before man beneath the spear. Sobs and wails over gore-covered babes, just
nursed at their mothers’ breasts, resound. Rape and pillage of those fleeing
through the city are the deeds of one’s own blood. Plunderer joins up with
plunderer; the empty-handed calls to the empty-handed, wishing to have a
partner, each greedy for neither less nor equal share. Reason exists for
imagining what will come after this.

[357]
The earth’s
varied fruits, fallen to the ground, give pain, a bitter sight for the
maid-servants. In jumbled confusion the abundant gifts of earth are carried
away by reckless looting waves. Young women, enslaved, suffer a new evil: a bed
of misery, prize of the conquering enemy’s spear, as though of a prospering
husband — they can expect the coming of the nightly rite, which gives aid to
tears and anguish!

[
The Scout is
seen approaching from one side; Eteocles from the other.
]

LEADER OF THE FIRST HALF-CHORUS
[369]
The scout,
I believe,  is bringing some fresh news of the army to us, my friends,
since the joints of his legs are hastily speeding as they carry him on his
mission.

LEADER OF THE SECOND HALF-CHORUS
[372]
And,
indeed, here is our lord himself, the son of Oedipus, at the right moment to
hear the messenger’s report. Haste makes his stride uneven, too.

SCOUT
[375]
 It is
with certain knowledge that I will give my account of the enemy’s actions, how
each man according to lot has been posted at the gates. Tydeus is already
storming opposite the Proetid gates; but the seer will not allow him to ford
the Ismenus because the omens from the sacrifices are not favorable. Yet
Tydeus, raging and eager for battle, shouts like a serpent hissing at high
noon, and lashes skilled Oecles’ son, with the taunt that he cringes in
cowardice before death and battle. With such cries he shakes three
overshadowing plumes,his helmet’s mane, while from under his shield, bells
forged of bronze therein ring out a fearsome clang. He has this haughty symbol
on his shield: a well-crafted sky, ablaze with stars, and the brightness of the
full moon shining in the center of the shield, the moon that is the most
revered of the stars, the eye of night. Raving so in his arrogant armor, he
shouts beside the river-bank, craving battle, like some charger that fiercely
champs at the bit as he waits in eagerness for the trumpet’s war-cry. Whom will
you send against him? Who will be capable of standing as our champion at the
Proetid gate when its bars are loosened?

ETEOCLES
[397]
I would
not tremble before any mere ornaments on a man. Nor can signs and symbols wound
and kill — crests and bell have no bite without the spear.  And regarding
this “night” which you describe on his shield, sparkling with heaven’s stars — perhaps
the folly of it might yield to one some prophetic understanding. For should
night fall on this man’s eyes as he dies, then to its bearer this arrogant
symbol would prove rightly and justly named; and it is against himself that he
will have prophesied this outrageous violence. Now as for me, against Tydeus I
will station the trusty son of Astacus as defender of this gate, since he is
full noble and  reveres the throne of Honor and detests proud speech. He
is slow to act disgracefully, and he has no cowardly nature. His race springs
from the men sown of the dragon’s teeth, from one of those whom Ares spared,
and so Melanippus is truly born of our land. Ares will decide the outcome with
a throw of the dice; but Justice, his kin by blood, indeed sends this man forth
to keep the enemy spear from the mother that gave him birth.
[
Exit Melanippus.
]

CHORUS
[417]
May the
gods grant success to our champion, since he rises up in a just cause, to
battle for his city! But I shudder to watch the bloody deaths of men cut down
for the sake of their own people.

SCOUT
[422]
Yes, may
the gods so grant success to this man. Capaneus is stationed at the Electran
gates, another giant of a man, greater than the one described before. But his
boast is too proud for a mere human, and he makes terrifying threats against
our battlements — which, I hope, chance will not fulfil! For he says he will
utterly destroy the city with god’s will or without it, and that not even
conflict with Zeus, though it should fall before him in the plain, will stand
in his way. The god’s lightning and thunderbolts he compares to midday heat.
For his shield’s symbol he has a man without armor bearing fire, and the torch,
his weapon, blazes in his hands; and in golden letters he says “I will burn the
city.” Against such a man make your dispatch — who will meet him in combat, who
will stand firm without trembling before his boasts?

ETEOCLES
[437]
Here too
gain follows with interest from gain. The tongue proves in the end to be an
unerring accuser of men’s wicked thoughts. Capaneus makes his threats, ready to
act, irreverent toward the gods, and giving his tongue full exercise in wicked
glee, he, though a mere mortal, sends a loud and swollen boast to Zeus in heaven.
But I trust that the fire-bearing thunderbolt will justly come to him, and when
it comes it will not be anything like the sun’s mid-day heat. And against him,
even though he is a big talker, a man of fiery spirit, mighty Polyphontes, is
stationed, a dependable sentinel  with the good will of guardian Artemis
and the other gods. Now tell me about another one allotted to other gates!
[
Exit Polyphontes.
]

CHORUS
[452]
Death to
him who exults so arrogantly over the city! May the thunderbolt stop him before
he leaps into my home and plunders me from my maiden chambers with his
outrageous spear!

SCOUT
[457]
Now I will
tell you about the man who next drew station at the gates. The third lot leaped
out of the upturned bronze helmet for Eteoclus,  to hurl his band against
the Neistan gates. He whirls his horses as they snort through their bridles,
eager to fall against the gate. Their muzzles whistle in a barbarian way,
filled with the breath of their haughty nostrils. His shield is decorated in
great style: an armored man climbs a ladder’s rungs to mount an enemy tower
that he wants to destroy. This one, too, shouts in syllables of written letters
that even Ares could not hurl him from the battlements. Send a dependable
opponent against this man, too, to keep the yoke of slavery from our city.

ETEOCLES
[472]
I would
send this man here, and with good fortune. [
Exit Megareus.
] Indeed, he
has already been sent, his only boast in his hands, Megareus, Creon’s seed, of
the race of the sown-men.  He will not withdraw from the gate in fear of
the thunder of the horses’ furious snorting; but either he will die and pay the
earth the full price of his nurture, or will capture two men and the city on
the shield, and then adorn his father’s house with the spoils. Tell me about another’s
boasts and do not begrudge me the full tale!

CHORUS
[481]
O champion
of my home, I pray that this man will have good fortune, and that there will be
bad fortune for his enemies. As they boast too much against the city in their
frenzied mind, so, too, may Zeus the Requiter look on them in anger!

SCOUT
[486]
Another,
the fourth, has the gate near Onca Athena and takes his stand with a shout,
Hippomedon, tremendous in form and figure. I shuddered in fear as he spun a
huge disk — the circle of his shield, I mean — I cannot deny it. The
symbol-maker who put the design on his shield was no lowly craftsman: the
symbol is Typhon, spitting out of his fire-breathing mouth a dark, thick smoke,
the darting sister of fire. And the rim of the hollow-bellied shield is
fastened all around with snaky braids. The warrior himself has raised the
war-cry and, inspired by Ares he raves for battle like a maenad, with a look to
inspire fear. We must put up a good defense against the assault of such a man,
for already Rout is boasting of victory at the gate.

ETEOCLES
[501]
First Onca
Pallas, who dwells near the city, close by the gate, and who loathes
outrageousness in a man, will fend him off like a dangerous snake away from
nestlings. Moreover, Hyperbius, Oenops’ trusty son, is chosen to match him, man
to man, as he is eager to search out his fate in the crisis that chance has
wrought — neither in form, nor spirit nor in the wielding of his arms does he
bear reproach. Hermes has appropriately pitted them against each other. For the
man is hostile to the man he faces in battle, and the gods on their shields
also meet as enemies. The one has fire-breathing Typhon, while father Zeus
stands upright on Hyperbius’ shield, his lightening bolt aflame in his hand.
And no one yet has seen Zeus conquered. Such then is the favor of the divine
powers: we are with the victors, they with the vanquished, if Zeus in fact
proves stronger in battle than Typhon. And it is likely that the mortal
adversaries will fare as do their gods; and so, in accordance with the symbol,
Zeus will be a savior for Hyperbius since he resides on his shield.
[
Exit Hyperbius.
]

CHORUS
[521]
I am sure
that Zeus’ antagonist, since he has on his shield the unloved form of an
earth-born deity, an image hated by both mortals and the long-lived gods, will
drop his head in death before the gate.

SCOUT
[526]
Let it be
so! Next I describe the fifth man who is stationed at the fifth, the Northern
gate opposite the tomb of Amphion, Zeus’s son. He swears by his spear which, in
his confidence, he holds more to be revered than a god and more precious than
his eyes, that he will sack the city of the Cadmeans in spite of Zeus. He says
this, the beautiful child of a mountain-bred mother — a warrior, half man, half
boy, and his beard’s first growth is just now advancing on his cheeks, his
youth in first bloom, thick, upspringing hair. But now he makes his advance
with a savage heart and a terrifying look, not at all like the maidens he’s
named for. Nor does he take his stand at the gate unboasting, but wields our
city’s shame on his bronze-forged shield, his body’s circular defence, on which
the Sphinx who eats men raw is cleverly fastened with bolts, her body embossed
and gleaming. She carries under her a single Cadmean, so that against this man
chiefly our missiles will be hurled. He does not seem to have come to do any
petty trading in the battle, nor to shame the making of his long journey — he
is Parthenopaeus of Arcadia. Such is the man, and aiming to make full payment
for the fine support given him in Argos,
his adopted land, he now threatens our fortifications — may God not fulfil his
threats!