Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments

Chor. Ah woe! ah woe!

Xer. Go to thy home with wailing loud and long.

Chor. O land of Persia, full of lamentations!

Xer. Through the town raise your cries.

Chor. We raise them, yea, we raise.

Xer. Wail, wail, ye men that walked so daintily.

Chor. O land of Persia, full of lamentations!
Woe; woe!

Xer. Alas for those who in the triremes perished!

Chor. With broken cries of woe will I escort thee.

    [Exeunt in procession, wailing, and
    rending their robes.

THE SEVEN WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THEBES

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Eteocles

Scout

Herald

Ismene

Antigone

Chorus of Theban Maidens

ARGUMENT. —When Œdipus king of Thebes discovered that he had unknowingly been the murderer of his father, and had lived in incest with his mother, he blinded himself. And his two sons, Eteocles and Polyneikes, wishing to banish the remembrance of these horrors from the eyes of men, at first kept him in confinement. And he, being wroth with them, prayed that they might divide their inheritance with the sword. And they, in fear lest the prayer should be accomplished, agreed to reign in turn, each for a year, and Eteocles, as the elder of the two, took the first turn. But when at the end of the year Polyneikes came to ask for the kingdom, Eteocles refused to give way, and sent him away empty. So Polyneikes went to Argos and married the daughter of Adrastos the king of that country, and gathered together a great army under six great captains, himself going as the seventh, and led it against Thebes. And so they compassed it about, and at each of the seven gates of the city was stationed one of the divisions of the army.

Note.—The Seven against Thebes appears to have been produced B.C. 472, the year after The Persians.

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

Scene. – Thebes in front of the Acropolis

Enter Eteocles, and crowd of Theban Citizens

Eteoc. Ye citizens of Cadmos, it behoves
That one who standeth at the stern of State
Guiding the helm, with eyes unclosed in sleep,
Should speak the things that meet occasion's need.
For should we prosper, God gets all the praise:
But if (which God forbid!) disaster falls,
Eteocles, much blame on one head falling,
Would find his name the by-word of the State,[73 - Probably directed against the tendency of the Athenians, as shown in their treatment of Miltiades, and later in that of Thukydides, to punish their unsuccessful generals, “pour encourager les autres.”]
Sung in the slanderous ballads of the town;
Yes, and with groanings, which may Zeus the Averter,
True to his name, from us Cadmeians turn!
But now 'tis meet for all, both him who fails
Of full-grown age, and him advanced in years,
Yet boasting still a stalwart strength of frame,
And each in life's full prime, as it is fit,
The State to succour and the altars here
Of these our country's Gods, that never more
Their votive honours cease, – to help our sons,
And Earth, our dearest mother and kind nurse;
For she, when young ye crept her kindly plain,
Bearing the whole charge of your nourishment,
Reared you as denizens that bear the shield,
That ye should trusty prove in this her need.
And now thus far God turns the scale for us;
For unto us, beleaguered these long days,
War doth in most things with God's help speed well,
But now, as saith the seer, the augur skilled,[74 - Teiresias, as in Sophocles (Antig. v. 1005), sitting, though blind, and listening, as the birds flit by him, and the flames burn steadily or fitfully; a various reading gives “apart from sight.”]
Watching with ear and mind, apart from fire,
The birds oracular with mind unerring,
He, lord and master of these prophet-arts,
Says that the great attack of the Achæans
This very night is talked of, and their plots
Devised against the town. But ye, haste all
Unto the walls and gateways of the forts;
Rush ye full-armed, and fill the outer space,
And stand upon the platforms of the towers,
And at the entrance of the gates abiding
Be of good cheer, nor fear ye overmuch
The host of aliens. Well will God work all.
And I have sent my scouts and watchers forth,
And trust their errand is no fruitless one.
I shall not, hearing them, be caught with guile.

    [Exeunt Citizens.

Enter one of the Scouts

Mess. King of Cadmeians, great Eteocles,
I from the army come with tidings clear,
And am myself eye-witness of its acts;
For seven brave warriors, leading armèd bands,
Cutting a bull's throat o'er a black-rimmed shield,