Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments

Chor. Nay, dearest friend, thou son of Œdipus,
Be ye not like to him with that ill name.
It is enough Cadmeian men should fight
Against the Argives. That blood may be cleansed;
But death so murderous of two brothers born,
This is pollution that will ne'er wax old.

Eteoc. If a man must bear evil, let him still
Be without shame – sole profit that in death.
[No glory comes of base and evil deeds].

Chor. What dost thou crave, my son? Let no ill fate,
Frenzied and hot for war,
Carry thee headlong on;
Check the first onset of an evil lust.

Eteoc. Since God so hotly urges on the matter,
Let all of Laios' race whom Phœbos hates,
Drift with the breeze upon Cokytos' wave.

Chor. An over-fierce and passionate desire
Stirs thee and pricks thee on
To work an evil deed
Of guilt of blood thy hand should never shed.

Eteoc. Nay, my dear father's curse, in full-grown hate,
Dwells on dry eyes that cannot shed a tear,
And speaks of gain before the after-doom.

Chor. But be not thou urged on. The coward's name
Shall not be thine, for thou
Hast ordered well thy life.
Dark-robed Erinnys enters not the house,
When at men's hands the Gods
Accept their sacrifice.

Eteoc. As for the Gods, they scorned us long ago,
And smile but on the offering of our deaths;
What boots it then on death's doom still to fawn?

Chor. Nay do it now, while yet 'tis in thy power;[115 - Perhaps “since death is at nigh hand.”]
Perchance may fortune shift
With tardy change of mood,
And come with spirit less implacable:
At present fierce and hot
She waxeth in her rage.

Eteoc. Yea, fierce and hot the Curse of Œdipus;
And all too true the visions of the night,
My father's treasured store distributing.

Chor. Yield to us women, though thou lov'st us not.

Eteoc. Speak then what may be done, and be not long.

Chor. Tread not the path that to the seventh gate leads.

Eteoc. Thou shall not blunt my sharpened edge with words.

Chor. And yet God loves the victory that submits.[116 - The Chorus means that if Eteocles would allow himself to be overcome in this contest of his wishes with their prayers the Gods would honour that defeat as if it were indeed a victory. He makes answer that the very thought of being overcome implied in the word “defeat” in anything is one which the true warrior cannot bear.]

Eteoc. That word a warrior must not tolerate.

Chor. Dost thou then haste thy brother's blood to shed?

Eteoc. If the Gods grant it, he shall not 'scape harm.

    [Exeunt Eteocles, Scout, and Captains

Strophe I

Chor. I fear her might who doth this whole house wreck,
The Goddess unlike Gods,
The prophetess of evil all too true,
The Erinnys of thy father's imprecations,
Lest she fulfil the curse,
O'er-wrathful, frenzy-fraught,
The curse of Œdipus,
Laying his children low.
This Strife doth urge them on.

Antistrophe I

And now a stranger doth divide the lots,
The Chalyb,[117 - The “Chalyb stranger” is the sword, thought of as taking its name from the Skythian tribe of the Chalybes, between Colchis and Armenia, and passing through the Thrakians into Greece.] from the Skythians emigrant,
The stern distributor of heaped-up wealth,
The iron that hath assigned them just so much
Of land as theirs, no more,
As may suffice for them
As grave when they shall fall,
Without or part or lot
In the broad-spreading plains.

Strophe II

And when the hands of each
The other's blood have shed,
And the earth's dust shall drink
The black and clotted gore,
Who then can purify?