Hear, then, who has his post at the next gate.
Eteocles is his name, him the third lot,
Forth from the brazen helmet leaping, set
To lead his band against the Eastern gate.
There to and fro he wheels his fiery steeds,
That pant in their caparisons to charge
The portal, and with snorting nostrils proud
Make uncouth music through their mouth-pieces.
Nor lowly the device upon his shield:
A man-at-arms is on a ladder seen
Scaling the wall of a beleaguered town,
And underneath the vaunting legend dares
Ares himself to beat back the assault.
Against this champion you must bid go forth
One that can save our town from slavery.
ETEOCLES.
He goes—is gone, with victory on his helm;
A chief whose boasting is in deeds, not words,
Megareus, of earth-born lineage, Creon's son.
Him shall no snortings of impetuous steeds
Scare from the gate, but either with his blood
He will repay the earth that gave him life,
Or both the warriors and the town to boot
Bear off and with the spoils adorn his home.
Give us some more vainglory; stint not speech.
CHORUS.
Good luck with him that guards my city go,
Ill luck with the o'erweening foe.
High is their boast; may Zeus, the avenger, lay them low.
MESSENGER.
At the fourth gate, where stands Athene's fane
Of Onke hight, another chief appears,
Towering with giant bulk—Hippomedon.
Broad as a threshing-floor his buckler is,
And terror seized me as he whirled it round.
Nor was it any common craftsman's hand
That wrought the emblem which that buckler bears,
A Typhon vomiting with fiery mouth,
Black clouds of smoke, the wavering mate of fire.
And all around his hollow buckler's rim
A coil of twining snakes is riveted.
Loud is his battle-cry. By Ares fired
He like a Maenad storms and raves for fight.
Against this champion's onset guard thee well;
Already rout is threatened at the gate.
ETEOCLES.
The deity herself that has her fane
Hard by the gates, abhorring insolence,
Will ward this deadly serpent from her brood.
But as our man, valiant Hyperbius,
The son of Oenops, to the lists has gone,
Ready at need to brave the risks of war,
In form, in spirit, and in arms alike
Reproachless. Hermes well has matched the pair.
For as each champion is the other's foe,
So are the gods that on their shields they bear:
Hippomedon has Typhon breathing fire,
But on the buckler of Hyperbius
Is Zeus the unconquered, thunderbolt in hand;
And who e'er knew the arm of Zeus to fail?
Such are the patron deities of whom
The weaker are the foe's, the mightier ours.
So will it fare with those they patronise,
If Zeus o'er Typhon has the mastery;
For Zeus, the saviour, on Hyperbius' shield
Blazoned, will save his liegeman in the fight.