The foe of Zeus bearing that form of hate,
By gods and mortals reprobate,
The hell fiend soon, I trust, shall fall before the gate.
MESSENGER.
So may it be, now to the fifth I come
Whose station is at the Borraean gates,
Hard by the tomb that holds Amphion's dust.
This champion swears by what he higher deems
Than god and dearer than his eyes, his spear,
That he will Cadmus' city storm and sack
In heaven's despite. So vows the wood nymph's son,
That fair-faced stripling, scarcely yet a man,
For on his cheek still blooms the down of youth.
Marshal his mood and fierce his countenance,
And all unlike the maiden name he bears.
Nor does he lack his share of boastfulness,
For on the shield that with its brazen round
His body fenced, he bore our city's shame,
The rav'ning Sphynx, in burnished effigy
Empaled, and grasping in her felon claws
The limbs of a Cadmean citizen;
Which on the bearer drew a shower of darts.
Battle to huckster is not his intent,
Nor to have marched so far and marched in vain.
His name Parthenopaeus, Arcady
His home, Argos his nurse, whom to requite
He threatens that from which heaven save our towers.
ETEOCLES.
Yes, only let their thoughts be paid them home
[Footnote: Two lines in this speech appear to have been lost.]
By the just gods, they with their impious vaunts
Will be consumed and perish utterly.
To cope with thy Arcadian goes a man
Modest in speech but nowise slack in deed,
Actor, his brother of whom last I spake,
Who will not let a tongue without an arm
Within our gates rave to our overthrow,
Nor entrance give the foe, who on his shield
To flout us bears the hated effigy.
His Sphynx, midst rattling darts, will hardly thank
Him that advanced her to our battlements.—
Heaven grant that as I say the event may be.
CHORUS.
Thy tidings pierce my fluttering breast, and fright
Makes all my tresses rise upright
At that fell foeman's vaunt; may heaven confound his spite.
MESSENGER.
Five were accursed; one righteous man succeeds
The seer Amphiaraus, good and brave.
His post is at the Homoloian gate.
Here he reproaches heaps on Tydeus' head,
Calling him murderer and the public bane,
Leader of Argos in all evil ways,
The Furies' pursuivant, henchman of death,
That has Adrastus to his ruin trained.
Thy brother too, stained by his father's fate,
Great Polynices, with accusing face
Turned heavenward, he upbraids and thus he speaks:
"Certes a deed it is to please the gods,
Fair to recount and glorious to hand down,
Thus thy own city to lay low and raze
Her temples with an alien soldiery.
What stream can wash away a mother's curse?
How shall thy country, captive to a foe
By thee set on, requite thee with her love?
For me, this hostile land must be my tomb
And be enriched with my prophetic bones.
Forward! I look for no inglorious grave."
Thus spake the seer as he before him threw
His glittering shield. On it was no device.
Foremost to be, not seem, was still his aim.
His soul is as a plough-land deep and rich,
From which a harvest of good counsels grows.
Against him send some worthy opposite.
He most is to be feared who fears the gods.