Now he’s come to what an ocean of calamity and dread!
Well it were then, being mortal, to that last and awful day
That we onward turn our vision and count no one fortunate
Till the race course he has finished and has reached life’s goal unscathed.”
In spite of the repentance of Œdipus, the ancient curse fell upon his children, and their dooms also became the subjects of dramas. Æschylus, in the “Seven against Thebes,” deals with the story of Eteocles and Polyneices, whose own folly was the immediate cause of their ruin. They had agreed to rule Thebes alternately, but Eteocles once in possession refused to abdicate. Polyneices raises in Argos an army led by Adrastus, with which he advances against his country. Civil war follows, and the brothers kill each other. This story gave Æschylus two dramatic opportunities peculiarly suited to his genius. One was the handling of the theme of Nemesis, not with grave calm like Sophocles, but with gigantic vigour, with rough-hewn figures of triple-crested waves of evil, harvests of blood, chilling frosts of fear, with a penetrating insistence upon the “black and full-grown curse” which shadows city and citizens. Within its gloom Eteocles fights only with the ardour of despair:—
“Since eagerly God urgeth this affair, draw lot,
Cocytus draw and, wind astern, sail down his wave!
Apollo hateth all the race of Labdacus.”
To relieve this gloom Æschylus uses his other dramatic opportunity, that of describing with Homeric eloquence the seven Argive warriors stationed at the seven gates and the Theban defenders sent to meet them. In the full-mouthed trimeters of the messenger who has seen the enemy, and of Eteocles who is undaunted by his report, echo stirringly the epic clash of arms, neighing of steeds, and war-cries of men. Shields of many devices and crested helmets bedeck the heroes. Courage adorns them all, from Amphiaraus, who foresees disaster, to Parthenopæus, the Arcadian metic, repaying to Argos the cost of his nurture:—
“Now by his spear he swears—which he is confident