Seven Against Thebes
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Antigone
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Ah, me
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Ismene
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Ah, me
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Antigone
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Sorrows hard to behold—
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Ismene
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He showed me when he returned from exile.
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Antigone
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But he made no return after he had killed.
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Ismene
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He was saved, but lost his life.
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Antigone
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He lost it, all too truly.
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Ismene
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And took this one’s life away.
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Antigone
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Wretched family!
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Ismene
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Wretched suffering!
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Antigone
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Kindred sorrows full of groans!
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Ismene
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Sorrows steeped in tripled griefs.
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Chorus
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O Fate, giver of grievous troubles, and awful shade of Oedipus, black Erinys, you are indeed a mighty force.
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Antigone
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Now you know of the Erinys by experience—
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Ismene
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And you are made aware no later—
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Antigone
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When you came back to our city,
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Ismene
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Yes, to face him with your spear.
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Antigone
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A tale of destruction!
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Ismene
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Destruction to look upon!
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Antigone
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Oh, the grief—
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Ismene
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Oh, the evils—
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Antigone
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For home and land.
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Ismene
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Above all for me,
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Antigone
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And more also for me.
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Ismene
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Ah I pity your grievous suffering, my king.
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Antigone
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Pity for you both, most lamentable of all men.
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Ismene
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You were possessed by delusion.
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Antigone
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Where shall we lay them in the earth?
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Ismene
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Ah, where their honor is greatest.
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Antigone
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To lie beside their father, a cause for him of sorrow.
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Herald
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It is my duty to announce the will and decrees of the council on behalf of the people of this our Cadmean city. It is decreed, first, that Eteocles here, on account of his goodwill towards the city, is to be buried in a kindly grave in its soil;
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for hating the enemy he chose death in the city and driven by piety towards his ancestral shrines, he died without reproach where it is an honor for the young to die. This is how I was commanded to speak regarding him. But as for his brother, it is decreed that this corpse of Polyneices
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is to be cast out of the city unburied to be torn by dogs, since he would have been the destroyer of the land of the Cadmeans, if one of the gods had not used his brother’s spear to prevent him. Even in death he will retain the stain of his guilt against his fathers’ gods, whom he dishonored
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when he launched a foreign army against the city to take it. For this reason it is decreed that he will receive his reward by being buried without honor beneath the winged birds; and that no labor of the hands shall attend him by building up a burial mound nor shall anyone offer him reverence in shrill-sung laments.
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He is to be refused the honor of being carried in funeral procession by his loved ones. Such is the decree of the Cadmean authorities.
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Antigone
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I at least will say something to the rulers of the Cadmeans: even if no one else is willing to share in burying him, I will bury him alone and risk the peril
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of burying my own brother. Nor am I ashamed to act in defiant opposition to the rulers of the city. A thing to be held in awe is the common womb from which we were born, of a wretched mother and unfortunate father. Therefore, my soul, willingly share his evils, even though they are unwilling,
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and live in kindred spirit with the dead. No hollow-bellied wolves will tear his flesh—let no one decree that! Even though I am a woman, I will myself find the means to give him burial and a grave,
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carrying the earth in the fold of my linen robe. With my own hands I will cover him over—let no one decree it otherwise. Take heart, I will have the means to do it.
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Herald
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I forbid you to act thus in violation of the city.
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Antigone
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I forbid you to make useless proclamations to me.
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Herald
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And yet a citizenry that has escaped evil can be harsh.
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Antigone
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Let it be harsh! This man will not be unburied.
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Herald
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What! Will you honor with burial a man whom the city detests?
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Antigone
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For a long time now the gods have ceased to hold him in honor.
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Herald
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No, he was honored until he put this land in jeopardy.
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Antigone
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He suffered evil and gave evil in return.
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Herald
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But this act was against all the citizens, not only one man.
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Antigone
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Discord is the last of the gods to close an argument. I will bury him. Put an end to your big talk.
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Herald
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Well then, follow your own rash plan, but I forbid it. Exit.
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Chorus
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Ah, misery!
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O Erinyes, far-famed destroyers of families, goddesses of death who have thus laid ruin to the family of Oedipus, digging it up from the roots! What will happen to me? What should I do? What plan shall I devise? How can I have the heart neither to weep for you
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nor escort you to your tomb? But I am afraid and turn away in terror of the citizens. You, at least, Eteocles, will have many mourners, while he, wretched man, departs without lamentation
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and has a dirge sung only by one sister. Now who could comply with that?
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First Half-Chorus
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Let the city take action or not take action against those who lament for Polynices. We, at all events, will go and
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bury him with her, following the funeral procession. For this grief is shared by all our race, and the city approves as just different things at different times.
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Second Half-Chorus
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We will go with this other corpse, as the city and justice, too, approves.
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For after the blessed gods and powerful Zeus, he it was who saved the city of the Cadmeans from being capsized and flooded by a wave of foreign men—he beyond all others. Exeunt omnes.
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Chorus
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Ah! Ah!
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I hear the rattle of chariots encircling the town. O lady Hera! The hubs are creaking beneath the axles’ load. Beloved Artemis!
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The air rages at the shaking of spears! What is happening to our city? What will the future bring? And where does God finally lead us?
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Chorus
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Ah! Ah! A hail of stones strikes our battlements from afar. O beloved Apollo!
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There is the clang of bronze-bound shields at the gates. O son of Zeus, in whom dwells the sacred power to decide in battle war’s outcome! And you, blessed queen Onca,Onca, the name of a Phoenician goddess, is identified with Athena (cp. 1. 487). on behalf of the city,
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defend your seven- gated home!
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Chorus
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Never so long as I live may this divine assembly abandon us,
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nor may I live to see the city overrun and the army seizing it with hostile fire!
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Eteocles
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When you invoke the gods, do not be ill-advised. For Obedience is
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the mother of Success, wife of Salvation—as the saying goes.
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Chorus
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So she is, but the power of god is supreme, and often in bad times it raises the helpless man out of harsh misery even when stormclouds are lowering over his eyes.
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Eteocles
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It is the man’s duty to offer victims and sacrifices to the gods when they test their enemy; your duty is to be silent and to remain inside the house.
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Chorus
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It is a great cause for grief to hurl a primeval city to Hades in this way, quarry and slave of the spear, ravaged shamefully in the dusty ashes by an Argive man through divine will.
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And grief, too, to let the women be led away captive—ah me!—young and old, dragged by the hair, like horses, with their cloaks torn off them.
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A city, emptied, shouts out as the human booty perishes with mingled cries. A heavy fate, indeed, my fear anticipates.
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Chorus
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It is a lamentable thing that modest girls should be plucked unripe, before the customary rites, and should make
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a loathsome journey from their homes. What? I declare that the dead will do better than the captives; for when a city is subdued—ah, ah!—many and miserable are its sufferings.
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Man drags off man, or kills, or sets fires; the whole city is defiled with smoke. Mad Ares storms, subduing the people and polluting reverence.
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Chorus
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O champion of my home, I pray that this man will have good fortune, and that there will be bad fortune for his enemies. As they boast too much against the city in their frenzied mind,
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so, too, may Zeus the Requiter look on them in anger!
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Scout
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Another, the fourth, has the gate near Onca Athena and takes his stand with a shout, Hippomedon, tremendous in form and figure. I shuddered in fear as he spun a huge disk—the circle of his shield, I mean—
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I cannot deny it. The symbol-maker who put the design on his shield was no lowly craftsman: the symbol is Typhon, spitting out of his fire-breathing mouth a dark, thick smoke, the darting sister of fire.
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And the rim of the hollow-bellied shield is fastened all around with snaky braids. The warrior himself has raised the war-cry and, inspired by Ares he raves for battle like a maenad, with a look to inspire fear. We must put up a good defense against the assault of such a man,
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for already Rout is boasting of victory at the gate.
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Eteocles
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First Onca Pallas, who dwells near the city, close by the gate, and who loathes outrageousness in a man, will fend him off like a dangerous snake away from nestlings. Moreover, Hyperbius, Oenops’ trusty son,
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is chosen to match him, man to man, as he is eager to search out his fate in the crisis that chance has wrought—neither in form, nor spirit nor in the wielding of his arms does he bear reproach. HermesHermes presided over contests and lots. has appropriately pitted them against each other. For the man is hostile to the man he faces in battle,
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and the gods on their shields also meet as enemies. The one has fire-breathing Typhon, while father Zeus stands upright on Hyperbius’ shield, his lightening bolt aflame in his hand. And no one yet has seen Zeus conquered.
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Such then is the favor of the divine powers: we are with the victors, they with the vanquished, if Zeus in fact proves stronger in battle than Typhon. And it is likely that the mortal adversaries will fare as do their gods; and so, in accordance with the symbol,
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Zeus will be a savior for Hyperbius since he resides on his shield. Exit Hyperbius.
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Chorus
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I am sure that Zeus’ antagonist, since he has on his shield the unloved form of an earth-born deity, an image hated by both mortals and the long-lived gods,
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will drop his head in death before the gate.
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Scout
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Let it be so! Next I describe the fifth man who is stationed at the fifth, the Northern gate opposite the tomb of Amphion, Zeus’s son. He swears by his spear which, in his confidence, he holds more to be revered than a god
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and more precious than his eyes, that he will sack the city of the Cadmeans in spite of Zeus. He says this, the beautiful child of a mountain-bred mother—a warrior, half man, half boy, and his beard’s first growth is just now advancing on his cheeks,
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his youth in first bloom, thick, upspringing hair. But now he makes his advance with a savage heart and a terrifying look, not at all like the maidens he’s named for.Parthenopaeus maiden-faced. His mother Atalanta dwelt on Mt. Maenalus in Arcadia.Nor does he take his stand at the gate unboasting, but wields our city’s shame on his bronze-forged
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shield, his body’s circular defence, on which the Sphinx who eats men raw is cleverly fastened with bolts, her body embossed and gleaming. She carries under her a single Cadmean, so that against this man chiefly our missiles will be hurled.
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He does not seem to have come to do any petty trading in the battle, nor to shame the making of his long journey—he is Parthenopaeus of Arcadia. Such is the man, and aiming to make full payment for the fine support given him in Argos, his adopted land, he now threatens our fortifications—may God not fulfil his threats!
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Eteocles
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If only they would get from the gods what they wish for, because of those unholy boasts of theirs, then surely they would perish in utter ruin and misery. There is a man for this one, too, whom you name an Arcadian, a man who does not boast, but who knows the thing to do—
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Actor, brother of him I named before. He will not allow words that lack deeds to overrun his gate and increase fear, nor will he let in a man who carries on his hostile shield the image of the ravenous, detested beast.
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That beast outside his shield will blame the man who carries her into the gate, when she has taken a heavy beating beneath the city’s walls. If the gods are willing, what I speak may prove true! Exit Actor.
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Chorus
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No, do not let yourself be driven to it. You will not be called a coward if you retain life nobly. Will not the avenging Erinys in her dark aegis
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leave your house, when the gods receive sacrifice from your hands?
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Eteocles
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The gods, it seems, have already banished us from their care, yet they admire the grace we offer them when we perish. So then, why should we cringe and shy away from deadly fate?