CHORUS

Far hence, even where, in evening land, goes down our Lord the Sun.

ATOSSA

Say, had my son so keen desire, that region to o'errun?

CHORUS

Yea—if she fell, the rest of Greece were subject to our sway!

ATOSSA

Hath she so great predominance, such legions in array?

CHORUS

Ay—such a host as smote us sore upon an earlier day.

ATOSSA

And what hath she, besides her men? enow of wealth in store?

CHORUS

A mine of treasure in the earth, a fount of silver ore!

ATOSSA

Is it in skill of bow and shaft that Athens' men excel?

CHORUS

Nay, they bear bucklers in the fight, and thrust the spear-point well.

ATOSSA

And who is shepherd of their host and holds them in command?

CHORUS

To no man do they bow as slaves, nor own a master's hand.

ATOSSA

How should they bide our brunt of war, the East upon the West?

CHORUS

That could Darius' valiant horde in days of yore attest!

ATOSSA

A boding word, to us who bore the men now far away!

CHORUS

Nay—as I deem, the very truth will dawn on us to-day. A Persian by his garb and speed, a courier draws anear— He bringeth news, of good or ill, for Persia's land to hear. [Enter A MESSENGER. MESSENGER

O walls and towers of all the Asian realm, O Persian land, O treasure-house of gold! How, by one stroke, down to destruction, down, Hath sunk our pride, and all the flower of war That once was Persia's, lieth in the dust! Woe on the man who first announceth woe— Yet must I all the tale of death unroll! Hark to me, Persians! Persia's host lies low.

CHORUS

O ruin manifold, and woe, and fear! Let the wild tears run down, for the great doom is here!

MESSENGER

This blow hath fallen, to the utterance, And I, past hope, behold my safe return!

CHORUS

Too long, alack, too long this life of mine, That in mine age I see this sudden woe condign!

MESSENGER

As one who saw, by no loose rumour led, Lords, I would tell what doom was dealt to us.

CHORUS

Alack, how vainly have they striven! Our myriad hordes with shaft and bow Went from the Eastland, to lay low Hellas, beloved of Heaven!

MESSENGER

Piled with men dead, yea, miserably slain, Is every beach, each reef of Salamis!

CHORUS

Thou sayest sooth—ah well-a-day! Battered amid the waves, and torn, On surges hither, thither, borne, Dead bodies, bloodstained and forlorn, In their long cloaks they toss and stray!

MESSENGER

Their bows availed not! all have perished, all, By charging galleys crushed and whelmed in death.

CHORUS

Shriek out your sorrow's wistful wail! To their untimely doom they went; Ill strove they, and to no avail, And minished is their armament!

MESSENGER

Out on thee, hateful name of Salamis, Out upon Athens, mournful memory!

CHORUS

Woe upon this day's evil fame! Thou, Athens, art our murderess; Alack, full many a Persian dame Is left forlorn and husbandless!

ATOSSA

Mute have I been awhile, and overwrought At this great sorrow, for it passeth speech, And passeth all desire to ask of it. Yet if the gods send evils, men must bear. (To the MESSENGER) Unroll the record! stand composed and tell, Although thy heart be groaning inwardly, Who hath escaped, and, of our leaders, whom Have we to weep? what chieftains in the van Stood, sank, and died and left us leaderless?

MESSENGER

Xerxes himself survives and sees the day.

ATOSSA

Then to my line thy word renews the dawn And golden dayspring after gloom of night!

MESSENGER

But the brave marshal of ten thousand horse, Artembares, is tossed and flung in death Along the rugged rocks Silenian. And Dadaces no longer leads his troop, But, smitten by the spear, from off the prow Hath lightly leaped to death; and Tenagon, In true descent a Bactrian nobly born, Drifts by the sea-lashed reefs of Salamis, The isle of Ajax. Gone Lilaeus too, Gone are Arsames and Argestes! all, Around the islet where the sea-doves breed, Dashed their defeated heads on iron rocks; Arcteus, who dwelt beside the founts of Nile, Adeues, Pheresseues, and with them Pharnuchus, from one galley's deck went down. Matallus, too, of Chrysa, lord and king Of myriad hordes, who led unto the fight Three times ten thousand swarthy cavaliers, Fell, with his swarthy and abundant beard Incarnadined to red, a crimson stain Outrivalling the purple of the sea! There Magian Arabus and Artames Of Bactra perished—taking up, alike, In yonder stony land their long sojourn. Amistris too, and he whose strenuous spear Was foremost in the fight, Amphistreus fell, And gallant Ariomardus, by whose death Broods sorrow upon Sardis: Mysia mourns For Seisames, and Tharubis lies low— Commander, he, of five times fifty ships, Born in Lyrnessus: his heroic form Is low in death, ungraced with sepulchre. Dead too is he, the lord of courage high, Cilicia's marshal, brave Syennesis, Than whom none dealt more carnage on the foe, Nor perished by a more heroic end. So fell the brave: so speak I of their doom, Summing in brief the fate of myriads!

ATOSSA

Ah well-a-day! these crowning woes I hear, The shame of Persia and her shrieks of dole! But yet renew the tale, repeat thy words, Tell o'er the count of those Hellenic ships, And how they ventured with their beaked prows To charge upon the Persian armament.

MESSENGER

Know, if mere count of ships could win the day, The Persians had prevailed. The Greeks, in sooth, Had but three hundred galleys at the most, And other ten, select and separate. But—I am witness—Xerxes held command Of full a thousand keels, and, those apart, Two hundred more, and seven, for speed renowned!— So stands the reckoning, and who shall dare To say we Persians had the lesser host?

ATOSSA

Nay, we were worsted by an unseen power Who swayed the balance downward to our doom!

MESSENGER

In ward of heaven doth Pallas' city stand.

ATOSSA

How then? is Athens yet inviolate?

MESSENGER

While her men live, her bulwark standeth firm!

ATOSSA

Say, how began the struggle of the ships? Who first joined issue? did the Greeks attack, Or Xerxes, in his numbers confident?

MESSENGER

O queen, our whole disaster thus befell, Through intervention of some fiend or fate— I know not what—that had ill will to us. From the Athenian host some Greek came o'er, To thy son Xerxes whispering this tale— Once let the gloom of night have gathered in, The Greeks will tarry not, but swiftly spring Each to his galley-bench, in furtive flight, Softly contriving safety for their life. Thy son believed the word and missed the craft Of that Greek foeman, and the spite of Heaven, And straight to all his captains gave this charge— As soon as sunlight warms the ground no more, And gloom enwraps the sanctuary of sky, Range we our fleet in triple serried lines To bar the passage from the seething strait, This way and that: let other ships surround The isle of Ajax, with this warning word— That if the Greeks their jeopardy should scape By wary craft, and win their ships a road. Each Persian captain shall his failure pay By forfeit of his head. So spake the king, Inspired at heart with over-confidence, Unwitting of the gods' predestined will. Thereon our crews, with no disordered haste, Did service to his bidding and purveyed The meal of afternoon: each rower then Over the fitted rowlock looped his oar. Then, when the splendour of the sun had set, And night drew on, each master of the oar And each armed warrior straightway went aboard. Forward the long ships moved, rank cheering rank, Each forward set upon its ordered course. And all night long the captains of the fleet Kept their crews moving up and down the strait. So the night waned, and not one Grecian ship Made effort to elude and slip away. But as dawn came and with her coursers white Shone in fair radiance over all the earth, First from the Grecian fleet rang out a cry, A song of onset! and the island crags Re-echoed to the shrill exulting sound. Then on us Eastern men amazement fell And fear in place of hope; for what we heard Was not a call to flight! the Greeks rang out Their holy, resolute, exulting chant, Like men come forth to dare and do and die Their trumpets pealed, and fire was in that sound, And with the dash of simultaneous oars Replying to the war-chant, on they came, Smiting the swirling brine, and in a trice They flashed upon the vision of the foe! The right wing first in orderly advance Came on, a steady column; following then, The rest of their array moved out and on, And to our ears there came a burst of sound, A clamour manifold.—On, sons of Greece! On, for your country's freedom! strike to save Wives, children, temples of ancestral gods, Graves of your fathers! now is all at stake. Then from our side swelled up the mingled din Of Persian tongues, and time brooked no delay— Ship into ship drave hard its brazen beak With speed of thought, a shattering blow! and first One Grecian bark plunged straight, and sheared away Bowsprit and stem of a Phoenician ship. And then each galley on some other's prow Came crashing in. Awhile our stream of ships Held onward, till within the narrowing creek Our jostling vessels were together driven, And none could aid another: each on each Drave hard their brazen beaks, or brake away The oar-banks of each other, stem to stern, While the Greek galleys, with no lack of skill, Hemmed them and battered in their sides, and soon The hulls rolled over, and the sea was hid, Crowded with wrecks and butchery of men. No beach nor reef but was with corpses strewn, And every keel of our barbarian host Hurried to flee, in utter disarray. Thereon the foe closed in upon the wrecks And hacked and hewed, with oars and splintered planks, As fishermen hack tunnies or a cast Of netted dolphins, and the briny sea Rang with the screams and shrieks of dying men, Until the night's dark aspect hid the scene. Had I a ten days' time to sum that count Of carnage, 'twere too little! know this well— One day ne'er saw such myriad forms of death!

ATOSSA

Woe on us, woe! disaster's mighty sea Hath burst on us and all the Persian realm!

MESSENGER

Be well assured, the tale is but begun— The further agony that on us fell Doth twice outweigh the sufferings I have told!

ATOSSA

Nay, what disaster could be worse than this? Say on! what woe upon the army came, Swaying the scale to a yet further fall?

MESSENGER

The very flower and crown of Persia's race, Gallant of soul and glorious in descent, And highest held in trust before the king, Lies shamefully and miserably slain.

ATOSSA

Alas for me and for this ruin, friends! Dead, sayest thou? by what fate overthrown?

MESSENGER

An islet is there, fronting Salamis— Strait, and with evil anchorage: thereon Pan treads the measure of the dance he loves Along the sea-beach. Thither the king sent His noblest, that, whene'er the Grecian foe Should 'scape, with shattered ships, unto the isle, We might make easy prey of fugitives And slay them there, and from the washing tides Rescue our friends. It fell out otherwise Than he divined, for when, by aid of Heaven, The Hellenes held the victory on the sea, Their sailors then and there begirt themselves With brazen mail and bounded from their ships, And then enringed the islet, point by point, So that our Persians in bewilderment Knew not which way to turn. On every side, Battered with stones, they fell, while arrows flew From many a string, and smote them to the death. Then, at the last, with simultaneous rush The foe came bursting on us, hacked and hewed To fragments all that miserable band, Till not a soul of them was left alive. Then Xerxes saw disaster's depth, and shrieked, From where he sat on high, surveying all— A lofty eminence, beside the brine, Whence all his armament lay clear in view. His robe he rent, with loud and bitter wail, And to his land-force swiftly gave command And fled, with shame beside him! Now, lament That second woe, upon the first imposed!

ATOSSA

Out on thee, Fortune! thou hast foiled the hope And power of Persia: to this bitter end My son went forth to wreak his great revenge On famous Athens! all too few they seemed, Our men who died upon the Fennel-field! Vengeance for them my son had mind to take, And drew on his own head these whelming woes. But thou, say on! the ships that 'scaped from wreck— Where didst thou leave them? make thy story clear.

MESSENGER

The captains of the ships that still survived Fled in disorder, scudding down the wind, The while our land-force on Boeotian soil Fell into ruin, some beside the springs Dropping before they drank, and some outworn, Pursued, and panting all their life away. The rest of us our way to Phocis won, And thence to Doris and the Melian gulf, Where with soft stream Spercheus laves the soil. Thence to the northward did Phthiotis' plain, And some Thessalian fortress, lend us aid, For famine-pinched we were, and many died Of drought and hunger's twofold present scourge. Thence to Magnesia came we, and the land Where Macedonians dwell, and crossed the ford Of Axius, and Bolbe's reedy fen, And mount Pangaeus, in Edonian land. There, in the very night we came, the god Brought winter ere its time, from bank to bank Freezing the holy Strymon's tide. Each man Who heretofore held lightly of the gods, Now crouched and proffered prayer to Earth and Heaven! Then, after many orisons performed, The army ventured on the frozen ford: Yet only those who crossed before the sun Shed its warm rays, won to the farther side. For soon the fervour of the glowing orb Did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream, And men sank through and thrust each other down— Best was his lot whose breath was stifled first! But all who struggled through and gained the bank, Toilfully wending through the land of Thrace Have made their way, a sorry, scanted few, Unto this homeland. Let the city now Lament and yearn for all the loved and lost. My tale is truth, yet much untold remains Of ills that Heaven hath hurled upon our land.

CHORUS

Spirit of Fate, too heavy were thy feet, Those ill to match! that sprang on Persia's realm.

ATOSSA

Woe for the host, to wrack and ruin hurled! O warning of the night, prophetic dream! Thou didst foreshadow clearly all the doom, While ye, old men, made light of woman's fears! Ah well—yet, as your divination ruled The meaning of the sign, I hold it good, First, that I put up prayer unto the gods, And, after that, forth from my palace bring The sacrificial cake, the offering due To Earth and to the spirits of the dead. Too well I know it is a timeless rite Over a finished thing that cannot change! But yet—I know not—there may come of it Alleviation for the after time. You it beseems, in view of what hath happed, T' advise with loyal hearts our loyal guards: And to my son—if, ere my coming forth, He should draw hitherward—give comfort meet, Escort him to the palace in all state, Lest to these woes he add another woe! [Exit ATOSSA.

CHORUS

Zeus, lord and king! to death and nought Our countless host by thee is brought. Deep in the gloom of death, to-day, Lie Susa and Ecbatana: How many a maid in sorrow stands And rends her tire with tender hands! How tears run down, in common pain And woeful mourning for the slain! O delicate in dole and grief, Ye Persian women! past relief Is now your sorrow! to the war Your loved ones went and come no more! Gone from you is your joy and pride— Severed the bridegroom from the bride— The wedded couch luxurious Is widowed now, and all the house Pines ever with insatiate sighs, And we stand here and bid arise, For those who forth in ardour went And come not back, the loud lament!

Land of the East, thou mournest for the host, Bereft of all thy sons, alas the day! For them whom Xerxes led hath Xerxes lost— Xerxes who wrecked the fleet, and flung our hopes away!

How came it that Darius once controlled, And without scathe, the army of the bow, Loved by the folk of Susa, wise and bold? Now is the land-force lost, the shipmen sunk below!

Ah for the ships that bore them, woe is me! Bore them to death and doom! the crashing prows Of fierce Ionian oarsmen swept the sea, And death was in their wake, and shipwreck murderous!

Late, late and hardly—if true tales they tell— Did Xerxes flee along the wintry way And snows of Thrace—but ah, the first who fell Lie by the rocks or float upon Cychrea's bay!

Mourn, each and all! waft heavenward your cry, Stung to the soul, bereaved, disconsolate! Wail out your anguish, till it pierce the sky, In shrieks of deep despair, ill-omened, desperate!

The dead are drifting, yea, are gnawed upon By voiceless children of the stainless sea, Or battered by the surge! we mourn and groan For husbands gone to death, for childless agony!

Alas the aged men, who mourn to-day The ruinous sorrows that the gods ordain! O'er the wide Asian land, the Persian sway Can force no tribute now, and can no rule sustain.

Yea, men will crouch no more to fallen power And kingship overthrown! the whole land o'er, Men speak the thing they will, and from this hour The folk whom Xerxes ruled obey his word no more.

The yoke of force is broken from the neck— The isle of Ajax and th' encircling wave Reek with a bloody crop of death and wreck Of Persia's fallen power, that none can lift nor save! [Re-enter ATOSSA, in mourning robes.

ATOSSA

Friends, whosoe'er is versed in human ills, Knoweth right well that when a wave of woe Comes on a man, he sees in all things fear; While, in flood-tide of fortune, 'tis his mood To take that fortune as unchangeable, Wafting him ever forward. Mark me now— The gods' thwart purpose doth confront mine eyes, And all is terror to me; in mine ears There sounds a cry, but not of triumph now— So am I scared at heart by woe so great. Therefore I wend forth from the house anew, Borne in no car of state, nor robed in pride As heretofore, but bringing, for the sire Who did beget my son, libations meet For holy rites that shall appease the dead— The sweet white milk, drawn from a spotless cow, The oozing drop of golden honey, culled By the flower-haunting bee, and therewithal Pure draughts of water from a virgin spring; And lo! besides, the stainless effluence, Born of the wild vine's bosom, shining store Treasured to age, this bright and luscious wine. And eke the fragrant fruit upon the bough Of the grey olive-tree, which lives its life In sprouting leafage, and the twining flowers, Bright children of the earth's fertility. But you, O friends! above these offerings poured To reconcile the dead, ring out your dirge To summon up Darius from the shades, Himself a shade; and I will pour these draughts, Which earth shall drink, unto the gods of hell.

CHORUS

Queen, by the Persian land adored, By thee be this libation poured, Passing to those who hold command Of dead men in the spirit-land! And we will sue, in solemn chant, That gods who do escort the dead In nether realms, our prayer may grant— Back to us be Darius led!

O Earth, and Hermes, and the king Of Hades, our Darius bring! For if, beyond the prayers we prayed, He knoweth aught of help or aid, He, he alone, in realms below, Can speak the limit of our woe!

Doth he hear me, the king we adored, who is god among gods of the dead? Doth he hear me send out in my sorrow the pitiful, manifold cry, The sobbing lament and appeal? is the voice of my suffering sped To the realm of the shades? doth he hear me and pity my sorrowful sigh? O Earth, and ye Lords of the dead! release ye that spirit of might, Who in Susa the palace was born! let him rise up once more to the light!

There is none like him, none of all That e'er were laid in Persian sepulchres! Borne forth he was to honoured burial, A royal heart! and followed by our tears. God of the dead, O give him back to us, Darius, ruler glorious! He never wasted us with reckless war— God, counsellor, and king, beneath a happy star! Ancient of days and king, awake and come— Rise o'er the mounded tomb! Rise, plant thy foot, with saffron sandal shod Father to us, and god! Rise with thy diadem, O sire benign, Upon thy brow! List to the strange new sorrows of thy line, Sire of a woeful son!

A mist of fate and hell is round us now, And all the city's flower to death is done! Alas, we wept thee once, and weep again! O Lord of lords, by recklessness twofold The land is wasted of its men, And down to death are rolled Wreckage of sail and oar, Ships that are ships no more, And bodies of the slain! [The GHOST OF DARIUS rises.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Ye aged Persians, truest of the true, Coevals of the youth that once was mine, What troubleth now our city? harken, how It moans and beats the breast and rends the plain! And I, beholding how my consort stood Beside my tomb, was moved with awe, and took The gift of her libation graciously. But ye are weeping by my sepulchre, And, shrilling forth a sad, evoking cry, Summon me mournfully, Arise, arise. No light thing is it, to come back from death, For, in good sooth, the gods of nether gloom Are quick to seize but late and loth to free! Yet among them I dwell as one in power— And lo, I come! now speak, and speed your words, Lest I be blamed for tarrying overlong! What new disaster broods o'er Persia's realm?

CHORUS

With awe on thee I gaze, And, standing face to face, I tremble as I did in olden days!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Nay, but as I rose to earth again, obedient to your call, Prithee, tarry not in parley! be one word enough for all— Speak and gaze on me unshrinking, neither let my face appal!

CHORUS

I tremble to reveal, Yet tremble to conceal Things hard for friends to feel!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Nay, but if the old-time terror on your spirit keeps its hold, Speak thou, O royal lady who didst couch with me of old! Stay thy weeping and lamenting and to me reveal the truth— Speak! for man is born to sorrow; yea, the proverb sayeth sooth! 'Tis the doom of mortal beings, if they live to see old age, To suffer bale, by land and sea, through war and tempest's rage.

ATOSSA

O thou whose blissful fate on earth all mortal weal excelled— Who, while the sunlight touched thine eyes, the lord of all wert held! A god to Persian men thou wert, in bliss and pride and fame— I hold thee blest too in thy death, or e'er the ruin came! Alas, Darius! one brief word must tell thee all the tale— The Persian power is in the dust, gone down in blood and bale!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Speak—by what chance? did man rebel, or pestilence descend?

ATOSSA

Neither! by Athens' fatal shores our army met its end.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Which of my children led our host to Athens? speak and say.

ATOSSA

The froward Xerxes, leaving all our realm to disarray.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Was it with army or with fleet on folly's quest he went?

ATOSSA

With both alike, a twofold front of double armament.

GHOST OF DARIUS

And how then did so large a host on foot pass o'er the sea?

ATOSSA

He bridged the ford of Helle's strait by artful carpentry.

GHOST OF DARIUS

How? could his craft avail to span the torrent of that tide?

ATOSSA

'Tis sooth I say—some unknown power did fatal help provide!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Alas, that power in malice came, to his bewilderment!

ATOSSA

Alas, we see the end of all, the ruin on us sent.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Speak, tell me how they fared therein, that thus ye mourn and weep?

ATOSSA

Disaster to the army came, through ruin on the deep!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Is all undone? hath all the folk gone down before the foe?

ATOSSA

Yea, hark to Susa's mourning cry for warriors laid low!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Alas for all our gallant aids, our Persia's help and pride!

ATOSSA

Ay! old with young, the Bactrian force hath perished at our side!

GHOST OF DARIUS

Alas, my son! what gallant youths hath he sent down to death!

ATOSSA

Alone, or with a scanty guard—for so the rumour saith—

GHOST OF DARIUS

He came—but how, and to what end? doth aught of hope remain?

ATOSSA

With joy he reached the bridge that spanned the Hellespontine main.

GHOST OF DARIUS

How? is he safe, in Persian land? speak soothly, yea or nay!

ATOSSA

Clear and more clear the rumour comes, for no man to gainsay.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Woe for the oracle fulfilled, the presage of the war Launched on my son, by will of Zeus! I deemed our doom afar In lap of time; but, if a king push forward to his fate, The god himself allures to death that man infatuate! So now the very fount of woe streams out on those I loved, And mine own son, unwisely bold, the truth hereof hath proved! He sought to shackle and control the Hellespontine wave, That rushes from the Bosphorus, with fetters of a slave!— To curb and bridge, with welded links, the streaming water-way, And guide across the passage broad his manifold array! Ah, folly void of counsel! he deemed that mortal wight Could thwart the will of Heaven itself and curb Poseidon's might! Was it not madness? much I fear lest all my wealth and store Pass from my treasure-house, to be the snatcher's prize once more!

ATOSSA

Such is the lesson, ah, too late! to eager Xerxes taught— Trusting random counsellors and hare-brained men of nought, Who said Darius mighty wealth and fame to us did bring, But thou art nought, a blunted spear, a palace-keeping king! Unto those sorry counsellors a ready ear he lent, And led away to Hellas' shore his fated armament.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Therefore through them hath come calamity Most huge and past forgetting; nor of old Did ever such extermination fall Upon the city Susa. Long ago Zeus in his power this privilege bestowed, That with a guiding sceptre one sole man Should rule this Asian land of flock and herd. Over the folk a Mede, Astyages, Did grasp the power: then Cyaxares ruled In his sire's place, and held the sway aright, Steering his state with watchful wariness. Third in succession, Cyrus, blest of Heaven, Held rule and 'stablished peace for all his clan: Lydian and Phrygian won he to his sway, And wide Ionia to his yoke constrained, For the god favoured his discretion sage. Fourth in the dynasty was Cyrus' son, And fifth was Mardus, scandal of his land And ancient lineage. Him Artaphrenes, Hardy of heart, within his palace slew, Aided by loyal plotters, set for this. And I too gained the lot for which I craved, And oftentimes led out a goodly host, Yet never brought disaster such as this Upon the city. But my son is young And reckless in his youth, and heedeth not The warnings of my mouth. Mark this, my friends, Born with my birth, coeval with mine age— Not all we kings who held successive rule Have wrought, combined, such ruin as my son!

CHORUS

How then, O King Darius? whitherward Dost thou direct thy warning? from this plight How can we Persians fare towards hope again?

GHOST OF DARIUS

By nevermore assailing Grecian lands, Even tho' our Median force be double theirs— For the land's self protects its denizens.

CHORUS

How meanest thou? by what defensive power?

GHOST OF DARIUS

She wastes by famine a too countless foe.

CHORUS

But we will bring a host more skilled than huge.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Why, e'en that army, camped in Hellas still, Shall never win again to home and weal!

CHORUS

How say'st thou? will not all the Asian host Pass back from Europe over Helle's ford?

GHOST OF DARIUS

Nay—scarce a tithe of all those myriads, If man may trust the oracles of Heaven When he beholds the things already wrought, Not false with true, but true with no word false If what I trow be truth, my son has left A chosen rear-guard of our host, in whom He trusts, now, with a random confidence! They tarry where Asopus laves the ground With rills that softly bless Boeotia's plain— There is it fated for them to endure The very crown of misery and doom, Requital for their god-forgetting pride! For why? they raided Hellas, had the heart To wrong the images of holy gods, And give the shrines and temples to the flame! Defaced and dashed from sight the altars fell, And each god's image, from its pedestal Thrust and flung down, in dim confusion lies! Therefore, for outrage vile, a doom as dark They suffer, and yet more shall undergo— They touch no bottom in the swamp of doom, But round them rises, bubbling up, the ooze! So deep shall lie the gory clotted mass Of corpses by the Dorian spear transfixed Upon Plataea's field! yea, piles of slain To the third generation shall attest By silent eloquence to those that see— Let not a mortal vaunt him overmuch. For pride grows rankly, and to ripeness brings The curse of fate, and reaps, for harvest, tears! Therefore when ye behold, for deeds like these, Such stern requital paid, remember then Athens and Hellas. Let no mortal wight, Holding too lightly of his present weal And passionate for more, cast down and spill The mighty cup of his prosperity! Doubt not that over-proud and haughty souls Zeus lours in wrath, exacting the account. Therefore, with wary warning, school my son, Though he be lessoned by the gods already, To curb the vaunting that affronts high Heaven! And thou, O venerable Mother-queen, Beloved of Xerxes, to the palace pass And take therefrom such raiment as befits Thy son, and go to meet him: for his garb In this extremity of grief hangs rent Around his body, woefully unstitched, Mere tattered fragments of once royal robes! Go thou to him, speak soft and soothing words— Thee, and none other, will he bear to hear, As well I know. But I must pass away From earth above, unto the nether gloom; Therefore, old men, take my farewell, and clasp, Even amid the ruin of this time, Unto your souls the pleasure of the day, For dead men have no profit of their gold! [The GHOST OF DARIUS sinks.

CHORUS

Alas, I thrill with pain for Persia's woes— Many fulfilled, and others hard at hand!

ATOSSA

O spirit of the race, what sorrows crowd Upon me! and this anguish stings me worst, That round my royal son's dishonoured form Hang rags and tatters, degradation deep! I will away, and, bringing from within A seemly royal robe, will straightway strive To meet and greet my son: foul scorn it were To leave our dearest in his hour of shame. [Exit ATOSSA.

CHORUS

Ah glorious and goodly they were, the life and the lot that we gained, The cities we held in our hand when the monarch invincible reigned, The king that was good to his realm, sufficing, fulfilled of his sway, A lord that was peer of the gods, the pride of the bygone day! Then could we show to the skies great hosts and a glorious name, And laws that were stable in might; as towers they guarded our fame! There without woe or disaster we came from the foe and the fight, In triumph, enriched with the spoil, to the land and the city's delight. What towns ere the Halys he passed! what towns ere he came to the West, To the main and the isles of the Strymon, and the Thracian region possess'd! And those that stand back from the main, enringed by their fortified wall, Gave o'er to Darius, the king, the sceptre and sway over all! Those too by the channel of Helle, where southward it broadens and glides, By the inlets, Propontis! of thee, and the strait of the Pontic tides, And the isles that lie fronting our sea-board, and the Eastland looks on each one, Lesbo and Chios and Paros, and Samos with olive-trees grown, And Naxos, and Myconos' rock, and Tenos with Andros hard by, And isles that in midmost Aegean, aloof from the continent, lie— And Lemnos and Icaros' hold— all these to his sceptre were bowed, And Cnidos and neighbouring Rhodes, and Soli, and Paphos the proud, And Cyprian Salamis, name-child of her who hath wrought us this wrong! Yea, and all the Ionian tract, where the Greek-born inhabitants throng, And the cities are teeming with gold— Darius was lord of them all, And, great by his wisdom, he ruled, and ever there came to his call, In stalwart array and unfailing, the warrior chiefs of our land, And mingled allies from the tribes who bowed to his conquering hand! But now there are none to gainsay that the gods are against us; we lie Subdued in the havoc of wreck, and whelmed by the wrath of the sky! [Enter XERXES in disarray.

XERXES

Alas the day, that I should fall Into this grimmest fate of all, This ruin doubly unforeseen! On Persia's land what power of Fate Descends, what louring gloom of hate? How shall I bear my teen? My limbs are loosened where they stand, When I behold this aged band— Oh God! I would that I too, I, Among the men who went to die, Were whelmed in earth by Fate's command!

CHORUS

Ah welladay, my King! ah woe For all our heroes' overthrow— For all the gallant host's array, For Persia's honour, pass'd away, For glory and heroic sway Mown down by Fortune's hand to-day! Hark, how the kingdom makes its moan, For youthful valour lost and gone, By Xerxes shattered and undone! He, he hath crammed the maw of hell With bowmen brave, who nobly fell, Their country's mighty armament, Ten thousand heroes deathward sent! Alas, for all the valiant band, O king and lord! thine Asian land Down, down upon its knee is bent!

XERXES

Alas, a lamentable sound, A cry of ruth! for I am found A curse to land and lineage, With none my sorrow to assuage!

CHORUS

Alas, a death-song desolate I send forth, for thy home-coming! A scream, a dirge for woe and fate, Such as the Asian mourners sing, A sorry and ill-omened tale Of tears and shrieks and Eastern wail!

XERXES

Ay, launch the woeful sorrow's cry, The harsh, discordant melody, For lo, the power, we held for sure, Hath turned to my discomfiture!

CHORUS

Yea, dirges, dirges manifold Will I send forth, for warriors bold, For the sea-sorrow of our host! The city mourns, and I must wail With plashing tears our sorrow's tale, Lamenting for the loved and lost!

XERXES

Alas, the god of war, who sways The scales of fight in diverse ways, Gives glory to Ionia! Ionian ships, in fenced array, Have reaped their harvest in the bay, A darkling harvest-field of Fate, A sea, a shore, of doom and hate!

CHORUS

Cry out, and learn the tale of woe! Where are thy comrades? where the band Who stood beside thee, hand in hand, A little while ago? Where now hath Pharandakes gone, Where Psammis, and where Pelagon? Where now is brave Agdabatas, And Susas too, and Datamas? Hath Susiscanes past away, The chieftain of Ecbatana?

XERXES

I left them, mangled castaways, Flung from their Tyrian deck, and tossed On Salaminian water-ways, From surging tides to rocky coast!

CHORUS

Alack, and is Pharnuchus slain, And Ariomardus, brave in vain? Where is Seualces' heart of fire? Lilaeus, child of noble sire? Are Tharubis and Memphis sped? Hystaechmas, Artembares dead? And where is brave Masistes, where? Sum up death's count, that I may hear!

XERXES

Alas, alas, they came, their eyes surveyed Ancestral Athens on that fatal day. Then with a rending struggle were they laid Upon the land, and gasped their life away!

CHORUS

And Batanochus' child, Alpistus great, Surnamed the Eye of State— Saw you and left you him who once of old Ten thousand thousand fighting-men enrolled? His sire was child of Sesamas, and he From Megabates sprang. Ah, woe is me, Thou king of evil fate! Hast thou lost Parthus, lost Oebares great? Alas, the sorrow! blow succeedeth blow On Persia's pride; thou tellest woe on woe!

XERXES

Bitter indeed the pang for comrades slain, The brave and bold! thou strikest to my soul Pain, pain beyond forgetting, hateful pain. My inner spirit sobs and sighs with dole!

CHORUS

Another yet we yearn to see, And see not! ah, thy chivalry, Xanthis, thou chief of Mardian men Countless! and thou, Anchares bright, And ye, whose cars controlled the fight, Arsaces and Diaixis wight, Kegdadatas, Lythimnas dear, And Tolmus, greedy of the spear! I stand bereft! not in thy train Come they, as erst! ah, ne'er again Shall they return unto our eyes, Car-borne, 'neath silken canopies!

XERXES

Yea, gone are they who mustered once the host!

CHORUS

Yea, yea, forgotten, lost!

XERXES

Alas, the woe and cost!

CHORUS

Alas, ye heavenly powers! Ye wrought a sorrow past belief, A woe, of woes the chief! With aspect stern, upon us Ate looms!

XERXES

Smitten are we—time tells no heavier blow!

CHORUS

Smitten! the doom is plain!

XERXES

Curse upon curse and pang on pang we know!

CHORUS

With the Ionian power We clashed, in evil hour! Woe falls on Persia's race, yea, woe again, again!

XERXES

Yea, smitten am I, and my host is all to ruin hurled!

CHORUS

Yea verily—in mighty wreck hath sunk the Persian world!

XERXES (holding up a torn robe and a quiver)

See you this tattered rag of pride?

CHORUS

I see it, welladay!

XERXES

See you this quiver?

CHORUS

Say, hath aught survived and 'scaped the fray?

XERXES

A store for darts it was, erewhile!

CHORUS

Remain but two or three!

XERXES

No aid is left!

CHORUS

Ionian folk such darts, unfearing, see!

XERXES

Right resolute they are! I saw disaster unforeseen.

CHORUS

Ah, speakest thou of wreck, of flight, of carnage that hath been?

XERXES

Yea, and my royal robe I rent, in terror at their fall!

CHORUS

Alas, alas!

XERXES

Yea, thrice alas!

CHORUS

For all have perished, all!

XERXES

Ah woe to us, ah joy to them who stood against our pride!

CHORUS

And all our strength is minished and sundered from our side!

XERXES

No escort have I!

CHORUS

Nay, thy friends are whelmed beneath the tide!

XERXES

Wail, wail the miserable doom, and to the palace hie!

CHORUS

Alas, alas, and woe again!

XERXES

Shriek, smite the breast, as I!

CHORUS

An evil gift, a sad exchange, of tears poured out in vain!

XERXES

Shrill out your simultaneous wail!

CHORUS

Alas the woe and pain!

XERXES

O, bitter is this adverse fate!

CHORUS

I voice the moan with thee!

XERXES

Smite, smite thy bosom, groan aloud for my calamity!

CHORUS

I mourn and am dissolved in tears!

XERXES

Cry, beat thy breast amain!

CHORUS

O king, my heart is in thy woe!

XERXES

Shriek, wail, and shriek again!

CHORUS

O agony!

XERXES

A blackening blow—

CHORUS

A grievous stripe shall fall!

XERXES

Yea, beat anew thy breast, ring out the doleful Mysian call!

CHORUS

An agony, an agony!

XERXES

Pluck out thy whitening beard!

CHORUS

By handfuls, ay, by handfuls, with dismal tear-drops smeared!

XERXES

Sob out thine aching sorrow!

CHORUS

I will thine best obey.

XERXES

With thine hands rend thy mantle's fold—

CHORUS

Alas, woe worth the day!

XERXES

With thine own fingers tear thy locks, bewail the army's weird!

CHORUS

By handfuls, yea, by handfuls, with tears of dole besmeared!

XERXES

Now let thine eyes find overflow—

CHORUS

I wend in wail and pain!

XERXES

Cry out for me an answering moan—

CHORUS

Alas, alas again!

XERXES

Shriek with a cry of agony, and lead the doleful train!

CHORUS

Alas, alas, the Persian land is woeful now to tread!

XERXES

Cry out and mourn! the city now doth wail above the dead!

CHORUS

I sob and moan!

XERXES

I bid ye now be delicate in grief!

CHORUS

Alas, the Persian land is sad and knoweth not relief!

XERXES

Alas, the triple banks of oars and those who died thereby!

CHORUS

Pass! I will lead you, bring you home, with many a broken sigh! [Exeunt



THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES



DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ETEOCLES. A SPY. CHORUS OF CADMEAN MAIDENS. ANTIGONE. ISMENE. A HERALD.



ETEOCLES

Clansmen of Cadmus, at the signal given By time and season must the ruler speak Who sets the course and steers the ship of State With hand upon the tiller, and with eye Watchful against the treachery of sleep. For if all go aright, thank Heaven, men say, But if adversely—which may God forefend!— One name on many lips, from street to street, Would bear the bruit and rumour of the time, Down with Eteocles!—a clamorous curse, A dirge of ruin. May averting Zeus Make good his title here, in Cadmus' hold! You it beseems now boys unripened yet To lusty manhood, men gone past the prime And increase of the full begetting seed, And those whom youth and manhood well combined Array for action—all to rise in aid Of city, shrines, and altars of all powers Who guard our land; that ne'er, to end of time, Be blotted out the sacred service due To our sweet mother-land and to her brood. For she it was who to their guest-right called Your waxing youth, was patient of the toil, And cherished you on the land's gracious lap, Alike to plant the hearth and bear the shield In loyal service, for an hour like this. Mark now! until to-day, luck rules our scale; For we, though long beleaguered, in the main Have with our sallies struck the foemen hard. But now the seer, the feeder of the birds, (Whose art unerring and prophetic skill Of ear and mind divines their utterance Without the lore of fire interpreted) Foretelleth, by the mastery of his art, That now an onset of Achaea's host Is by a council of the night designed To fall in double strength upon our walls. Up and away, then, to the battlements, The gates, the bulwarks! don your panoplies, Array you at the breast-work, take your stand On floorings of the towers, and with good heart Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates, Nor hold too heinous a respect for hordes Sent on you from afar: some god will guard! I too, for shrewd espial of their camp, Have sent forth scouts, and confidence is mine They will not fail nor tremble at their task, And, with their news, I fear no foeman's guile. [Enter A SPY.

THE SPY

Eteocles, high king of Cadmus' folk, I stand here with news certified and sure From Argos' camp, things by myself descried. Seven warriors yonder, doughty chiefs of might, Into the crimsoned concave of a shield Have shed a bull's blood, and, with hands immersed Into the gore of sacrifice, have sworn By Ares, lord of fight, and by thy name, Blood-lapping Terror, Let our oath be heard— Either to raze the walls, make void the hold Of Cadmus—strive his children as they may— Or, dying here, to make the foemen's land With blood impasted. Then, as memory's gift Unto their parents at the far-off home, Chaplets they hung upon Adrastus' car, With eyes tear-dropping, but no word of moan. For their steeled spirit glowed with high resolve, As lions pant, with battle in their eyes. For them, no weak alarm delays the clear Issues of death or life! I parted thence Even as they cast the lots, how each should lead, Against which gate, his serried company. Rank then thy bravest, with what speed thou may'st, Hard by the gates, to dash on them, for now, Full-armed, the onward ranks of Argos come! The dust whirls up, and from their panting steeds White foamy flakes like snow bedew the plain. Thou therefore, chieftain! like a steersman skilled, Enshield the city's bulwarks, ere the blast Of war comes darting on them! hark, the roar Of the great landstorm with its waves of men! Take Fortune by the forelock! for the rest, By yonder dawn-light will I scan the field Clear and aright, and surety of my word Shall keep thee scatheless of the coming storm.

ETEOCLES

O Zeus and Earth and city-guarding gods, And thou, my father's Curse, of baneful might, Spare ye at least this town, nor root it up, By violence of the foemen, stock and stem! For here, from home and hearth, rings Hellas' tongue. Forbid that e'er the yoke of slavery Should bow this land of freedom, Cadmus' hold! Be ye her help! your cause I plead with mine— A city saved doth honour to her gods! [Exit ETEOCLES, etc. Enter the CHORUS OF MAIDENS.

CHORUS

I wail in the stress of my terror, and shrill is my cry of despair. The foemen roll forth from their camp as a billow, and onward they bear! Their horsemen are swift in the forefront, the dust rises up to the sky, A signal, though speechless, of doom, a herald more clear than a cry! Hoof-trampled, the land of my love bears onward the din to mine ears. As a torrent descending a mountain, it thunders and echoes and nears! The doom is unloosened and cometh! O kings and O queens of high Heaven, Prevail that it fall not upon us: the sign for their onset is given— They stream to the walls from without, white-shielded and keen for the fray. They storm to the citadel gates— what god or what goddess can stay The rush of their feet? to what shrine shall I bow me in terror and pray? O gods high-throned in bliss, we must crouch at the shrines in your home! Not here must we tarry and wail: shield clashes on shield as they come— And now, even now is the hour for the robes and the chaplets of prayer! Mine eyes feel the flash of the sword, the clang is instinct with the spear! Is thy hand set against us, O Ares, in ruin and wrath to o'erwhelm Thine own immemorial land, O god of the golden helm? Look down upon us, we beseech thee, on the land that thou lovest of old, And ye, O protecting gods, in pity your people behold! Yea, save us, the maidenly troop, from the doom and despair of the slave, For the crests of the foemen come onward, their rush is the rush of a wave Rolled on by the war-god's breath! almighty one, hear us and save From the grasp of the Argives' might! to the ramparts of Cadmus they crowd, And, clenched in the teeth of the steeds, the bits clink horror aloud! And seven high chieftains of war, with spear and with panoply bold, Are set, by the law of the lot, to storm the seven gates of our hold! Be near and befriend us, O Pallas, the Zeus-born maiden of might! O lord of the steed and the sea, be thy trident uplifted to smite In eager desire of the fray, Poseidon! and Ares come down, In fatherly presence revealed, to rescue Harmonia's town! Thine too, Aphrodite, we are! thou art mother and queen of our race, To thee we cry out in our need, from thee let thy children have grace! Ye too, to scare back the foe, be your cry as a wolf's howl wild, Thou, O the wolf-lord, and thou, of she-wolf Leto the child! Woe and alack for the sound, for the rattle of cars to the wall, And the creak of the grinding axles! O Hera, to thee is our call! Artemis, maiden beloved! the air is distraught with the spears, And whither doth destiny drive us, and where is the goal of our fears? The blast of the terrible stones on the ridge of our wall is not stayed, At the gates is the brazen clash of the bucklers—Apollo to aid! Thou too, O daughter of Zeus, who guidest the wavering fray To the holy decision of fate, Athena! be with us to-day! Come down to the sevenfold gates and harry the foemen away! O gods and O sisters of gods, our bulwark and guard! we beseech That ye give not our war-worn hold to a rabble of alien speech! List to the call of the maidens, the hands held up for the right, Be near us, protect us, and show that the city is dear in your sight!

Have heed for her sacrifice holy, and thought of her offerings take, Forget not her love and her worship, be near her and smite for her sake! [Re-enter ETEOCLES. ETEOCLES

Hark to my question, things detestable! Is this aright and for the city's weal, And helpful to our army thus beset, That ye before the statues of our gods Should fling yourselves, and scream and shriek your fears? Immodest, uncontrolled! Be this my lot— Never in troublous nor in peaceful days To dwell with aught that wears a female form! Where womankind has power, no man can house, Where womankind feeds panic, ruin rules Alike in house and city! Look you now— Your flying feet, and rumour of your fears, Have spread a soulless panic on our walls, And they without do go from strength to strength, And we within make breach upon ourselves! Such fate it brings, to house with womankind. Therefore if any shall resist my rule— Or man, or woman, or some sexless thing— The vote of sentence shall decide their doom, And stones of execution, past escape, Shall finish all. Let not a woman's voice Be loud in council! for the things without, A man must care; let women keep within— Even then is mischief all too probable! Hear ye? or speak I to unheeding ears?

CHORUS

Ah, but I shudder, child of Oedipus! I heard the clash and clang! The axles rolled and rumbled; woe to us Fire-welded bridles rang!

ETEOCLES

Say—when a ship is strained and deep in brine, Did e'er a seaman mend his chance, who left The helm, t'invoke the image at the prow?

CHORUS

Ah, but I fled to the shrines, I called to our helpers on high, When the stone-shower roared at the portals! I sped to the temples aloft, and loud was my call and my cry, Look down and deliver. Immortals!

ETEOCLES

Ay, pray amain that stone may vanquish steel! Were not that grace of gods? ay, ay—methinks, When cities fall, the gods go forth from them!

CHORUS

Ah, let me die, or ever I behold The gods go forth, in conflagration dire! The foemen's rush and raid, and all our hold Wrapt in the burning fire!

ETEOCLES

Cry not: on Heaven, in impotent debate! What saith the saw?—Good saving Strength, in verity, Out of Obedience breeds the babe Prosperity.

CHORUS

'Tis true: yet stronger is the power divine, And oft, when man's estate is overbowed With bitter pangs, disperses from his eyne The heavy, hanging cloud!

ETEOCLES

Let men with sacrifice and augury Approach the gods, when comes the tug of war; Maids must be silent and abide within.

CHORUS

By grace of the gods we hold it, a city untamed of the spear, And the battlement wards from the wall the foe and his aspect of fear! What need of displeasure herein?

ETEOCLES

Ay, pay thy vows to Heaven; I grudge them not, But—so thou strike no fear into our men— Have calm at heart, nor be too much afraid.

CHORUS

Alack, it is fresh in mine ears, the clamour and crash of the fray, And up to our holiest height I sped on my timorous way, Bewildered, beset by the din!

ETEOCLES

Now, if ye hear the bruit of death or wounds, Give not yourselves o'ermuch to shriek and scream, For Ares ravens upon human flesh.

CHORUS

Ah, but the snorting of the steeds I hear!

ETEOCLES

Then, if thou hearts, hear them not too well!

CHORUS

Hark, the earth rumbles, as they close us round!

ETEOCLES

Enough if I am here, with plans prepared.

CHORUS

Alack, the battering at the gates is loud!

ETEOCLES

Peace! stay your tongue, or else the town may hear!

CHORUS

O warders of the walls, betray them not!

ETEOCLES

Bestrew your cries! in silence face your fate.

CHORUS

Gods of our city, see me not enslaved!

ETEOCLES

On me, on all, thy cries bring slavery.

CHORUS

Zeus, strong to smite, turn upon foes thy blow!

ETEOCLES

Zeus, what a curse are women, wrought by thee!

CHORUS

Weak wretches, even as men, when cities fall.

ETEOCLES

What! clasping gods, yet voicing thy despair?

CHORUS

In the sick heart, fear machete prey of speech.

ETEOCLES

Light is the thing I ask thee—do my will!

CHORUS

Ask swiftly: swiftly shall I know my power.

ETEOCLES

Silence, weak wretch! nor put thy friends in fear.

CHORUS

I speak no more: the general fate be mine!

ETEOCLES

I take that word as wiser than the rest. Nay, more: these images possess thy will— Pray, in their strength, that Heaven be on our side! Then hear my prayers withal, and then ring out The female triumph-note, thy privilege— Yea, utter forth the usage Hellas knows, The cry beside the altars, sounding clear Encouragement to friends, alarm to foes. But I unto all gods that guard our walls, Lords of the plain or warders of the mart And to Isthmus' stream and Dirge's rills, I swear, if Fortune smiles and saves our town, That we will make our altars reek with blood Of sheep and kine, shed forth unto the gods, And with victorious tokens front our fannies— Corsets and cases that once our foemen wore, Spear-shattered now—to deck these holy homes! Be such thy vows to Heaven—away with sighs, Away with outcry vain and barbarous, That shall avail not, in a general doom! But I will back, and, with six chosen men Myself the seventh, to confront the foe In this great aspect of a poised war, Return and plant them at the sevenfold gates, Or e'er the prompt and clamorous battle-scouts Haste to inflame our counsel with the need. [Exit ETEOCLES.

CHORUS

I mark his words, yet, dark and deep, My heart's alarm forbiddeth sleep! Close-clinging cares around my soul Enkindle fears beyond control, Presageful of what doom may fall From the great leaguer of the wall! So a poor dove is faint with fear For her weak nestlings, while anew Glides on the snaky ravisher! In troop and squadron, hand on hand, They climb and throng, and hemmed we stand, While on the warders of our town The flinty shower comes hurtling down!

Gods born of Zeus! put forth your might For Cadmus' city, realm, and right! What nobler land shall e'er be yours, If once ye give to hostile powers The deep rich soil, and Dirce's wave, The nursing stream, Poseidon gave And Tethys' children? Up and save! Cast on the ranks that hem us round A deadly panic, make them fling Their arms in terror on the ground, And die in carnage! thence shall spring High honour for our clan and king! Come at our wailing cry, and stand As throned sentries of our land!

For pity and sorrow it were that this immemorial town Should sink to be slave of the spear, to dust and to ashes gone down, By the gods of Achaean worship and arms of Achaean might Sacked and defiled and dishonoured, its women the prize of the fight— That, haled by the hair as a steed, their mantles dishevelled and torn, The maiden and matron alike should pass to the wedlock of scorn! I hear it arise from the city, the manifold wail of despair— Woe, woe for the doom that shall be— as in grasp of the foeman they fare! For a woe and a weeping it is, if the maiden inviolate flower Is plucked by the foe in his might, not culled in the bridal bower! Alas for the hate and the horror— how say it?—less hateful by far Is the doom to be slain by the sword, hewn down in the carnage of war! For wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall; There is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over all, And wild is the war-god's breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs, And pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!

Up to the citadel rise clash and din, The war-net closes in, The spear is in the heart: with blood imbrued Young mothers wail aloud, For children at their breast who scream and die! And boys and maidens fly, Yet scape not the pursuer, in his greed To thrust and grasp and feed! Robber with robber joins, each calls his mate Unto the feast of hate— The banquet, lo! is spread— seize, rend, and tear! No need to choose or share! And all the wealth of earth to waste is poured— A sight by all abhorred! The grieving housewives eye it; heaped and blent, Earth's boons are spoiled and spent, And waste to nothingness; and O alas, Young maids, forlorn ye pass— Fresh horror at your hearts—beneath the power Of those who crop the flower! Ye own the ruffian ravisher for lord, And night brings rites abhorred! Woe, woe for you! upon your grief and pain There comes a fouler stain. [Enter, on one side, THE SPY; on the other, ETEOCLES and the SIX CHAMPIONS.

SEMI-CHORUS

Look, friends! methinks the scout, who parted hence To spy upon the foemen, comes with news, His feet as swift as wafting chariot-wheels.

SEMI-CHORUS

Ay, and our king, the son of Oedipus, Comes prompt to time, to learn the spy's report— His heart is fainter than his foot is fast!

THE SPY

Well have I scanned the foe, and well can say Unto which chief, by lot, each gate is given. Tydeus already with his onset-cry Storms at the gate called Proetides; but him The seer Amphiaraus holds at halt, Nor wills that he should cross Ismenus' ford, Until the sacrifices promise fair. But Tydeus, mad with lust of blood and broil, Like to a cockatrice at noontide hour, Hisses out wrath and smites with scourge of tongue The prophet-son of Oecleus—Wise thou art, Faint against war, and holding back from death! With such revilings loud upon his lips He waves the triple plumes that o'er his helm Float overshadowing, as a courser's mane; And at his shield's rim, terror in their tone, Clang and reverberate the brazen bells. And this proud sign, wrought on his shield, he bears— The vault of heaven, inlaid with blazing stars; And, for the boss, the bright moon glows at full, The eye of night, the first and lordliest star. Thus with high-vaunted armour, madly bold, He clamours by the stream-bank, wild for war, As a steed panting grimly on his bit, Held in and chafing for the trumpet's bray! Whom wilt thou set against him? when the gates Of Proetus yield, who can his rush repel?

ETEOCLES

To me, no blazon on a foeman's shield Shall e'er present a fear! such pointed threats Are powerless to wound; his plumes and bells, Without a spear, are snakes without a sting. Nay, more—that pageant of which thou tellest— The nightly sky displayed, ablaze with stars, Upon his shield, palters with double sense— One headstrong fool will find its truth anon! For, if night fall upon his eyes in death, Yon vaunting blazon will its own truth prove, And he is prophet of his folly's fall. Mine shall it be, to pit against his power The loyal son of Astacus, as guard To hold the gateways—a right valiant soul, Who has in heed the throne of Modesty And loathes the speech of Pride, and evermore Shrinks from the base, but knows no other fear. He springs by stock from those whom Ares spared, The men called Sown, a right son of the soil, And Melanippus styled. Now, what his arm To-day shall do, rests with the dice of war, And Ares shall ordain it; but his cause Hath the true badge of Right, to urge him on To guard, as son, his motherland from wrong.

CHORUS

Then may the gods give fortune fair Unto our chief, sent forth to dare War's terrible arbitrament! But ah! when champions wend away, I shudder, lest, from out the fray, Only their blood-stained wrecks be sent!

THE SPY

Nay, let him pass, and the gods' help be his! Next, Capaneus comes on, by lot to lead The onset at the gates Electran styled: A giant he, more huge than Tydeus' self, And more than human in his arrogance— May fate forefend his threat against our walls! God willing, or unwilling—such his vaunt— I will lay waste this city; Pallas' self, Zeus' warrior maid, although she swoop to earth And plant her in my path, shall stay me not. And, for the flashes of the levin-bolt, He holds them harmless as the noontide rays. Mark, too, the symbol on his shield—a man Scornfully weaponless but torch in hand, And the flame glows within his grasp, prepared For ravin: lo, the legend, wrought in words, Fire for the city bring I, flares in gold! Against such wight, send forth—yet whom? what man Will front that vaunting figure and not fear?

ETEOCLES

Aha, this profits also, gain on gain! In sooth, for mortals, the tongue's utterance Bewrays unerringly a foolish pride! Hither stalks Capaneus, with vaunt and threat Defying god-like powers, equipt to act, And, mortal though he be, he strains his tongue In folly's ecstasy, and casts aloft High swelling words against the ears of Zeus. Right well I trust—if justice grants the word— That, by the might of Zeus, a bolt of flame In more than semblance shall descend on him. Against his vaunts, though reckless, I have set, To make assurance sure, a warrior stern— Strong Polyphontes, fervid for the fray; A sturdy bulwark, he, by grace of Heaven And favour of his champion Artemis! Say on, who holdeth the next gate in ward?

CHORUS

Perish the wretch whose vaunt affronts our home! On him the red bolt come, Ere to the maiden bowers his way he cleave, To ravage and bereave!

THE SPY

I will say on. Eteoclus is third— To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang O'er the inverted helmet's brazen rim, To dash his stormers on Neistae gate. He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe And yearn to charge upon the gates amain. They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith, Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound. High too and haughty is his shield's device— An armed man who climbs, from rung to rung, A scaling ladder, up a hostile wall, Afire to sack and slay; and he too cries, (By letters, full of sound, upon the shield) Not Ares' self shall cast me from the wall. Look to it, send, against this man, a man Strong to debar the slave's yoke from our town. ETEOCLES (pointing to MEGAREUS)

Send will I—even this man, with luck to aid— By his worth sent already, not by pride And vain pretence, is he. 'Tis Megareus, The child of Creon, of the Earth-sprung born! He will not shrink from guarding of the gates, Nor fear the maddened charger's frenzied neigh, But, if he dies, will nobly quit the score For nurture to the land that gave him birth, Or from the shield-side hew two warriors down Eteoclus and the figure that he lifts— Ay, and the city pictured, all in one, And deck with spoils the temple of his sire! Announce the next pair, stint not of thy tongue!

CHORUS

O thou, the warder of my home, Grant, unto us, Fate's favouring tide, Send on the foemen doom! They fling forth taunts of frenzied pride, On them may Zeus with glare of vengeance come;

THE SPY

Lo, next him stands a fourth and shouts amain, By Pallas Onca's portal, and displays A different challenge; 'tis Hippomedon! Huge the device that starts up from his targe In high relief; and, I deny it not, I shuddered, seeing how, upon the rim, It made a mighty circle round the shield— No sorry craftsman he, who wrought that work And clamped it all around the buckler's edge! The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire! The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole, Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew Erect above the concave of the shield: Loud rang the warrior's voice; inspired for war, He raves to slay, as doth a Bacchanal, His very glance a terror! of such wight Beware the onset! closing on the gates, He peals his vaunting and appalling cry!

ETEOCLES

Yet first our Pallas Onca—wardress she, Planting her foot hard by her gate—shall stand, The Maid against the ruffian, and repel His force, as from her brood the mother-bird Beats back the wintered serpent's venom'd fang And next, by her, is Oenops' gallant son, Hyperbius, chosen to confront this foe, Ready to seek his fate at Fortune's shrine!

In form, in valour, and in skill of arms, None shall gainsay him. See how wisely well Hermes hath set the brave against the strong! Confronted shall they stand, the shield of each Bearing the image of opposing gods: One holds aloft his Typhon breathing fire, But, on the other's shield, in symbol sits Zeus, calm and strong, and fans his bolt to flame— Zeus, seen of all, yet seen of none to fail! Howbeit, weak is trust reposed in Heaven— Yet are we upon Zeus' victorious side, The foe, with those he worsted—if in sooth Zeus against Typhon held the upper hand, And if Hyperbius, (as well may hap When two such foes such diverse emblems bear) Have Zeus upon his shield, a saving sign.

CHORUS

High faith is mine that he whose shield Bears, against Zeus, the thing of hate. The giant Typhon, thus revealed, A monster loathed of gods eterne And mortal men—this doom shall earn A shattered skull, before the gate!

THE SPY

Heaven send it so! A fifth assailant now Is set against our fifth, the northern, gate, Fronting the death-mound where Amphion lies The child of Zeus.

This foeman vows his faith, Upon a mystic spear-head which he deems More holy than a godhead and more sure To find its mark than any glance of eye, That, will they, nill they, he will storm and sack The hold of the Cadmeans. Such his oath— His, the bold warrior, yet of childish years, A bud of beauty's foremost flower, the son Of Zeus and of the mountain maid. I mark How the soft down is waxing on his cheek, Thick and close-growing in its tender prime— In name, not mood, is he a maiden's child— Parthenopaeus; large and bright his eyes But fierce the wrath wherewith he fronts the gate: Yet not unheralded he takes his stand Before the portal; on his brazen shield, The rounded screen and shelter of his form, I saw him show the ravening Sphinx, the fiend That shamed our city—how it glared and moved, Clamped on the buckler, wrought in high relief! And in its claws did a Cadmean bear— Nor heretofore, for any single prey, Sped she aloft, through such a storm of darts As now awaits her. So our foe is here— Like, as I deem, to ply no stinted trade In blood and broil, but traffick as is meet In fierce exchange for his long wayfaring!

ETEOCLES

Ah, may they meet the doom they think to bring— They and their impious vaunts—from those on high! So should they sink, hurled down to deepest death! This foe, at least, by thee Arcadian styled, Is faced by one who bears no braggart sign, But his hand sees to smite, where blows avail— Actor, own brother to Hyperbius! He will not let a boast without a blow Stream through our gates and nourish our despair, Nor give him way who on his hostile shield Bears the brute image of the loathly Sphinx! Blocked at the gate, she will rebuke the man Who strives to thrust her forward, when she feels Thick crash of blows, up to the city wall. With Heaven's goodwill, my forecast shall be true.

CHORUS

Home to my heart the vaunting goes, And, quick with terror, on my head Rises my hair, at sound of those Who wildly, impiously rave! If gods there be, to them I plead— Give them to darkness and the grave.

THE SPY

Fronting the sixth gate stands another foe, Wisest of warriors, bravest among seers— Such must I name Amphiaraus: he, Set steadfast at the Homoloid gate, Berates strong Tydeus with reviling words— The man of blood, the bane of state and home, To Argos, arch-allurer to all ill, Evoker of the fury-fiend of hell, Death's minister, and counsellor of wrong Unto Adrastus in this fatal field. Ay, and with eyes upturned and mien of scorn He chides thy brother Polynices too At his desert, and once and yet again Dwells hard and meaningly upon his name Where it saith glory yet importeth feud. Yea, such thou art in act, and such thy grace In sight of Heaven, and such in aftertime Thy fame, for lips and ears of mortal men! "He strove to sack the city of his sires And temples of her gods, and brought on her An alien armament of foreign foes. The fountain of maternal blood outpoured What power can staunch? even so, thy fatherland Once by thine ardent malice stormed and ta'en, Shall ne'er join force with thee." For me, I know It doth remain to let my blood enrich The border of this land that loves me not— Blood of a prophet, in a foreign grave! Now, for the battle! I foreknow my doom, Yet it shall be with honour. So he spake, The prophet, holding up his targe of bronze Wrought without blazon, to the ears of men Who stood around and heeded not his word. For on no bruit and rumour of great deeds, But on their doing, is his spirit set, And in his heart he reaps a furrow rich, Wherefrom the foison of good counsel springs. Against him, send brave heart and hand of might, For the god-lover is man's fiercest foe.

ETEOCLES

Out on the chance that couples mortal men, Linking the just and impious in one! In every issue, the one curse is this— Companionship with men of evil heart! A baneful harvest, let none gather it! The field of sin is rank, and brings forth death At whiles a righteous man who goes aboard With reckless mates, a horde of villainy, Dies by one death with that detested crew; At whiles the just man, joined with citizens Ruthless to strangers, recking nought of Heaven, Trapped, against nature, in one net with them, Dies by God's thrust and all-including blow. So will this prophet die, even Oecleus' child, Sage, just, and brave, and loyal towards Heaven, Potent in prophecy, but mated here With men of sin, too boastful to be wise! Long is their road, and they return no more, And, at their taking-off, by hand of Zeus, The prophet too shall take the downward way. He will not—so I deem—assail the gate— Not as through cowardice or feeble will, But as one knowing to what end shall be Their struggle in the battle, if indeed Fruit of fulfilment lie in Loxias' word. He speaketh not, unless to speak avails! Yet, for more surety, we will post a man, Strong Lasthenes, as warder of the gate, Stern to the foeman; he hath age's skill, Mated with youthful vigour, and an eye Forward, alert; swift too his hand, to catch The fenceless interval 'twixt shield and spear! Yet man's good fortune lies in hand of Heaven.

CHORUS

Unto our loyal cry, ye gods, give ear! Save, save the city! turn away the spear, Send on the foemen fear! Outside the rampart fall they, rent and riven Beneath the bolt of heaven!

THE SPY

Last, let me name yon seventh antagonist, Thy brother's self, at the seventh portal set— Hear with what wrath he imprecates our doom, Vowing to mount the wall, though banished hence, And peal aloud the wild exulting cry— The town is ta'en—then clash his sword with thine, Giving and taking death in close embrace, Or, if thou 'scapest, flinging upon thee, As robber of his honour and his home, The doom of exile such as he has borne. So clamours he and so invokes the gods Who guard his race and home, to hear and heed The curse that sounds in Polynices' name! He bears a round shield, fresh from forge and fire, And wrought upon it is a twofold sign— For lo, a woman leads decorously The figure of a warrior wrought in gold; And thus the legend runs—I Justice am, And I will bring the hero home again, To hold once more his place within this town, Once more to pace his sire's ancestral hall. Such are the symbols, by our foemen shown— Now make thine own decision, whom to send Against this last opponent! I have said— Nor canst thou in my tidings find a flaw— Thine is it, now, to steer the course aright.

ETEOCLES

Ah me, the madman, and the curse of Heaven! And woe for us, the lamentable line Of Oedipus, and woe that in this house Our father's curse must find accomplishment! But now, a truce to tears and loud lament, Lest they should breed a still more rueful wail! As for this Polynices, named too well, Soon shall we know how his device shall end— Whether the gold-wrought symbols on his shield, In their mad vaunting and bewildered pride, Shall guide him as a victor to his home! For had but Justice, maiden-child of Zeus, Stood by his act and thought, it might have been! Yet never, from the day he reached the light Out of the darkness of his mother's womb, Never in childhood, nor in youthful prime, Nor when his chin was gathering its beard, Hath Justice hailed or claimed him as her own. Therefore I deem not that she standeth now To aid him in this outrage on his home! Misnamed, in truth, were Justice, utterly, If to impiety she lent her hand. Sure in this faith, I will myself go forth And match me with him; who hath fairer claim? Ruler, against one fain to snatch the rule, Brother with brother matched, and foe with foe, Will I confront the issue. To the wall!

CHORUS

O thou true heart, O child of Oedipus, Be not, in wrath, too like the man whose name Murmurs an evil omen! 'Tis enough That Cadmus' clan should strive with Argos' host, For blood there is that can atone that stain! But—brother upon brother dealing death— Not time itself can expiate the sin!

ETEOCLES

If man find hurt, yet clasp his honour still, 'Tis well; the dead have honour, nought beside. Hurt, with dishonour, wins no word of praise!

CHORUS

Ah, what is thy desire? Let not the lust and ravin of the sword Bear thee adown the tide accursed, abhorred! Fling off thy passion's rage, thy spirit's prompting dire!

ETEOCLES

Nay—since the god is urgent for our doom, Let Laius' house, by Phoebus loathed and scorned, Follow the gale of destiny, and win Its great inheritance, the gulf of hell!

CHORUS

Ruthless thy craving is— Craving for kindred and forbidden blood To be outpoured—a sacrifice imbrued With sin, a bitter fruit of murderous enmities!

ETEOCLES

Yea, my own father's fateful Curse proclaims— A ghastly presence, and her eyes are dry— Strike! honour is the prize, not life prolonged!

CHORUS

Ah, be not urged of her! for none shall dare To call thee coward, in thy throned estate! Will not the Fury in her sable pall Pass outward from these halls, what time the gods Welcome a votive offering from our hands?

ETEOCLES

The gods! long since they hold us in contempt, Scornful of gifts thus offered by the lost! Why should we fawn and flinch away from doom?

CHORUS

Now, when it stands beside thee! for its power May, with a changing gust of milder mood, Temper the blast that bloweth wild and rude And frenzied, in this hour!

ETEOCLES

Ay, kindled by the curse of Oedipus— All too prophetic, out of dreamland came The vision, meting out our sire's estate!

CHORUS

Heed women's voices, though thou love them not!

ETEOCLES

Say aught that may avail, but stint thy words.

CHORUS

Go not thou forth to guard the seventh gate!

ETEOCLES

Words shall not blunt the edge of my resolve.

CHORUS

Yet the god loves to let the weak prevail.

ETEOCLES

That to a swordsman, is no welcome word!

CHORUS

Shall thine own brother's blood be victory's palm?

ETEOCLES

Ill which the gods have sent thou canst not shun! [Exit ETEOCLES. CHORUS

I shudder in dread of the power, abhorred by the gods of high heaven, The ruinous curse of the home till roof-tree and rafter be riven! Too true are the visions of ill, too true the fulfilment they bring To the curse that was spoken of old by the frenzy and wrath of the king! Her will is the doom of the children, and Discord is kindled amain, And strange is the Lord of Division, who cleaveth the birthright in twain,— The edged thing, born of the north, the steel that is ruthless and keen, Dividing in bitter division the lot of the children of teen! Not the wide lowland around, the realm of their sire, shall they have, Yet enough for the dead to inherit, the pitiful space of a grave!

Ah, but when kin meets kin, when sire and child, Unknowing, are defiled By shedding common blood, and when the pit Of death devoureth it, Drinking the clotted stain, the gory dye— Who, who can purify? Who cleanse pollution, where the ancient bane Rises and reeks again? Whilome in olden days the sin was wrought, And swift requital brought— Yea on the children of the child came still New heritage of ill! For thrice Apollo spoke this word divine, From Delphi's central shrine, To Laius—Die thou childless! thus alone Can the land's weal be won! But vainly with his wife's desire he strove, And gave himself to love, Begetting Oedipus, by whom he died, The fateful parricide! The sacred seed-plot, his own mother's womb, He sowed, his house's doom, A root of blood! by frenzy lured, they came Unto their wedded shame. And now the waxing surge, the wave of fate, Rolls on them, triply great— One billow sinks, the next towers, high and dark, Above our city's bark— Only the narrow barrier of the wall Totters, as soon to fall; And, if our chieftains in the storm go down, What chance can save the town? Curses, inherited from long ago, Bring heavy freight of woe: Rich stores of merchandise o'erload the deck, Near, nearer comes the wreck— And all is lost, cast out upon the wave, Floating, with none to save!

Whom did the gods, whom did the chief of men, Whom did each citizen In crowded concourse, in such honour hold, As Oedipus of old, When the grim fiend, that fed on human prey, He took from us away?

But when, in the fulness of days, he knew of his bridal unblest, A twofold horror he wrought, in the frenzied despair of his breast— Debarred from the grace of the banquet, the service of goblets of gold, He flung on his children a curse for the splendour they dared to withhold, A curse prophetic and bitter— The glory of wealth and of pride, With iron, not gold, in your hands, ye shall come, at the last, to divide! Behold, how a shudder runs through me, lest now, in the fulness of time, The house-fiend awake and return, to mete out the measure of crime! [Enter THE SPY.

THE SPY

Take heart, ye daughters whom your mothers' milk Made milky-hearted! lo, our city stands, Saved from the yoke of servitude: the vaunts Of overweening men are silent now, And the State sails beneath a sky serene, Nor in the manifold and battering waves Hath shipped a single surge, and solid stands The rampart, and the gates are made secure, Each with a single champion's trusty guard. So in the main and at six gates we hold A victory assured; but, at the seventh, The god that on the seventh day was born, Royal Apollo, hath ta'en up his rest To wreak upon the sons of Oedipus Their grandsire's wilfulness of long ago.

CHORUS

What further woefulness besets our home?

THE SPY

The home stands safe—but ah, the princes twain—

CHORUS

Who? what of them? I am distraught with fear.

THE SPY

Hear now, and mark! the sons of Oedipus—

CHORUS

Ah, my prophetic soul! I feel their doom.

THE SPY

Have done with questions!—with their lives crushed out—

CHORUS

Lie they out yonder? the full horror speak! Did hands meet hands more close than brotherly? Came fate on each, and in the selfsame hour?

THE SPY

Yea, blotting out the lineage ill-starred! Now mix your exultation and your tears, Over a city saved, the while its lords, Twin leaders of the fight, have parcelled out With forged arbitrament of Scythian steel The full division of their fatherland, And, as their father's imprecation bade, Shall have their due of land, a twofold grave. So is the city saved; the earth has drunk Blood of twin princes, by each other slain.

CHORUS

O mighty Zeus and guardian powers, The strength and stay of Cadmus' towers! Shall I send forth a joyous cry, Hail to the lord of weal renewed? Or weep the misbegotten twain, Born to a fatal destiny? Each numbered now among the slain, Each dying in ill fortitude, Each truly named, each child of feud?

O dark and all-prevailing ill, That broods o'er Oedipus and all his line, Numbing my heart with mortal chill! Ah me, this song of mine, Which, Thyad-like, I woke, now falleth still, Or only tells of doom, And echoes round a tomb!

Dead are they, dead! in their own blood they lie— Ill-omened the concent that hails our victory! The curse a father on his children spake Hath faltered not, nor failed! Nought, Laius! thy stubborn choice availed— First to beget, then, in the after day And for the city's sake, The child to slay! For nought can blunt nor mar The speech oracular! Children of teen! by disbelief ye erred— Yet in wild weeping came fulfilment of the word! [ANTIGONE and ISMENE approach, with a train of mourners, bearing the bodies of ETEOCLES and POLYNICES.

Look up, look forth! the doom is plain, Nor spake the messenger in vain! A twofold sorrow, twofold strife— Each brave against a brother's life! In double doom hath sorrow come— How shall I speak it?—on the home!

Alas, my sisters! be your sighs the gale, The smiting of your brows the plash of oars, Wafting the boat, to Acheron's dim shores That passeth ever, with its darkened sail, On its uncharted voyage and sunless way, Far from thy beams, Apollo, god of day— The melancholy bark Bound for the common bourn, the harbour of the dark! Look up, look yonder! from the home Antigone, Ismene come, On the last, saddest errand bound, To chant a dirge of doleful sound, With agony of equal pain Above their brethren slain! Their sister-bosoms surely swell, Heart with rent heart according well In grief for those who fought and fell! Yet—ere they utter forth their woe— We must awake the rueful strain To vengeful powers, in realms below, And mourn hell's triumph o'er the slain!

Alas! of all, the breast who bind,— Yea, all the race of womankind— O maidens, ye are most bereaved! For you, for you the tear-drops start— Deem that in truth, and undeceived, Ye hear the sorrows of my heart! (To the dead.) Children of bitterness, and sternly brave— One, proud of heart against persuasion's voice, One, against exile proof! ye win your choice— Each in your fatherland, a separate grave!

Alack, on house and heritage They brought a baneful doom, and death for wage! One strove through tottering walls to force his way, One claimed, in bitter arrogance, the sway, And both alike, even now and here, Have closed their suit, with steel for arbiter! And lo, the Fury-fiend of Oedipus, their sire, Hath brought his curse to consummation dire! Each in the left side smitten, see them laid— The children of one womb, Slain by a mutual doom! Alas, their fate! the combat murderous, The horror of the house, The curse of ancient bloodshed, now repaid! Yea, deep and to the heart the deathblow fell, Edged by their feud ineffable— By the grim curse, their sire did imprecate— Discord and deadly hate! Hark, how the city and its towers make moan— How the land mourns that held them for its own! Fierce greed and fell division did they blend, Till death made end! They strove to part the heritage in twain, Giving to each a gain— Yet that which struck the balance in the strife, The arbitrating sword, By those who loved the twain is held abhorred— Loathed is the god of death, who sundered each from life! Here, by the stroke of steel, behold! they lie— And rightly may we cry Beside their fathers, let them here be laid— Iron gave their doom, with iron their graves be made— Alack, the slaying sword, alack, th' entombing spade!

Alas, a piercing shriek, a rending groan, A cry unfeigned of sorrow felt at heart! With shuddering of grief, with tears that start, With wailful escort, let them hither come— For one or other make divided moan! No light lament of pity mixed with gladness, But with true tears, poured from the soul of sadness, Over the princes dead and their bereaved home

Say we, above these brethren dead, On citizen, on foreign foe, Brave was their rush, and stern their blow— Now, lowly are they laid! Beyond all women upon earth Woe, woe for her who gave them birth! Unknowingly, her son she wed— The children of that marriage-bed, Each in the self-same womb, were bred— Each by a brother's hand lies dead!

Yea, from one seed they sprang, and by one fate Their heritage is desolate, The heart's division sundered claim from claim, And, from their feud, death came! Now is their hate allayed, Now is their life-stream shed, Ensanguining the earth with crimson dye— Lo, from one blood they sprang, and in one blood they lie! A grievous arbiter was given the twain— The stranger from the northern main, The sharp, dividing sword, Fresh from the forge and fire The War-god treacherous gave ill award And brought their father's curse to a fulfilment dire! They have their portion—each his lot and doom, Given from the gods on high! Yea, the piled wealth of fatherland, for tomb, Shall underneath them lie! Alas, alas! with flowers of fame and pride Your home ye glorified; But, in the end, the Furies gathered round With chants of boding sound,

Shrieking, In wild defeat and disarray, Behold, ye pass away! The sign of Ruin standeth at the gate, There, where they strove with Fate— And the ill power beheld the brothers' fall, And triumphed over all! ANTIGONE, ISMENE, and CHORUS (Processional Chant)

Thou wert smitten, in smiting, Thou didst slay, and wert slain— By the spear of each other Ye lie on the plain, And ruthless the deed that ye wrought was, and ruthless the death of the twain!

Take voice, O my sorrow! Flow tear upon tear— Lay the slain by the slayer, Made one on the bier! Our soul in distraction is lost, and we mourn o'er the prey of the spear!

Ah, woe for your ending, Unbrotherly wrought! And woe for the issue, The fray that ye fought, The doom of a mutual slaughter whereby to the grave ye are brought!

Ah, twofold the sorrow— The heard and the seen! And double the tide Of our tears and our teen, As we stand by our brothers in death and wail for the love that has been!

O grievous the fate That attends upon wrong! Stern ghost of our sire, Thy vengeance is long! Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are strong!

O dark were the sorrows That exile hath known! He slew, but returned not Alive to his own! He struck down a brother, but fell, in the moment of triumph hewn down!

O lineage accurst, O doom and despair! Alas, for their quarrel, The brothers that were! And woe! for their pitiful end, who once were our love and our care!

O grievous the fate That attends upon wrong! Stern ghost of our sire, Thy vengeance is long! Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are strong!

By proof have ye learnt it! At once and as one, O brothers beloved, To death ye were done! Ye came to the strife of the sword, and behold! ye are both overthrown!

O grievous the tale is, And grievous their fall, To the house, to the land, And to me above all! Ah God! for the curse that hath come, the sin and the ruin withal!

O children distraught, Who in madness have died! Shall ye rest with old kings In the place of their pride? Alas for the wrath of your sire if he findeth you laid by his side! [Enter a HERALD.

HERALD

I bear command to tell to one and all What hath approved itself and now is law, Ruled by the counsellors of Cadmus' town. For this Eteocles, it is resolved To lay him on his earth-bed, in this soil, Not without care and kindly sepulture. For why? he hated those who hated us, And, with all duties blamelessly performed Unto the sacred ritual of his sires, He met such end as gains our city's grace,— With auspices that do ennoble death. Such words I have in charge to speak of him: But of his brother Polynices, this— Be he cast out unburied, for the dogs To rend and tear: for he presumed to waste The land of the Cadmeans, had not Heaven— Some god of those who aid our fatherland— Opposed his onset, by his brother's spear, To whom, tho' dead, shall consecration come! Against him stood this wretch, and brought a horde Of foreign foemen, to beset our town. He therefore shall receive his recompense, Buried ignobly in the maw of kites— No women-wailers to escort his corpse Nor pile his tomb nor shrill his dirge anew— Unhouselled, unattended, cast away! So, for these brothers, doth our State ordain.

ANTIGONE

And I—to those who make such claims of rule In Cadmus' town—I, though no other help, (Pointing to the body of POLYNICES) I, I will bury this my brother's corse And risk your wrath and what may come of it! It shames me not to face the State, and set Will against power, rebellion resolute: Deep in my heart is set my sisterhood, My common birthright with my brothers, born All of one womb, her children who, for woe, Brought forth sad offspring to a sire ill-starred. Therefore, my soul! take thou thy willing share, In aid of him who now can will no more, Against this outrage: be a sister true, While yet thou livest, to a brother dead! Him never shall the wolves with ravening maw Rend and devour: I do forbid the thought! I for him, I—albeit a woman weak— In place of burial-pit, will give him rest By this protecting handful of light dust Which, in the lap of this poor linen robe, I bear to hallow and bestrew his corpse With the due covering. Let none gainsay! Courage and craft shall arm me, this to do.

HERALD

I charge thee, not to flout the city's law!

ANTIGONE

I charge thee, use no useless heralding!

HERALD

Stern is a people newly 'scaped from death.

ANTIGONE

Whet thou their sternness! Burial he shall have.

HERALD

How? Grace of burial, to the city's foe?

ANTIGONE

God hath not judged him separate in guilt.

HERALD

True—till he put this land in jeopardy.

ANTIGONE

His rights usurped, he answered wrong with wrong.

HERALD

Nay—but for one man's sin he smote the State.

ANTIGONE

Contention doth out-talk all other gods! Prate thou no more—I will to bury him.

HERALD

Will, an thou wilt! but I forbid the deed. [Exit the HERALD.

CHORUS

Exulting Fates, who waste the line And whelm the house of Oedipus! Fiends, who have slain, in wrath condign, The father and the children thus! What now befits it that I do, What meditate, what undergo? Can I the funeral rite refrain, Nor weep for Polynices slain? But yet, with fear I shrink and thrill, Presageful of the city's will! Thou, O Eteocles, shalt have Full rites, and mourners at thy grave, But he, thy brother slain, shall he, With none to weep or cry Alas, To unbefriended burial pass? Only one sister o'er his bier, To raise the cry and pour the tear— Who can obey such stern decree?