Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus
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counsel on the sons of Œdipus.
Chor. What new disaster happens to our city?123
Mess. The city's saved, but both the royal brothers…
Chor. Who? and what of them? I'm distraught with fear.
Mess. Be calm, and hear: the sons of Œdipus…
Chor. Oh wretched me! a prophet I of ill!
Mess. Slain by each other, earth has drunk their blood.
Chor. Came they to that? 'Tis dire; yet tell it me.
Mess. Too true, by brother's hand our chiefs are slain.
Chor. What, did the brother's hands the brother lay?
Mess. No doubt is there that they are laid in dust.
Chor. Thus was there then a common fate for both?
Mess. *Yea, it lays low the whole ill-fated race.
Chor. These things give cause for gladness and for tears,
Seeing that our city prospers, and our lords,
The generals twain, with well-wrought Skythian steel,
Have shared between them all their store of goods,
And now shall have their portion in a grave,
Borne on, as spake their father's grievous curse.124
Mess. [The city's saved, but of the brother-kings
The earth has drunk the blood, each slain by each.]
Chor. Great Zeus! and ye, O Gods!
Guardians of this our town,
Who save in very deed
The towers of Cadmos old,
Shall I rejoice and shout
Over the happy chance
That frees our State from harm;
Or weep that ill-starred pair,
The war-chiefs, childless and most miserable,
Who, true to that ill name
Of Polyneikes, died in impious mood,
Contending overmuch?
Oh dark, and all too true
That curse of Œdipus and all his race,125
An evil chill is falling on my heart,
And, like a Thyiad wild,
Over his grave I sing a dirge of grief,
Hearing the dead have died by evil fate,
Each in foul bloodshed steeped;
Ah me! Ill-omened is the spear's accord.126
It hath wrought out its end,
And hath not failed, that prayer the father poured;
And Laios' reckless counsels work till now:
I fear me for the State;
The oracles have not yet lost their edge;
O men of many sorrows, ye have wrought
This deed incredible;
Not now in word come woes most lamentable.
Yea, it is all too clear,
The herald's tale of woe comes full in sight;
Twofold our cares, twin evils born of pride,
Murderous, with double doom,
Wrought unto full completeness all these ills.
What shall I say? What else
Are they than woes that make this house their home?
But oh! my friends, ply, ply with swift, strong gale,
That even stroke of hands upon your head,127
In funeral order, such as evermore
O'er Acheron sends on
That bark of State, dark-rigged, accursed its voyage,
Which nor Apollo visits nor the sun,128
On to the shore unseen,
The resting-place of all.
For see, they come to bitter deed called forth,
Ismene and the maid Antigone,
To wail their brothers' fall;
With little doubt I deem,
That they will pour from fond, deep-bosomed breasts
A worthy strain of grief:
But it is meet that we,
Before we hear their cry,
Should utter the harsh hymn Erinnys loves,
And sing to Hades dark
The Pæan of distress.
O ye, most evil-fated in your kin,
Of all who guard their robes with maiden's band,
I weep and wail, and feigning know I none,
That I should fail to speak
My sorrow from my heart.
Semi-Chor. A. Alas! alas!
Men of stern mood, who would not list to friends,
Unwearied in all ills,
Seizing your father's house, O wretched ones
With the spear's murderous point.
Semi-Chor. B. Yea, wretched they who found a wretched doom,
With havoc of the house.
Semi-Chor. A. Alas! alas!
Ye who laid low the ancient walls of home,
On sovereignty, ill won,
Your eyes have looked, and ye at last are brought
To concord by the sword.
Semi-Chor. B. Yea, of a truth, the curse of Œdipus
Erinnys dread fulfils.
Semi-Chor. A. Yea, smitten through the heart,
Smitten through sides where flowed the blood of brothers.
Ah me! ye doomed of God!
Ah me! the curses dire
Of deaths ye met with each at other's hands!
Semi-Chor. B. Thou tell'st of men death-smitten through and through,
Both in their homes and lives,
With wrath beyond all speech,
And doom of discord fell,
That
I follow in this dialogue the arrangement which Paley adopts from Hermann.
Not here the curse uttered by Œdipus, but that which rested on him and all his kin. There is possibly an allusion to the curse which Pelops is said to have uttered against Laios when he stole his son Chrysippos. Comp. v. 837.
As in v. 763 we read of the brothers as made one in death, so now of the concord which is wrought out by conflict, the concord,
The Chorus are called on to change their character, and to pass from the attitude of suppliants, with outstretched arms, to that of mourners at a funeral, beating on their breasts. But, perhaps, the call is addressed to the mourners who are seen approaching with Ismene and Antigone.
The thought is drawn from the