Part 7

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 hearest, 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 poisèd 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 thronèd 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 armèd 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_.