Classic Greek Drama_ 10 Plays by Euripides in a Single File [NOOK Book] - Euripides [64]
CHOR. Thy sister is gone out of the house, O Creon, and the girl Antigone attending the steps of her mother.
CRE. Whither? and for what hap? tell me.
CHOR. She heard that her sons were about to come to a contest in single battle for the royal palace.
CRE. How sayest thou? whilst I was fondly attending to my son's corse, I arrived not so far _in knowledge_, as to be acquainted with this also.
CHOR. But thy sister has indeed been gone some time; but I think, O Creon, that the contest, in which their lives are at stake, has already been concluded by the sons of Oedipus.
CRE. Ah me! I see indeed this signal, the downcast eye and countenance of the approaching messenger, who will relate every thing that has taken place.
MESSENGER, CREON, CHORUS.
MESS. O wretched me! what language or what words can I utter? we are undone--
CRE. Thou beginnest thy speech with no promising prelude.
MESS. Oh wretched me! doubly do I lament, for I hear great calamities.
CRE. In addition to the calamities that have happened dost thou still speak of others?
MESS. Thy sister's sons, O Creon, no longer behold the light.
CRE. Ah! alas! thou utterest great ills to me and to the state.
MESS. O mansions of Oedipus, do ye hear these things of thy children who have perished by similar fates?
CHOR. Ay, so that, had they but sense, they would weep.
CRE. O most heavy misery! Oh me wretched with woes! alas! unhappy me!
MESS. If that thou knewest the evils yet in addition to these.
CRE. And how can there be more fatal ills than these?
MESS. Thy sister is dead with her two children.
CHOR. Raise, raise the cry of woe, and smite your heads with the blows of your white hands.
CRE. Oh unhappy Jocasta, what an end of thy life and of thy marriage hast thou endured in the riddles of the Sphinx![45] But how took place the slaughter of her two sons, and the combat arising from the curse of Oedipus? tell me.
MESS. The success of the country before the towers indeed thou knowest; for the circuit of the wall is not of such vast extent, but that thou must know all that has taken place. But after that the sons of the aged Oedipus had clad their limbs in brazen armor, they came and stood in the midst of the plain between the two armies, ready for the contest, and the fierceness of the single battle. And having cast a look toward Argos, Polynices uttered his prayer; "O venerable Juno (for I am thine, since in marriage I joined myself with the daughter of Adrastus, and dwell in that land), grant me to slay my brother, and to cover with blood my hostile hand bearing the victory." And Eteocles looking at the temple of Pallas, glorious in her golden shield, prayed; "O Daughter of Jove, grant me with my hand to hurl my victorious spear from this arm home to the breast of my brother, [and slay him who came to lay waste my country."] And when the sound of the Tuscan trumpet was raised, as the torch, the signal for the fierce battle, they sped with dreadful rush toward each other; and like wild boars whetting their savage tusks, they met, their cheeks all moist with foam; and they rushed forward with their lances; but they couched beneath the orbs of their shields, in order that the steel might fall harmless. But if either perceived the other's eye raised above the verge, he drove the lance at his face, intent to be beforehand with him: but dexterously they shifted their eyes to the open ornaments of their shields, so that the spear was made of none effect. And more sweat trickled down the spectators than the combatants, through the fear of their friends. But Eteocles, stumbling with his foot against a stone, which rolled under his tread,[46] places his limb
without the shield. But Polynices ran up with his spear, when he saw a stroke open to his steel, and the Argive spear passed through the shank. And all the host of the Danai shouted for joy. And the hero who first was wounded, when he perceived his shoulder exposed in this