Phoenissae

OEDIPUS, ANTIGONE

OEDIPUS Guide of your blind father and the only relief of my weary side, daughter, whom it was worth so much to have begotten even thus, abandon your ill-fated father; why do you turn aside my erring step into the straight path? Let me fall; better shall I find the way which I seek alone, a way to draw me out from this life and to free the sky and the lands from the sight of this unspeakable head. How little have I done with this hand? I do not see the day, witness of my guilt, but I am seen. Loose now your clinging hand and let the blind foot be carried where it will. I will go, I will go where my Cithaeron stretches out his sheer ridges, where, the mountain ranged over, swift over the rocks Actaeon lay, a new prey to his own hounds; where through the dark grove and the woodland of the shady valley the mother drove her sisters, goaded by the god, and, rejoicing in her evil, held forth the head fixed on the quivering thyrsus; or where the bullock of Zethus ran, dragging its mocked body, where through the bristling brambles the blood of the fierce bull displays his flights; or where the Inoan crag presses the deep seas with its vast peak, where, fleeing a new crime and making a new one, the mother leaped into the sea, to drown her son and herself—happy those to whom a better fortune gave such good mothers. There is another place of mine in those woods which demands me back; this I will seek with hurried course; my step will not falter; thither, robbed of every guide, I will go. Why do I delay my own abode? Give back to me, Cithaeron, my death and that lodging of mine restore, that I may breathe my last an old man where I should have as an infant; receive the old punishment. Ever bloody, savage, cruel, fierce, both when you slay and when you spare, long ago already this corpse is yours: carry out your father's charge, and now your mother's too. My soul longs to fulfil the old punishments. Why, daughter, do you hold me bound by a pestilent love? Why do you hold me? My father calls. I follow, I follow; now cease. Laius rages, bearing the bloody emblem of his snatched-away kingdom; lo, behold, with hostile hands he seeks and gouges at my empty face. Daughter, do you see your father? I see him. At last spew out your hostile breath, deserter soul, brave only in a part of yourself. Lay aside the languid delays of a long penalty and admit death entire. Why, sluggish, do I drag on my living? I can do no more crime now? I can, wretched man, I foretell it—I depart from my father, I depart, maiden. After my mother I fear all things.

ANTIGONE No force, father, will loose our hand from your body; no one will ever snatch me away, your companion. Let the wealthy realms of my brothers seek with the sword the bright house of Labdacus— the highest part of my father's great kingdom is mine, my father himself. Him no brother shall take from me, who holds the Theban sceptre by a snatched-away kingdom, nor the other, who leads the Argive throngs; not if Jupiter, the world torn open, should thunder and the thunderbolt fall amid our embrace, will I let go this hand. Forbid me, father, though you may: I will guide you against your will, I will direct, unwilling, your step. Do you make for the level? I go; do you seek the steep? I do not stand in your way, but go before; whichever way you will, use me as your guide; every path is chosen by us two: you cannot perish without me, with me you can. Here a high crag rises with steep ridge and looks far off on the expanses of the sea below: do you wish that we seek this? Here the bare rock hangs, here the cleft earth gapes with broken jaws: do you wish that we seek this? Here a rapacious torrent falls and rolls the eaten-away parts of the fallen mountain: shall we rush into this? While I go first, I go where you will. I do not plead against it, I do not urge it. Do you long to be extinguished, and is death, father, your greatest prayer? If you die, I go before; if you live, I follow. But turn your mind, recall your spirit of old and tame your sorrows, conquered by great strength; resist: amid such ills it is a great thing to conquer death.

OEDIPUS Whence in an unspeakable house this excellent example? Whence this maiden so unlike her race? Fortune, do you believe it? Is anyone from me dutiful? There never would be—I know my fates well— were it not to harm me. Nature herself has turned to new laws: the river, rolled back, would direct its swift waters to their source, and the lamp of Phoebus would bring on night, Hesperus would make the day; that something might be added to my miseries, we too shall be dutiful. The one salvation of Oedipus is to be not saved. Let me avenge my father, still unavenged. Right hand, why, idle, do you delay to exact the penalties? Whatever has been exacted so far you gave to your mother. Loose your father's hand, spirited maiden: you draw out my death and lead, while I live, the long obsequies of your father. At last hide my hated body in the earth; you sin with an honourable mind; you call it duty to drag your father unburied, who forces a man to die unwilling, and he is no different who hinders one who hastens; yet they are not the same: the one I count the heavier: to forbid one who longs to die is to slay him. I would rather have death commanded than snatched from me. Desist from your undertaking, maiden: the right over my life and death is in my own keeping. I left my kingdom willingly; the kingdom of myself I retain. If you are a faithful companion, give your father the sword—but the sword known by my father's slaughter. Do you give it? Or do my sons hold that too, along with the kingdom? Wherever a crime is needed, let it be there; I leave it. Let my son have it, but each of them. Rather build up flames and a vast pyre; I myself will cast myself onto the high pyres, and loose my hard breast and give to ash whatever lives in me. Where is the savage sea? Lead me where the ridge is broken down by high rocks, where rapid Ismenus leads its grim waters, if you are a guide: thither it pleases me, doomed to die, to go, where the Sphinx sat on the high crag, weaving her wiles with half-bestial mouth. Direct hither the steps of my feet, here set your father, lest the dread seat be empty; set there a greater monster. Sitting on this rock I will speak the dark words of our fortune, which no one may solve: whoever you are who cleave the lands possessed by the Assyrian king, and adore as suppliant the grove of Cadmus, known for its serpent, where sacred Dirce lies hid; whoever drink the Eurotas and dwell in Sparta, noble for its twin brothers, and whoever, a colonist, reap Elis and Parnassus and the Boeotian fields of fertile soil: turn your mind hither. The savage plague of Thebes, weaving woe-bringing words in blind measures— what like to this has she set forth? What so inextricable? The son-in-law of his grandfather and the rival of his own father, the brother of his children and the parent of his brothers; in one birth the grandmother bore children to her husband, and to herself grandsons. Who unravels such great monstrosities? I myself, who bore off the spoils of the conquered Sphinx, shall stick fast, a slow interpreter of my own fate.

. . .

Why do you waste your words further? Why do you try to soften this fierce breast with prayers? This is fixed in my mind: to pour out this soul, long struggling with death, and to seek the darkness: for this night is too little deep for my crime: it pleases me to be buried in Tartarus, and if there is anything beyond Tartarus; at last it pleases me to do what once I ought. I cannot be kept from death. Will you deny me the sword? Will you frustrate the deadly ways of a fall, and forbid my neck to be set in tight nooses? Will you take away the herbs that bring death? What, after all, will that care of yours accomplish? Death is everywhere. Excellently has the god provided for this: no man cannot take life from a man, but no one can take death; a thousand approaches lie open to it. I seek nothing: my soul is wont to use well even the bare right hand—right hand, now with all your force, with all my grief, with all your strength, come. I appoint no one place for our wound: I am wholly guilty: where you will, exact death. Break open my breast and tear out the heart, capable of so many crimes; bare all the folds of my entrails. Let my throat, shattered by quickened blows, resound, and let the torn veins flow, my nails fixed in them. Or direct your wrath where you are wont: irrigate these wounds, torn open, with much blood and corruption, and through them draw out this hard, impregnable soul. And you, my father, wherever you stand, arbiter of my punishments; never did I believe this so great a crime could ever be sufficiently expiated by any punishment, nor was I content with that death, nor did I redeem myself by a part: limb by limb to you I wished to perish—at last exact the debt. Now I pay the penalties; then I gave you the offerings of the dead. Be present and press my idle right hand inward and plunge it deeper: then, timid, it touched the head with a small draught, and scarcely, though they wished to follow, drew out the eyes. Even now that spirit clings to me, clings, when, as they resisted, my face pressed my hand. You will hear the truth, Oedipus: less boldly than you ought did you tear out your eyes. Now plunge your hand into the brain: through this part complete the death by which I began to die.

ANTIGONE A few words, O great-hearted father, I beg, that you hear the words of your pitiable daughter with a calmed mind. I do not ask to lead you back to the look of the old house and the state of a kingdom flourishing in famous bloom, or that you bear with eased and calm breast your wrath, not broken even by the very lapse of time: but this became a man of such great strength, not to be beneath your grief, nor, conquered by ills, to turn your back; it is not, as you think, virtue, father, to fear life, but to stand against vast ills and not to turn oneself and give way backward. He who has trodden down the fates and cast away the goods of life and cut them off and himself loaded his own misfortunes, who has need of no god, why should he desire death or why should he seek it? Both are the mark of the timid: no one has despised death who has longed for it; whose ills cannot go beyond, he is set in a safe place. Who now of the gods, grant that he should wish, can add anything to your ills? Now not even you can, except this, that you should think yourself worthy of death— you are not, nor has any guilt touched this breast. And the more for this, father, call yourself innocent, that you are guiltless even against the will of the gods. What is there that should carry you away, that should fix new goads in your grief? What drives you to the infernal seats, what drives you from these? That you may lack the day? You lack it; that you may flee your house, noble with high walls, and your country? Your country perishes for you while you live; that you may flee your sons and your mother? Fortune has removed you from the sight of all, and whatever death can take from anyone, this life has taken from you; the tumults of the kingdom? The throng of fortune, your former lot, withdrew from you, dismissed. Whom, father, do you flee?

OEDIPUS I flee myself, I flee my breast, conscious of all my crimes, and this hand I flee, and this sky and the gods. . Do I press this soil, where fruit-bearing Ceres rises? Do I draw this air with my pestilent mouth? Am I sated with a draught of water or do I enjoy any gift of the kindly parent? Do I, unspeakable, incest-defiled, accursed, touch your chaste hand? Do I take in any sounds with my ear, through which I may hear the name of parent or of son? Would indeed that I could cut these passages and, my hands driven in where the voice travels and the approach lies open to words by its narrow path, could tear it out: daughter, now the sense of you, who are a part of my crimes, your unhappy father would have fled. The wickedness clings and breaks open afresh again and again, and my ears thrust upon me whatever you, my eyes, gave me. Why do I not send my head, heavy with darkness, to the eternal shades of Dis? Why here do I detain my own shade? Why do I burden the earth and wander mingled with the living? What evil remains? Kingdom, parents, children, virtue too and the excellent glory of a skilful mind have perished; a hostile lot has taken all from me: tears remained: these too I have snatched from myself. Cease; my soul admits no prayers and seeks a new punishment, equal to my crimes. And what shall be able to be equal? For the infant too death was decreed.—Who ever drew by lot fates so sad? I had not yet seen the day and had not yet loosed the delays of the closed womb, and already I was feared. Straightway some, brought forth, night seized and snatched from the new light: death came before me; one within the maternal entrails bore the death of an untimely fate: but did he sin at all? Hidden, concealed, and doubtful whether I was guilty of unspeakable crime, the god drove me on; with that one as witness my parent condemned me and pierced my tender feet with hot iron and sent me to the high groves as food for the beasts and the savage birds which guilty Cithaeron, often stained with royal gore, nourishes. But him whom the god condemned, the father cast away, death too fled. I made good my faith to Delphi: attacking my father, I laid him low by impious slaughter. This another act of piety will redeem: I slew my father, but I loved my mother. I am ashamed to speak of the marriage and our wedding-torches; these too force yourself, unwilling, to endure as punishments: tell the crime, unknown, savage, unwonted, which the peoples would shudder at, which no age would not deny had been done, which a parricide would be ashamed of: into my father's bed I bore hands sprinkled with my father's blood and received, as the price of crime, a greater crime. Light is my father's deed: into my chamber my mother was led, and, lest there be too little crime, fruitful: no greater crime than this can nature bear, if there is even now any such; yet those who could do it I gave; I cast away, as the price of my father's death, the sceptre, and this in turn armed other hands; excellently do I myself know the fate of my kingdom: no one shall bear it without sacred blood; my father's mind forebodes great ills; already the seeds are sown of disaster to come: the faith of the compact is scorned; the one refuses to yield his seized-on rule, the other invokes right and the gods, witnesses of the struck treaty, and, an exile, stirs Argos and the Greek cities to arms: no light ruin comes upon weary Thebes; weapons, flames, wounds threaten, and—if there is any greater evil than these—that no one may not know they are sprung from me.

ANTIGONE If you have no cause for living, father, this one is more than enough, that as a father you may rule your sons, raging grievously. You alone can avert the threats of impious war, and you can restrain the senseless youths, give peace to the citizens, quiet to the country, faith to the broken treaty. If you deny yourself your life, you deny it to many.

OEDIPUS Have they any love of a parent or of fairness, greedy of blood, of empire, of arms, of guile, dreadful, wicked—briefly, to say it, mine? They strive after every crime and count nothing of worth, when wrath drives them headlong, and, sons of crime, think nothing wicked done through crime. The shame of an afflicted father does not touch them, nor their country: their breast rages, stunned, for the kingdom. I know whither they are borne, how great things they prepare to attempt, and therefore I seek the way of a timely death and hasten to die, while in my house there is no one more guilty than I. Daughter, why do you weep, fallen at my knees? Why do you tame the untamed by prayer? This one thing fortune has by which I can be caught, unconquered in all else: you alone can soften my hard passions, you alone teach duty in our house. Nothing is heavy or wretched to me which I know you have wished; only command: this Oedipus will swim across the Aegean straits at your bidding, and the flames which the earth vomits from the Sicilian mountain, rolling its fiery globes, he will receive in his mouth and offer himself to the serpent that rages, savage, at the theft of Hercules' grove; at your bidding he will give his liver to the birds— at your bidding he will even live.

MESSENGER, OEDIPUS, ANTIGONE

MESSENGER O mighty example sprung from royal stock, trembling Thebes calls on you, fearing the brothers' arms, and begs you ward off the torches from your fathers' roofs. These are not threats; the evil has come now nearer, for the brother, seeking the kingdom again and the agreed-on turns, drives all the peoples of Greece to war; seven camps press the Theban walls, come to the rescue, ward off at once both the war and the crime.

OEDIPUS Am I he who would forbid crimes to be committed and teach hands to abstain from dear blood? Am I a teacher of right and of pious love? They seek the examples of my own deeds, now they follow me; I praise and gladly acknowledge it, I exhort them to do something worthy of this father. Come, O dear offspring, prove your noble nature by your deeds, surpass my glory and praises and do something for the sake of which your father may yet be glad to have lived. You will do it, I know: so are you sprung. Such great nobility cannot discharge itself by a crime that is light or common. Bear arms, seek the household gods with torches and reap with flame the harvest of your native soil, mingle all things, snatch all to destruction, scatter the walls everywhere, lay them level, overwhelm the gods in their temples, melt down the stained household gods, let the whole house sink from its foundation; let the city be burned up—let the fire begin first from my chamber.

MESSENGER Lay aside the violent onset of your grief, and let the public ills entreat you, and come as the author of peaceful concord for your children.

OEDIPUS Do you see an old man given over to a modest mind and loving peaceful quiet, and call him to the side of strife? My soul swells with wrath, my measureless grief boils, and I desire something greater than what chance and the frenzy of youths attempts. It is not enough as yet, this civil war: let brother rush upon brother; nor is this enough: that the wickedness which it owes may be done after our fashion, which would befit my marriage: give arms to the mother. Let no one tear me from these woods: I will hide in the hollow of an eaten-out crag or cover my body, hidden, in a thick hedge. From here I will catch at the words of wandering rumour and hear, as I can, the savage wars of the brothers.

JOCASTA, ATTENDANT

JOCASTA Happy Agave: the horrible deed which with the hand that did it she carried, and bore the spoil, a bloody maenad, of her son given over to be torn apart; she did the crime, but, wretched, did not of her own accord run to meet her crime. This is a light thing, that I am guilty: I made others guilty; this too is still light: I bore the guilty. There lacked to my sorrows that I should love even an enemy. Three times has winter laid down its snows and now a third time has Ceres fallen beneath the sickle, while my son wanders an exile and lacks his country and, a fugitive, begs the help of the Greek kings. He is the son-in-law of Adrastus, by whose rule the sea which the Isthmus cleaves is governed; he draws his own nations and seven kingdoms with him to the aid of his son-in-law. What should I wish, or what determine, I scarcely know. He demands the kingdom back: the cause of him who seeks it again is good, the cause of him who so seeks it bad. What vows shall I make, a parent? On either side I see my son: I can do nothing piously with my piety safe: whatever for one son I shall wish will be to the other's harm. But though I love each with equal affection, whither the better cause and the worse lot draw, my mind ever inclines, favouring the weaker: fortune more reconciles the wretched to their own.

ATTENDANT Queen, while you stir up tearful laments and waste the time, the savage battle-line is at hand in bared arms; now the war-trumpets rouse the fight and the standard-bearer, the eagle moved, calls to battle. The kings, drawn up, prepare their sevenfold wars, the Cadmean offspring advances with equal spirit, the soldiery rushes here and there with hurried course. See how the black cloud hides the day with dust and the plain raises into the sky mists like smoke, which the earth, broken by the horse's hoof, sends up, and, if those who fear see truly, the hostile standards gleam; the front line is at hand with weapons upraised, the golden mark of the leaders upon their bright standards bears the inscribed name. Go, give back love to the brothers, peace to all, and hinder the impious arms by setting a mother in their way.

ANTIGONE, JOCASTA, MESSENGER

ANTIGONE Go on, O parent, and hasten your swift step, restrain the weapons, strike the steel from the brothers, hold your bared breast between the hostile swords: either break off the war, mother, or be the first to meet it.

JOCASTA I will go, I will go, and oppose my head to meet the arms, I will stand amid the arms; whoever wishes to attack his brother, let him attack his mother first. Whoever is dutiful, let him lay down his weapons at his mother's asking; whoever is not dutiful, let him begin with me. An old woman, I will hold back the fervid youths; no crime shall be done with me as witness; or if any can be committed even with me as witness, it shall not be one alone.

ANTIGONE The standards gleam, brought near to clashing standards, the hostile clamour roars; the crime is at hand: forestall it, mother, with prayers. And lo, you would believe them moved by my weeping, so sluggishly the line comes, its arms laid by.

ATTENDANT The battle-line advances slowly, but the leaders hasten.

JOCASTA What winged wind, bearing me in the mad whirlwind of the storm, will drive me through the ethereal air? What Sphinx, or what Stymphalian bird, weaving the day with black cloud, will bear me swiftly on its greedy wings? Or what Harpy, watching the hunger of a savage king, will snatch me through the high ways of the air and hurl me, snatched away, between the two battle-lines?

ATTENDANT She goes like one raging, or rather she rages. As a Parthian arrow, swift, hurled from the hand, is borne, as a ship, the mad wind pressing it, is swept, or as a star falls, sliding from the sky, when, grazing the pole, it breaks a straight path with its quickened fires, stunned, she flees in her course and at once parted the two battle-lines. The wars, conquered by a mother's prayer, have stopped, and now those who, from this side and that, longed to join hands in mutual slaughter, hold their poised weapons suspended in their right hands. Peace is favoured; the steel of all lies idle or rests, sheathed; it quivers in the brothers' hands. The mother, her grey hair torn, shows it, she begs the refusers, she wets her cheeks with weeping. He who long hesitates to refuse a mother, can refuse.

JOCASTA Turn your arms and fires upon me, upon me alone let all the youth rush, both that which comes from the Inachian wall, spirited, and that which, fierce, descends from the Theban citadel; citizen and enemy alike, attack this womb, which gave brothers to its husband. Scatter these limbs everywhere and tear them apart: I bore both of them—will you lay down the steel at once? Or shall I say, and by whom? Give your right hands to your mother, give them while they are dutiful. Error has so far made you guilty against your will; all the crime was Fortune's, sinning against us: this first wickedness is wrought among those who know; it is in your hand, which you wish: if holy piety pleases you, grant peace to your mother; if crime has pleased, a greater is prepared: a parent sets herself in the midst. Therefore take away the war, or the delay of war. To which of you shall I, an anxious mother, now address my words with alternate prayer? Whom, wretched, shall I embrace first? To both sides I am drawn by equal affection. This one was away; but if the brothers' compact holds, now the other will be away. Shall I then never see the two except thus? Join your embrace first, you who, having suffered so many toils and so many ills, weary, see your parent after long exile. Come nearer; sheathe your impious sword and fix in the ground the trembling spear, now longing to be shaken out. Your shield forbids my mother's breast to come together with yours: lay this too aside, loose your brow from its band and lift the grim covering of your warlike head, and give back your face to your mother. Whither do you turn your eyes and with anxious gaze watch your brother's hand? Poured upon you, I will cover your whole body with my embrace; through my death a way shall be made to yours. Why do you cling, doubtful? Or do you fear your mother's faith?

POLYNICES I fear it; the laws of nature now avail nothing. After such examples of brothers, not even a mother is to be trusted.

JOCASTA Put your hand back to the hilt now, fasten your helmet, let your left hand fit into the shield; while your brother is being disarmed, remain armed. You lay down the steel, who are the prior cause of the steel. If you hate peace, if it pleases you to rage in war: your mother begs of you a brief truce, that she may bear to her son, returned after his flight, kisses, whether the first or the last. While I seek peace, hear me, unarmed. Does he fear you, do you fear him? I both, but for the sake of both. Why do you refuse to put back your drawn sword? Rejoice in any delay: you long to wage that war in which it is best to be conquered. Do you dread the wiles of your hostile brother? As often as one must deceive or be deceived by one's own, suffer it yourself rather than do the crime. But do not fear: your mother will drive off the snares both from this side and again from that. Do I prevail? Or do I begrudge your father? I came to ward off the wickedness, or to see it nearer? This one has hidden his steel, his spear is leaning, his arms lie fixed in the ground. To you now, my son, I will bring a mother's prayers, but first my tears. I hold the face long sought by my prayers. You, a fugitive from your father's soil, the household gods of a foreign king shelter. So many different seas, so many chances drove you, wandering; your parent did not lead you, accompanying, into your first marriage, nor adorn with her own hand the festal house, nor bind the glad torches with the sacred fillet; no gifts—treasures heavy with gold—did your father-in-law give, no fields, no cities: the war is your dowry. You have become the son-in-law of enemies, removed from your country, a guest of an alien hearth, having gained things foreign, expelled from your own, an exile without crime. Lest anything be lacking to you from your father's fates, this too you have from those: to have erred in marriage. My son, given back to me after many suns, my son, the dread and hope of an anxious parent, whose sight I have ever asked of the gods, though your return was to snatch from me as much as it was to give me by your coming. "When shall I cease," I said, "to fear for you?" The god said, mocking: "You will fear the man himself." For surely, were there no war, I would lack you; surely, if you were not, I would lack the war. Ah, a sad price is given for the sight of you, and a hard one, but it pleases your mother. Only let the arms withdraw from here, while savage Mars dares no wickedness: even this is a great wickedness, to have been so near. I am stunned and tremble, bloodless, when I see the two brothers standing here and there beneath the stroke of crime. My limbs are shaken with fear: how nearly, a mother, did I behold a greater wickedness than that which your wretched father could not see. Though I am free from the fear of so great a deed and now see nothing of the sort, yet I am unhappy because I almost saw it. By the heavy ten months' toils of my womb, and by the piety of your renowned sister, and by the eyes of a parent angry at himself, which, guilty of no crime, exacting from himself dread punishments for his error, he drained: turn the unspeakable torches from your fathers' walls, turn back the standards of the warlike line— even if you withdraw, yet a great part of your crime is accomplished: your country has seen its fields filled with a hostile throng, has seen the troops gleaming far off with arms, the Cadmean meadows broken by the light cavalry, and the nobles flying high on their chariots, the beams blazing with fire smoking, which seek to lay our houses in ashes, and the brothers (a crime which was new even to Thebes) rushing upon each other: this the whole army, this all the people, this both sisters have seen, and I, your mother, have seen: for the father owes to himself that he did not behold these things. Let Oedipus now come before you, by whose judgment even the punishments of an error are sought. Do not, I pray, root out with the sword your country and household gods, nor overturn the Thebes which you long to rule. What frenzy holds your mind? By seeking your country do you destroy it? That it may become yours, do you wish it to be nothing? Nay, this very thing harms your cause, that you burn the soil with hostile arms and lay low the ripened crops and spread flight through all the fields: no one so lays waste his own; what you bid be seized by fire, what reaped by sword, you believe another's. Which of you is to be king, seek with the kingdom standing. Do you attack these roofs with weapons and flames? Will you be able to shake these masses of Amphion? No hand built them, drawing the slow load with a creaking engine, but, summoned by the sound of voice and lyre, the stone itself of its own accord came into the highest towers: will you break these rocks? Will you bear off the spoils as victor from here and bound leaders, equals of your father, and will the savage soldier drag mothers, snatched from the very bosom of their husbands, a chain set upon them? Shall the grown Theban maiden, mingled with the captive throng, go as a gift to the Argive brides? Or shall I myself, my hands bound behind my back, your mother, be borne as the prey of a brother's triumph? Can you see the citizens given to death and exile everywhere? Can you bring the enemy to the dear walls, can you fill Thebes with blood and flame? So savage, do you bear a hard and cruel breast toward wrath? And you do not yet rule. What will the sceptres do? Lay aside, I pray, the mad swellings of your spirit and return yourself to piety.

POLYNICES That I should wander a fugitive? That I should ever be barred from my country and, a guest, seek the aid of a foreign nation? What else should I suffer, if I had broken faith? If I had perjured myself? Shall I pay the penalty of another's fraud, while he bears the reward of crimes? You bid me depart: I obey my mother's command— give me whither I may return. My brother dwells in the proud palace: shall a small hut hide me? Give that to me, repulsed; let me be allowed with a tiny home to weigh against a kingdom? Given as a gift to a wife, shall I bear the hard rule of a happy marriage-bed and, humble, follow my father-in-law's lordship as a camp-follower? To fall from a kingdom into servitude is hard.

JOCASTA If you seek a kingdom, and your hand cannot be free of the savage sceptre, there are many that can be sought in the whole world; any land you wish will give them. On this side Tmolus, known to Bacchus, lifts its ridges, where broad expanses lie in fruit-bearing lands, and where Pactolus, drawing its rich waters, floods the fields with gold; nor with less glad fields does Maeander turn its wandering waters and rapid Hermus cuts the fertile plains; on this side Gargara, dear to Ceres, and the rich soil which Xanthus girds, swollen with the Idaean snows; on this side, where the sea leaves the Ionian name and Sestos, set opposite, presses the straits with Abydos, or that which, now nearer to the east, has given its flank and looks on Lycia, safe with its frequent harbours: seek these kingdoms with the sword; let your brave father-in-law bear arms against these peoples, let him subdue these nations to your sceptre and hand them over. Think your father still holds this kingdom: better is exile for you than that return: by another's crime you are an exile, by your own you would return. Better with these forces you will seek new kingdoms, stained by no crime. Nay, your own brother, accompanying your arms, will fight as a soldier for you. Go, and wage that war in which your father and mother can favour you as you fight. Kingdoms with crime are heavier to all than any exile. Now set before you the evils of war, the doubtful chances of uncertain Mars: though you draw with you all the strength of Greece, though the soldiery deploy its arms far and wide, the fortune of war is always in a doubtful place. Whatever Mars determines, the sword makes equal the two, though they be unequal; and Blind Chance turns both hope and fear. You seek an uncertain reward, a certain crime. Suppose all the gods have favoured your vows: the citizens have given way and, turned, sought flight, the soldiery, lying in deadly slaughter, has covered the fields—though you exult and bear, victorious, the spoils of your overthrown brother: the palm must be broken. What do you think this war, in which the victor, if he rejoices, commits an accursed wickedness? Him whom you, unhappy, long to conquer, when you have conquered, you will mourn. Come, dismiss the ill-fated battles, free your country from fear, your parents from grief.

POLYNICES That my unspeakable brother bear no penalties for his own crime and fraud?

JOCASTA Do not fear. He will pay penalties, and heavy ones indeed: he will reign. This is a penalty, if you doubt it; trust your grandfather and your father: Cadmus will tell you this and the offspring of Cadmus, that to bear the sceptre over Thebes was permitted to none with impunity, nor will anyone hold it with faith broken: now you may number your brother among those.

ETEOCLES Let him number me; it is worth so much to me to lie among kings. You I enroll in the throng of exiles.

POLYNICES Reign, provided you are hated by your own.

ETEOCLES He does not wish to reign who fears to be hated: the god, the founder of the world, set these things together, hatred and kingship: I count it the mark of a great king to crush hatreds themselves; the love of one's own forbids the ruler much; one may do more against the angry, and he who wishes to be loved reigns with a slack hand.

JOCASTA Hated rule is never held long.

ETEOCLES Kings will give precepts of empire better; do you arrange exiles. For a kingdom I would—

JOCASTA Give your country, household gods, and wife to the flames?

ETEOCLES Empire is well bought at any price.