Book 8

8. When the seer suddenly fell among the pale shades, and broke into the death-bringing homes and the secrets of the buried world, and troubled the ghosts with an armed funeral, horror holds them all; on the Stygian shores they marvel at his weapons and his horses and his strange body; for not with limbs buried by fire nor black did he come from the mournful urn, but warm with the sweat of war, his shield sprinkled with the bloody gates and the dust of the riven plain, nor yet had the Eumenis with a lopped yew met and purified him, nor had Proserpina marked him at the dark doorpost as taken into the company of the dead; nay, the very distaff of the Fates, caught at close hand, and the Parcae, terrified at the seen augur, then at last were breaking their threads. Him even the untroubled Elysians looked round at, that crash, and those whom, far off in the deeper pit, a second night and a region blind with other darkness weighs down, then the sluggish lakes groan again and the burnt marshes, and the pale ferryman of the shadow-bearing wave roars that Tartarus has burst wide open with a new chasm of the earth deep within, and that ghosts have entered not by his streams.

By chance, sitting in the midst of the citadel of his unhappy realm, the lord of Erebus was demanding of the peoples the crimes of their life, pitying men in nothing and wrathful at all the shades; the Furies stand around, and various Deaths in order, and savage Punishment thrusts out her many-sounding chains; the Fates bring the souls and condemn them with the same thumb: the work overwhelms. Beside him good Minos with his revered brother advises better laws and tempers the bloody king; they stand by, swelling with tears and fire, Cocytus and Phlegethon, and Styx convicts the perjuries of the gods. But he, when the upper frame was loosed, unwont to feel fear, was terrified at the stars that arose, and, offended at the pleasant light, declares: 'What downfall of the gods has driven against Avernus the hostile upper air? Who has burst the darkness and warns the silent ones of life? Whence the threats? Which of you brings me these battles of brothers? I close with him; come, let the distinctions of things perish, for to whom are they sweeter? A third Fortune cast me down, conquered, from the great pole, and I keep the guilty world: nor is even that mine, and lo, pierceable to the dread stars it is looked into. Does the swollen ruler of Olympus explore my strength? I have already the shattered chains of the Giants and the Titans eager to go out beneath the upper axle, and my wretched father: why does savage rest forbid me to endure my mournful ease and unquiet calm, and to hate the lost day? I will open all my realms, if it please, and screen Hyperion with a Stygian heaven. The Arcadian, too — for why does my messenger go and come back to both houses? — I will send out, and hold both sons of Tyndareus. But why do I break Ixion on the greedy wheels? Why do the waters not wait for Tantalus? Or shall I endure chaos so often profaned by a living guest? The rash ardour of Pirithous tries me, and Theseus, sworn to his daring friend, and fierce Alcides, then when, the guardian removed, the iron thresholds of the Cerberean gate fell silent; to Odrysian complaints, too — for shame, alas! — Tartarus lay open: I myself saw, amid beguiling songs, the base tears of the Eumenides and the renewed spinning of the Sisters; me too — but better is the violence of a hard law. Yet I scarce dared one journey by theft, and not to the lofty stars, and snatched my marriage on the Sicilian plain: they say it was not even lawful; and at once unjust laws came from Jove, and a mother reckons against me the year cut in two. But why do I say these things? Go, avenge the Tartarean abodes, Tisiphone; if ever fiercest with new monsters, bring forth a sad, unwonted, vast crime, which the aether has not yet seen, that I may marvel at it and the Sisters envy. And indeed the brothers — and let these be the first omens of my hatred — let the brothers rush upon each other's wounds in glad War; let there be one who, after the manner of raging beasts, fiercely chews the hostile head, and one who keeps the dead from the last fire and defiles the upper air with naked ghosts: let it delight me to watch the fierce Thunderer at these. Besides, that my frenzy may not vex my realms alone, seek one who bears war against the gods, who repels the fires of the bolt and hostile Jove with a smoking shield. I will make the dread of moving black Tartarus no lighter to all than to join leafy Pelion to Ossa.' He had spoken; and to him for long now the gloomy palace trembled as he asked, and the earth, his own and that which presses from above, was nodding: not more strongly does Jupiter twist the upper air with his face and tilt the star-bearing axles.

'But what ghosts,' he says, 'are you, who headlong by an unlawful path rush through the void?' That one approaches, threatening him, now thin to sight, now with vanishing arms, now on foot: yet in his quenched face the unplucked honour of his augury endures, and on his brow the dim fillet remains, and he holds a branch of dying olive. 'If it is allowed, and here it is right for the holy ghosts to open their mouths, O greatest finisher of all things, yet to me, who once knew the causes and the elements, and sire, I pray, soothe your threats and your goaded heart, nor deem worthy of your wrath a man who fears your laws too, for not to Herculean — whence have I these battles? — rapines, nor to unlawful love — believe these insignia — daring do we enter Lethe: lest grim Cerberus flee into his cave, or Proserpina fear my chariot, an augur, but lately most beloved at Apollo's altars, I call to witness empty chaos — for why should Apollo here be sworn by? — by no crime do I undergo a new fate, nor have I so deserved to be snatched from the kindly light; the urn of the Dictaean judge knows it, and Minos can detect the truth, sold by my wife's snares and unjust gold, the Argive lines — whence comes to you this throng of fresh shades, and the dead of my right hand come too — not ignorant I entered: a sudden whirl of the world — my mind still shudders — drank me down from the midst of the thousands, your night. What thoughts were mine, while through the hollow bowels of the earth I went, long hanging, and was rolled in the covered air? Ah me! nothing of me was left to my comrades and country, nor taken at Thebes; now I shall not see the Lernaean roofs, nor even as ash shall I go to my astonished parent, not by tomb, not by fire, wretched, brought forth with the tears of my own, I have come to you in a whole funeral at once, about to dare nothing with these horses; nor do I beg to be received as a shade and to remember my tripods no more. For what use is there now of a foreseeing augur to you, when the Parcae draw your commands? But may you bend your heart and be kinder, I beg, than the gods. If ever the unspeakable wife shall come here, for her reserve the deadly torments: she, good ruler, is worthier of your wrath.' He receives the prayers and is indignant at being moved. As a lion, when the light has stood opposite, meeting the steel, then he rouses his wraths, then his arms; if the foe has fallen, it is enough to go above him and leave life to the vanquished.

Meanwhile, distinguished with fillets and rich laurel, the chariot, and he but lately dreaded in his excellent arms openly in the light, scattered by none and put to flight by none, is sought: the squadrons stand off, and the ground is suspect to all, the soldier circles the tracks of the faithless plain, and that sad spot of greedy ruin they avoid, and shun it with the honour of an infernal tomb. A messenger to Adrastus, urging on his companies in another part, Palaemon, scarce himself believing he had seen it, flies up and, trembling — for by chance he had stood next to the falling man and, wretched, grew pale at the chasm he had looked upon — 'Turn your step, flee, ruler,' he says, 'if at least the Doric land remains in its place and our fathers' citadels stand where we left them, there is no need of arms, no need of blood: why do we draw the useless steel against Thebes? The impious earth swallows chariots and arms and warring men; behold, even this field on which we stand seems to flee. I myself saw the journey of the deep night and, the frame of the soil broken, rushing down that man, alas, to whom none was friendlier to the foretelling stars, the son of Oecles, and in vain I stretched out my hands with my voice. A wonder I tell: the ruler of horses left even now his furrows and the smoking place and the fields wet with foam. Nor is the evil shared: the earth recognizes its nurslings, the Theban line stands.' Adrastus is amazed at this and hesitates to believe; but Mopsus told the same, and trembling Actor the same, now the rumour, bold with new terrors, reports that not one has fallen; of their own accord the columns backward, not waiting for the manner of the recalling trumpets, hurry: but the journey is numb, and their failing knees deceive the rushing men; the steeds themselves — you would think they had felt it — resist, and grim obey at no urging, nor hasten their pace nor lift their eyes from the ground. More bravely the Tyrians charge, but shadowy evening now leads the moon's horses; given on a small compact, sad rest is granted the men, and night to increase their fears.

What is now your aspect, after leave to mourn was granted? What weeping fell from the loosened helmets? Nothing accustomed pleases the weary; they cast away their dripping shields, just as they were, nor did anyone wipe his spears, nor praised his horse, nor combed and adorned the tall plume of his bright helmet; scarce does it please them to wash their great wounds and to bind up the gaping gasps: so great is the grief everywhere; tables and the nourishment owed to war neither fear nor the battle counselled: all, Amphiaraus, recall your praises and your breast fertile in truth with tears, and through the tents there is one talk: that the gods have departed and the powers slipped from the camp. 'Alas, where now the laurel-bearing chariot and the solemn arms and the filleted crest of the helmet? Is this the caverns and the lakes of Castalia and the faith of the tripods? Is Apollo thus grateful? Who for me will read the falls of the stars and the meaning of the sinister lightning, or what power leaps in the slain entrails, when to journey, whence the delays, what hour is useful for savage arms, what would rather wish for peace? Who now will set forth all the future, or with whom will the birds speak my fates? These chances of war too, both to us and to you, you had foreknown, and — how great the valour beneath that sacred breast! — yet you came and were added as a companion to our wretched arms, and when the earth and the fatal hour called you, you found time to lay low the Tyrian lines and the opposing standards; then too, even amid death, dread to the foes and with hostile spear we saw you departing, and now what chance holds you? Will you be able to return from the Stygian abodes and burst forth from the deep earth? Or do you sit, glad, beside your own powers, the Parcae, and with concordant turn learn the things to come and teach? Or has the ruler of Avernus, pitying you, given you the happy groves and the Elysian birds to keep? Whatever you are, you will be Phoebus's eternal grief and a new disaster always, and long mourned at silent Delphi; this day shall mock Tenedos and Chryse and Delos bound by birth, and the inner shrines of unshorn Branchus, nor on this day shall any suppliant consultant approach the Clarian doors and the Didymaean thresholds, nor the Lycian. Nay, even the horned seer's grove and the oak, panting for Molossian Jove, and Trojan Thymbra shall be silent, the very rivers and the very laurels will wish to grow dry, the very aether will foretell nothing sure by foreboding clangours, and no clouds shall be struck by any bird. And now there will be that day on which a temple, conscious of fate, shall worship you too, and your priest give back responses.' Such solemnities they perform for their oracular king, as though they were rendering flames and gifts to a pyre and sad obsequies, and laying his soul in the soft earth. Thence the breasts of all were broken and turned from war: so when sudden death robbed the brave Minyae of Tiphys, the arms seem not to follow, the oar seems not to bear the waters, and the very winds now lead them less. Now wearied with groaning, little by little their hearts too were lightened, and grief, drained by talk, eased; added night overwhelmed their cares, and sleep, easy to creep upon their tears.

But not the same night through the Sidonian city in the other part: with varied sport they prolong the stars before the houses and within, and the very watches droop at the walls; twin bronzes sound and the Idaean drums and the boxwood pipe with its sound measured by varied breathing. Then everywhere paeans resound the sweet gods above and every nursling power in order, everywhere garlands and crowned wine; now they laugh at the funeral of the augur, ignorant of one, and in turn vie to extol in season their own Tiresias; now they unfold the deeds of their ancestors and sing ancient Thebes from its origin: these the Sidonian sea and the horns worn by the hands of the Thunderer and Nereus furrowed by the huge bull, these Cadmus and the wearied heifer and the fields teeming with bloody Mars, others the rocks creeping to the Tyrian lyre and Amphion giving life to the hard crags, these gravid Semele, those praise the Cytherean marriage and Harmonia led down with the many torches of the brothers: now there is no table that lacks its tale, as though Liber, having just laid waste gem-bearing Hydaspes and the Eastern homes with his thyrsus, the standards of his black triumph and the Indians unknown to the peoples, were displaying them.

Then for the first time, they say, to the gatherings and to the compacts of the shared table, ever unseen and lurking in his dread abode, Oedipus went forth, and with serene face loosed with his hand his black-with-squalor white hair and his face foul with flowing locks, and endured the kindly addresses of his companion and the consolations he had thrust off before, nay, drank in the feasts and cast from his cheeks the unwiped gore, and hears and tells back all, he who was wont to assail with mournful complaints only Dis and the Furies, and, when she governed, Antigone; the cause lies hidden: not the favourable chance of the Tyrian war, only wars delight him; he urges and approves his son, nor would he wish him to conquer; but the first swords at close quarters and the seeds of crime he searches out with a silent prayer. Thence the feasts are sweet and joys unknown to his face, as Phineus after the fasts of his long punishment, when he felt the birds driven off, shrieking no more in his home — not yet was his trust complete — , cheerful handled the tables and the couches and the cups not troubled by wild wings.

The rest of the Greek cohort lay wearied with cares and arms; from the high mound of the camp Adrastus with anxious heart caught the joyful uproar, though sick with age, but a pitiable power drives him to keep watch over evils; the bronze clamour everywhere and the Theban sounds gall him, and the bitter pipe provokes, then the voices proud with excessive languor and the wavering torches and the fire now ill-kept through the night, so when, overwhelmed by a single sleep, a ship over the waves has grown silent, and the youth, careless, to the peace of the sea have entrusted their souls: alone on the stern stands the master, ever-wakeful, and the god who sails in the inscribed pine.

It was the time when now the fiery sister of Phoebus felt her horses yoked, and that deep beneath the prepared light the hollow home of Ocean was bellowing, and gathers herself wandering and lightly with shaken lash puts the stars to flight: the king calls a sad council, and groaning they ask who as successor shall drive the tripods, to whom the foreseeing laurel shall pass and the bereaved honour of the fillet; without delay, all want Thiodamas, famed and sprung from holy Melampus, with whom Amphiaraus himself was wont to share the secrets of the gods and to associate with him alone the birds he saw, and, not grudging so great an art, rejoiced to be called his like and second next to himself. A vast honour confounds that man and unlooked-for glory troubles him, and lowly he adores the offered foliage, and denies he is equal to the burden and deserves to be compelled: just as an Achaemenian boy, if by chance he has received the throne and his father's nations, for whom it were safer that his father lived, weighs his joys with uncertain fear, whether the chiefs are faithful, lest the crowd fight with the reins, to whom he should entrust the bank of the Euphrates, to whom the Caspian gates; then he fears to take up the bow and to load his father's very horse, and seems to himself neither to support the sceptre with capacious hand nor yet to fill out the tiara.

And when, his hair marked with the twisted fillet, he had assembled before the gods, with glad uproar through the camp he goes exulting and, the first proof of himself, the priest prepares to appease Earth: nor did it seem futile to the mournful Greeks; so he bids twin altars be woven with living trees and with grown turf, and adds countless flowers, the goddess's own gifts, and heaps of fruits and whatever the busy year renews, and, sprinkling the altars with untouched milk, he begins: 'O eternal creatress of men and gods, who beget the rivers and the woods and the seeds of souls and all things in the world, and the hands of Prometheus and the stones of Pyrrha, and who first gave nourishment to the unfed and changed them into men, you who girdle and bear the sea: within your keeping are both the gentle race of cattle and the wrath of wild beasts and the rest of the birds; the firm and immovable strength of the unsetting world, you the swift engine of heaven carries hanging in the empty air, you both chariots circle about, O middle and undivided amid the great brothers! Therefore at once kindly to so many nations, to so many lofty cities and peoples, beneath and above one you suffice, and you yourself bear star-bearing Atlas, labouring to carry the supernal homes, with no labour: us alone you refuse to bear, us, goddess, do you grudge? What crime, I pray, do we, ignorant, pay for? Or is it because, a foreign people, we come hither from the Inachian shores? Every native soil is a man's own, nor would it befit you, best one, to mark off the peoples with so savage and so lowly a bound, yours on every side and everywhere; remain shared, and bear arms on this side and that; let it be allowed, I pray, in the order of war for fighting souls to breathe out and to be given back to heaven, do not snatch breathing bodies to such sudden tombs, do not hasten: for we shall come, by what path all, by what way it is allowed to go; only, won over for the Pelasgians, make the field firm for the light, nor outrun the swift Parcae. But you, dear to the gods, whom no hand nor Sidonian swords, but great Nature with loosened bosom, as though she buried you, deserving, in a Cirrhaean chasm, so embracing took to herself, grant, I pray, glad, that I may know your prayers, and reconcile me to heaven and to the altars that warn truly, and what you were preparing to set forth to the peoples, teach me: I will bear you presaging rites, and as interpreter of your power I will call upon you when Phoebus is absent. He to me is more mighty than Delos and all Cirrha, the place to which you rush is better than the shrines.' When these things were said, he plunges in cattle black as the earth and dark herds, and heaps up the welling sand with living things and renders to the seer the semblance of his death.

Such things among the Greeks, when now against the Martial horns, when already the bronze crash rouses the savage swords, Tisiphone adds a bitter sound, shaking her hair from the height of Teumesus, and sharpens the trumpets and mixes hisses: Cithaeron is dazed at the unwonted clang, drooping, and the towers that followed no such song; now Bellona beats the trembling gates and the armed thresholds, now Thebes is unbarred at her many hinges. The horseman troubles the foot, the chariots block the hastening men, as if the Greeks pressed at their backs: so for all the wings are crowded at the gates and cling at the seven outlets. By lot Creon goes to the Ogygian gate, the Neistan send Eteocles, Haemon takes the lofty Homoloidan, the Proetian Hypseus, the Electran poured forth tall Dryas, the Hypsistan the band of Eurymedon shakes, great-souled Menoeceus crowds the Dircaean summits. As when Nile, secret in the pastures of the averted sky, drinks with great mouth the Eastern frosts, he splits the wealth of his springs and into seven open fields bears his storms to the sea; deep within, the Nereids, put to flight, have withdrawn and fear to meet the sweet brine.

But sad from there the Inachian youth move their step slowly, chiefly the Elean and Lacedaemonian cohorts and the Pylians; for they follow the sudden Thiodamas, cheated of their augur, and have not yet come to their guide, nor do your columns alone seek you, prince of the tripods: the whole phalanx thinks itself bereft; lesser through the wings that seventh crest stands forth. As in the clear aether a cloud envious withdraws one star from the Parrhasian stars, the honour of the Wain is maimed, nor does the axle stand stiff with the same fire, its blaze cut off, and uncertain the sailors count their stars.

But now the wars call: supply other and new strength, Calliope, and may a greater Apollo bend the lyre for me, the fatal hour for the peoples who of their own accord demand it the black day brings near, and, sent forth from the Stygian darkness, Death enjoys the heaven and, flying, covers the warrior plain and invites the men with her black chasm, choosing nothing common, but those funerals worthiest of life, the chief in years and in spirit she marks with bloody nail; and now upon the wretched all the Sisters' allotment is torn, and the Furies have snatched the threads from the Parcae. In the midst of the fields still with dry spear-point stands the War-mighty one, and now to these, now to those he turns his shield, rousing arms, and abolishes homes, marriages, sons. Driven out is the love both of country and — what last leaves the mind — of light; on the hilts and the spears wrath holds the hands made ready, and the panting spirit strives beyond the corselets, and the helmets tremble with the bristling of their plumes. What wonder that the men grew hot? The steeds are inflamed against the foe and wet the rotten ground with a snowy shower, as if, mingled with their masters, they had put on the wraths of those who sit them: so they chew the bridles, so they demand battles with neighing, and lift their shoulders and rear the riders back.

And now they rush, and the first dust of the men begins to clash, and driven on equal spaces from both sides they approach and see the mid plain dwindle, now shield by shields, boss is repelled by boss, sword by threatening sword, foot by foot and spear-point by spear-point: so the lines press struggling; alike the breaths smoke, and the crests, brought near, gleam on the enemy's helmet. Still fair the face of war: the cones stand on the heads, the herds full of men, no chariot without its driver, the arms in place, the shields gleam and the comely quivers and the belts and the gold not yet made foul with gore. But after rage and valour, prodigal of life, sent forth their souls, not when the Kids set so greatly does the Bear lash airy Rhodope with solid snow, nor so great is the crash of Ausonia, when Jupiter from all his citadel thunders, nor with so great a hail is the Syrtis shaken, when black Boreas has brought the Italian rains to Libya, they shut out the day with weapons, iron clouds stand in the sky, nor does the air, crammed with javelins, suffice. These perish by missiles cast, those by spears returning, through the void run stakes and exchange mutual wounds, spears run together, the sling rains hissing stones, the swift bullets imitate the lightnings, and the arrows, dread with more than one death, and there is no room for weapons to fall to the ground: into bodies all the iron falls; often, unknowing, they slay and fall. Chance does the work of valour: now the throng recedes, now presses, and by turns loses the ground and takes it, as when threatening with winds and storms Jupiter loosens the reins and afflicts the world with alternate whirlwind: the line of heaven stands divided, now stronger is the storm of the South Wind, now of Aquilo, until, the tempest fighting, either this conquers with excessive waters, or that with clear sky.

The beginning of the battle: Asopian Hypseus repulsed the Oebalian squadrons — for these, swelling with the great and ancestral name, break with hard bosses the Euboean line — the leader of the wedge, Menalcas, torn away. Here a Laconian also in mind, nursling of a rough torrent — nor did he shame his forebears — the spear that went beyond his breast, lest the shame be in his back, drew back through both bone and bowels, and with falling right hand returned it bloody to the foe: the beloved Taygetus wanders over the cheeks of the dying man and the breast praised in battle to its mother. Phaedimus son of Iasus Dircaean Amyntas marks down with his bow: alas, swift Parcae! now Phaedimus quivers on the fields, and the sure bow of Amyntas is not yet silent. From the shoulder Calydonian Agreus took the right hand of Phegeus: that hand, wicked, holds its own steel in the earth and moves it; passing by, Acoetes feared it lying scattered among the weapons, and yet struck the maimed body. Iphis fierce Acamas, Argus wild Hypseus drove down, Pheres laid Abas low, and weeping their diverse wounds Iphis the horseman, Argus the foot, Abas the charioteer lay. Two Inachidae two of the blood of Cadmus, hidden by helmets — the savage ignorance of war — had struck down with the steel; but while they strip all the spoils from the slain, they saw the horror, and each, mournful, looks back at his brother, and alike they lament that they had erred. Ion, dweller of Pisa, laid low Daphneus, dweller of Cirrha, with their horses confounded; this one Jupiter praises from on high, this one slow Apollo pities in vain.

Fortune lights up huge men on both sides in opposing blood: Cadmean Haemon lays low and drives the Greeks, raging Tydeus follows the Tyrian lines; Pallas is present to this one, the Tirynthian fills that one, as when in winter two streams on the highest mountains are broken and fall in twin ruin into the plains: you would think they contended which should lift fields and groves higher, or overtop the bridges; lo, one valley now confounds the gathered waters; each, proud, wishes to go for himself, and mingled they refuse to descend to the sea.

Onchestian Idas went shaking his smoking torch through the midst and troubled the Greek lines, breaking a way with fire; him at close quarters with a great blow the spear of fierce Tydeus, the helmet driven apart, fixed, he falls huge upon his back, the lance stands surviving on his brow, the flames come, collapsing, upon his temples, Tydeus pursues: 'Do not call Argos savage; with your own fire, Theban — we grant a pyre — burn!' Thence, as a tigress, rejoicing in her first blood, longs to go through the whole flock, so Aon with a stone, Pholus with the sword, Chromis with the sword, the two Helicaons with the spear he runs through, whom Maera, priestess of Aegaean love, had borne, the goddess forbidding; you are the prey of bloody Tydeus, and your mother goes even now to the savage altars.

No less on the other side does wandering blood lead Herculean Haemon: with insatiate steel he is carried through the thousands, now the swollen wealth of Calydon, now the grim lines of Pylene, now pouring out the nurslings of mournful Pleuron, until upon Olenian Butes with his now-wearied spear-point he falls; him, turned toward the squadrons and forbidding him to depart, he attacks; a boy was he, a boy whole in cheeks and hair, to whom, unaware, then the Theban axe, poised against his helmet, came: his temples are cleft on both sides and the divided hair falls upon his arms, and, not fearing this, by an unlooked-for threshold his life leapt out. Then to the conquered he joins blond Hypanis and blond Polites — that one fed his cheeks for Phoebus, this his hair for Iacchus: savage is each god — Hyperenor, and Damasus turned in flight; but the spear, slipped through the shoulders of the man, goes across his breast and from the holder strikes off the buckler and, fleeing, carries it on its very point.

Ismenian Haemon would still be laying low the opposing Inachidae — for the son of Amphitryon guides his weapons and supplies his strength — but against him savage Tydeus Pallas drives. And now they have come with adverse favour to close quarters, and first the Tirynthian with placid mouth: 'Faithful sister, what fortune in the war's darkness has brought this meeting upon us? Surely royal Juno has not contrived this abomination? Sooner let her behold me rush against the bolts — unspeakable! — and war against my great parent; his lineage — but I forbear to know it, since you favour the other side, nor, if your Tydeus' spear should seek Hyllus himself at close quarters, or Amphitryon sent back from the Stygian world; I hold and shall hold forever how much this divine hand has done, how often that aegis has sweated for me, while as servant through hard mishaps I roam, a wanderer over all lands; you yourself, alas, my companion, would have gone with me into trackless Tartarus, did not Acheron shut out the gods. You are country and heaven to me; who could equal such things in the telling? Have all Thebes, if you have set your mind to it. I yield indeed, and pray for pardon.' So having begun, he was departing. The honour soothes Pallas: her face returned with ardour slackened, and the serpents of her upright breast sank down.

Cadmean Haemon felt the god absent; more lightly he whirls his weapons and knows his hand in no stroke. Then more and more his strength and spirit recede, nor is there shame to go back; the Acheloian hero attacks him as he yields, and, balancing the missile weapon for himself alone, directed his cast where, at the margin of the upper shield, the lower helmet sits and the vital parts of the throat gleam. Nor did the hand fail, and the spear had found death; but Tritonia hinders it, and granted it to graze a little the left shoulder, and deservedly spares her brother; yet he dares neither to stand in his place nor to go to close quarters any more, nor to endure the face of bloody Tydeus; his strength, sick at heart, and his confidence gave way: as a boar, grazed on his bristly brow by a Lucanian spear-point, whose wounds are not sunk deep into the brain, nor the aim of the right hand happy, breaks his wraths into his side, and no longer comes to meet the proven spear.

Lo, indignant that the leader of a squadron with sure darts aimed against the foe was hurling them, Prothous, with happy arm, the tumultuous son of Oeneus with a single pine strikes two bodies, both steed and rider: that one falls upon the falling Prothous, and seeking the reins slipped from his hand he tramples the helmet into his face and the shield into his breast, until, wounded, with his last blood he spurns the bridles and sinks with his neck joined to his master, so an elm and a vine, a double loss to the husbandman, fall from the Gauran mountain, but the elm, sadder, mourns both the grove, nor does it grieve so much for its own falling arms as for the accustomed and unwilling grapes it crushes. Heliconian Corymbus had taken up arms against the Greeks, once companion of the Muses, to whom, conscious of his Stygian doom, Urania herself had long foretold his death from the stars laid by. Yet he longs for battles and feats of strength, perhaps that he might sing them; he himself lies to be sung with long praise, but the mute sisters wept for him lost.

Betrothed from his earliest years to Agenor's daughter Ismene, Atys went, a youth no stranger to the Tyrian war, though his home was Cirrha, nor had he turned from his future kin in their sad doings; nay, his chaste squalor commends the bride to her lover, and the grace of an unworthy grief, he himself too excellent, nor was the maiden's heart toward him diverse, and in turn, would fortune allow, they pleased each other. The wars forbid the bridal torches, and hence the youth's wrath against the foes is greater; he rushes mingled with the foremost, and the lines of Lerna now on foot with wandering sword, now lofty with seized reins, as if to be watched, he drives. With triple purple his mother had veiled his shoulders still rising and his smooth breast; now with gold his trappings and with gold his arrows and his belts and his sleeves, lest he go meaner than his bride, she had wreathed, and crisped the gold mingled on his cone-crest, trusting, alas, in such things, of his own accord he calls the Greeks to battle. And first, having harried with his spear-point the easy squadrons, he brings back arms to his comrades and to the trusty lines, the slaughter accomplished, returns, as a Caspian lion in Hyrcanian shade, still bare and with no honour of his tawny mane terrible, and still guiltless of great blood, not far from the stalls, the guard removed, catches the sluggish flock and spends his hunger on a tender lamb. Then, measuring Tydeus, unknown in arms, by his body alone, he feared him not, and to provoke him with a fragile weapon, grim against others and pursuing others, he had often dared. At last the Aetolian, by chance, turns his eyes to the feeble strokes, and with a formidable smile: 'Long since I see, wicked one, that you desire the great name of death,' he says; at once, deigning the bold one neither with sword nor spear, lightly with loosened fingers he flung his unwarlike javelin: yet the missile drank deep the hidden parts of the groin, as though twisted with all his strength, and the son of Oeneus passes by, no doubt of his fate, and disdains to despoil him. 'For these spoils we will not bear to Mars or to you, warlike Pallas,' he says; 'let shame keep him afar from bearing them; scarce, had she followed the war, her bridal chamber left, would Deipyle have brought them to him to mock at.' So he speaks, and to greater prizes of war in mind he is led: as a lion, by chance master of countless slaughters, passes by the unwarlike calves and soft heifers: his frenzy is to be plunged in great blood, nor to sink upon any neck but the reigning bull's. But Atys, falling, does not, with his half-dead cry, escape Menoeceus: he outstrips the horses and from his swift chariot leaps down: the Tegean youth pressed upon the fallen man, nor do the Tyrians hold them back. 'Be ashamed, Cadmean youth, who feign earth-born fathers! Whither do you bend,' he says, 'degenerate ones? Does the guest Atys lie better for our blood? Only a guest as yet, and avenger of a wife not yet his, unhappy one; do we betray such great pledges?' They rise up, strengthened by just shame, in column, and to each his own cares returned into his breast.

Meanwhile in a secret part of the chamber the sisters, another pair of character, and the harmless offspring of wretched Oedipus, mingle in talk their various complaints, not the evils that are near, but those from the long origin of fate, this one their mother's marriage-torches, but that their father's eyes, one mourns the reigning, the other the exiled brother, both the wars, hence the heavy hesitation of a wretched prayer: their fear nods both ways, whom in this contest conquered, whom they would wish to have conquered: silently the exile preponderates. So the Pandionian birds, when they seek again their faithful lodgings and the home left when winter knocked, and stand above their nests and tell to the roofs the beginnings of their old fate, a maimed and tearful murmur goes; they think them words, and yet that voice is not unlike words, and there, after tears and long silences, again Ismene begins: 'What error is this for mortals? What deceived faith, that care should watch over rest and that bright images of the mind should return through sleep? Behold, I, who would not, even if deep peace remained, handle thoughts of marriage — alas, for shame! — saw my wedding by night, sister; whence did frantic sleep bring me a betrothed scarce known by sight? Once in these abodes him, while by I know not what compact my treaties were pledged, I looked at, not willingly, sister, and suddenly troubled I saw all things, and a sudden fire fell between, and his mother followed me with raging cry, demanding back her Atys. What omens are these of doubtful disaster? Nor do I fear, so the house be safe and the Doric soldier withdraw, and it be allowed to compose the swollen brothers.' Such things they were weaving, when suddenly with an uproar the sluggish house was terrified, and with much sweat, taken up, Atys is borne, keeping his soul now with no blood, his hand upon the wound, his languid neck hangs outside the shield, and his hair thrown back from his brow. First Jocasta sees him, and trembling called dear Ismene: for this alone the dying voice begs, this alone of her son-in-law, this name alone now wanders on his cold jaws; the handmaids cry out, the maiden was raising her hands to her face, savage shame held her; yet to go she is compelled, Jocasta indulges the fallen man this last thing, and shows and offers her. Four times now beneath death itself at the name he raised his sight and his face faint, yet bravely; her alone, the light of heaven neglected, he beholds, and with the beloved face is not sated. Then, because neither his mother is near nor his father, set in blessed death, they hand to his betrothed the pitiable office of closing his eyes; there at last, the witness removed, she confessed her pious groans and poured tears into his eyes.

And while these things through Thebes, burning with other serpents and with changed torch Enyo was renewing the war. They want arms, as though they had but now taken the first strokes at close quarters and every sword still gleamed, the son of Oeneus stands forth, though both with sure arrow Parthenopaeus may drive, and the faces of the dying Hippomedon may trample with his raging horse, and the Capanean pine already from afar fly, to be recognized by the Aonian bands: that was the day of Tydeus, him they both flee and tremble at as he cries: 'Whither do you give your backs? Lo, you may avenge your slain comrades and repay the mournful night. I am he who alone with insatiate slaughters drank fifty lives: as many, as many, come, in flocks bring your hands! Are there no fathers, no like-souled brothers of the fallen? What so great forgetting of grief? How it shames me to have departed content to Inachian Mycenae! Hence upon Thebes? Are these the strengths of the king? But where is that excellent leader of mine?' At once on the left wing he sees him exhorting the wedges and marked by the gleam of his proud head; nor less ardent he runs to meet him than the fiery bird hangs over a snowy swan and binds the trembler about with a great shadow. Then he first: 'O most just king of the Aonian race, do we go to arms openly and show our swords at last, or does it please to await the night and the accustomed darkness?' That one nothing in answer, but the hissing cornel-spear against the foe goes bearing the leader's commands, which the provident hero, now at the journey's end, struck askew, and himself a huge weapon eagerly and with a stronger arm than ever before hurled: the dread lance went, about to set an end to the duel; on both sides the favouring gods turned their eyes, Sidonian and Greek; the cruel Erinys withstands it and defers Eteocles for his unspeakable brother: the point erred against the armour-bearer Phlegyas; there a vast battle of men, for the Aetolian rushed in fiercer with drawn sword, and the Theban arms covered the leader given to the rear, so a thick throng of shepherds, now under the dark night, keeps off the wolf from the bullock it has seized; the wicked beast rises against them, nor cares to attack those who forbid him: him, him, against whom he had come, he presses. Not otherwise the opposing lines and the lesser throng he dissembles and passes by with his hand; yet the face of Thoas, the breast of Deilochus, the side of Clonius, the flank of grim Hippotades he pierces; sometimes he returns their limbs to the trunks and whirls full helmets through the clouds. And now with the bodies and spoils of the fallen he had shut himself in; round one alone the line is consumed, against one all the weapons make vows: these stick in the surface bones, part fall frustrated, part Tritonia plucks away, many stand stiff in the shield, now sown with thick spears the boss shakes an iron grove, and on the back gapes and on the shoulders the ancestral boar; nowhere the lofty glory of the cone, and the crest of the grim helmet which Gradivus held falls, no glad omen to its master: scorched on his temples the bare bronze sits, and round about, sounding, the millstones roll upon his arms, his head struck. Now blood is in the helmet, now the dark torrent, mingled with sweat and gore, washes his wounded breast, he looks back at his exhorting comrades and faithful Pallas, hiding her eyes farther off behind her opposed buckler: for she was going to bend her great father with tears.

Lo, the ash-spear cuts the zephyrs, bearing huge wrath and fortune; the weapon's author stands not forth: Astacian Melanippus it was, nor did he himself betray it, and he would have wished his hand to lie hidden, but the joy of the squadron showed the trembler; for Tydeus, bent at the flank, had loosened his sunken side and the orb of his shield. The Aonians mix a shout and the Pelasgians a groan, and throw out their hands and watch the indignant man. He, far off through the men opposing, having searched out the bitter Astacian, forces himself into the stroke with all the remnants of his soul, and casts the weapon which next him Hopleus had offered: the blood, pressed out by the effort, perishes, then his sad comrades, as he longs to war — what ardour! — and demands spears and in the midst of death refuses to expire, drag him away, and at the margin of the high field they lay him, propped, his sides on either hand leaning against a twin buckler, and that he will return to the battles of savage Mars they promise, weeping; but he himself felt heaven recede and his vast spirits slip away in the last cold, and, leaning on the earth, 'Pity me,' he cries, 'Inachidae: I pray not that my bones be borne back to Argos or to my Aetolian home; for I have no care of the last funeral: I hate these limbs and this fragile use of the body, the deserter of the soul. A head, O a head, O if someone would bring me yours, Melanippus! for you are rolled on the fields, I trust indeed, nor has my last valour deceived me. Go, I pray, if Atreus' blood is anything to you ever, Hippomedon; go, O boy famed in your first wars, Arcadian, and you, Capaneus, now greatest of the Argive squadron.' All are moved, but first goes and first the found Astacian Capaneus lifts from the midst of the dust, breathing, and bears him back above on his left shoulder, bloodying his back with the wave of the shaken wound: as the Tirynthian returned from the Arcadian cave and brought the captive boar to clamouring Argos. Tydeus rises and runs to meet him, frantic with joy and with wrath, when he saw the sobbing face and the eyes dragged, and recognized himself in him, he bids the severed head be held out, and, taken in his left hand, fierce, he watches the hostile head, and his joy swells as he sees the grim eyes of the warm thing and yet hesitating to be fixed. The unhappy man was content: more the avenging Tisiphone demands; and now, her father bent over, Tritonia had come, and was bearing the wretched man immortal glory, and she beholds him, drenched with the gore of the broken brain and defiling his jaws with living blood — nor can his comrades take it away — : the rough Gorgon stood with hair sent forth, and the serpents, upright before her face, veiled the goddess; she fled, turning from the prostrate man, nor went up to the stars before the mystic torch and the guiltless Elisos with much water had cleansed her offended eyes.