MEN. Ye females, how well removed I my father's fears, having deceived him
with words, in order to gain my wishes; who sends me out of the way,
depriving the city of its good fortune, and gives me up to cowardice. And
these things are pardonable indeed in an old man, but in my case it
deserves no pardon to become the deserter of that country which gave me
birth. That ye may know then, I will go, and preserve the city, and will
give up my life for this land. For it is a disgraceful thing, that those
indeed who are free from the oracle, and are not concerned with any
compulsion of the Gods, standing at their shields in battle, shall not be
slow to die fighting before the towers for their country; and I, having
betrayed my father, and my brother, and my own city, shall depart
coward-like from out of the land; but wherever I live, I shall appear vile.
No: by that Jove that dwelleth amidst the constellations, and sanguinary
Mars, who set up those sown men, who erst sprung from the earth, to be
kings of this country. But I will depart, and standing on the summit of the
battlements, stabbing myself over the dark deep lair of the dragon, where
the prophet appointed, will give liberty to the country--the word has been
spoken. But I go, by my death about to give no mean gift to the state, and
will rid this land of its affliction. For if every one, seizing what
opportunity he had in his power of doing good, would persist in it, and
bring it forward for his country's weal, states, experiencing fewer
calamities, henceforward might be prosperous.
CHOR. Thou camest forth, thou camest forth, O winged monster, production of
the earth, and the viper of hell, the ravager of the Cadmeans, big with
destruction, big with woes, in form half-virgin, a hostile prodigy, with
thy ravening wings, and thy talons that preyed on raw flesh, who erst from
Dirce's spot bearing aloft the youths, accompanied by an inharmonious lay,
thou broughtest, thou broughtest cruel woes to our country; cruel was he of
the Gods, whoever was the author of these things. And the moans of the
matrons, and the moans of the virgins, resounded in the house, in a voice,
in a strain of misery, they lamented some one thing, some another, in
succession through the city. And the groaning and the noise was like to
thunder, when the winged virgin bore out of sight any man from the city.
But at length came by the mission of the Pythian oracle Œdipus the unhappy
to this land of Thebes, to us then indeed delighted, but again came woes.
For he, wretched man, having gained the glorious victory over the enigmas,
contracts a marriage, an unfortunate marriage with his mother, and pollutes
the city. And fresh woes does the unfortunate man cause to succeed with
slaughter, devoting by curses his sons to the unhallowed contest.--With
admiration, with admiration we look on him, who is gone to kill himself for
the sake of his country's land; to Creon indeed having left lamentations,
but about to make the seven-towered gates of the land greatly victorious.
Thus may we be mothers, thus may we be blest in our children, O dear
Pallas, who destroyedst the blood of the dragon by the hurled stone,
driving the attention of Cadmus to the action, whence with rapine some
fiend of the Gods rushed on this land.