[Footnote 11: The dirce ran on one side of Thebes, the Ismenus on the
other, and they afterwards united in a common stream. Both were mere
watercourses, which were only filled by the rains of winter.]
[Footnote 12: The Thebans are subsequently represented by Statius as
driven into the Ismenus by the Greeks, and the hosts which were killed
or drowned were carried by the river into the sea.]
[Footnote 13: What hero, that is, of the famous seven who went up
against Thebes to dispossess Eteocles for violating the compact to reign
alternately with Polynices. The five persons whom Statius enumerates as
joining with Polynices and Adrastus, king of Argos, are Tydeus,
Amphiaraus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, and Capaneus.]
[Footnote 14: When Tydeus had received his death-wound from a javelin
hurled by Menalippus, he gathered up his failing strength, and flung a
dart by which he mortally wounded Menalippus in turn. Full of revengeful
spite Tydeus begged that the head of Menalippus might be brought to him.
He grasped it with his dying hand, gazed at it with malignant joy,
gnawed it in his frenzy, and refused to relinquish his hold. This was
"the rage of Tydeus," which Statius says the Greeks themselves condemned
as exceeding the recognised latitude of hate.]
[Footnote 15: The prophet was Amphiaraus, who predicted that all who
took part in the expedition, except Adrastus, would be destroyed. The
earth opened while Amphiaraus was fighting, and swallowed up him and his
chariot. Statius paints him sinking calmly into the yawning gulf,
without dropping his weapons or the reins, and with his eyes fixed on
the heavens.]
[Footnote 16: Hippomedon is made by Statius the hero of the conflict in
the river Ismenus, where he at last succumbs to the god of the river.
The piles of dead formed a dike, which turned back the waters.]
[Footnote 17: Parthenopaeus.--POPE.]
[Footnote 18: He declared that Jupiter himself should not keep him from
ascending the walls of Thebes. Jupiter punished his defiance by setting
him on fire with lightning on the scaling ladder, and he was burnt to
death.]
[Footnote 19: Oedipus did not strike his wounds. He struck the ground,
which was the usage in invoking the infernal deities, since their
kingdom was in the bowels of the earth.]
[Footnote 20: One of the three principal furies or avengers of crime,
who inhabited the world of condemned spirits.]
[Footnote 21: The great difference between raising horror and terror is
perceived and felt from the reserved manner in which Sophocles speaks of
the dreadful incest of Oedipus, and from the manner in which Statius
has enlarged and dwelt upon it, in which he has been very unnaturally
and injudiciously imitated by Dryden and Lee, who introduce this most
unfortunate prince not only describing but arguing on the dreadful crime
he had committed.--WARTON.]
[Footnote 22: Laius, king of Thebes, warned by the oracle that he would
be killed by his own offspring, exposed his son Oedipus on Mount
Cithaeron. The infant was found by a shepherd, and carried to Polybus,
king of Corinth, who adopted him. Arrived at man's estate, he too was
informed by the oracle that he would take the life of his father, and
commit incest with his mother. Believing that the king and queen who
brought him up were his parents, he determined not to go back to
Corinth, and in attempting to avert his destiny, he fulfilled it. As he
journeyed towards Thebes he met his real father, Laius, and slew him in
a conflict which grew out of a dispute with his charioteer.]
[Footnote 23: Or the temple at Delphi, where Oedipus went to consult
the oracle.]
[Footnote 24: The Sphinx sat upon a rock near Thebes propounding a
riddle to every one who passed by, and destroying all who were unable to
explain it. The Thebans proclaimed that whoever would rid the kingdom of
this scourge should marry the widow of Laius, and succeed to the vacant
throne. Oedipus, by solving the riddle, drove the Sphinx to commit
suicide, and in accepting the reward, he unconsciously verified the
remainder of the oracle.]
[Footnote 25: Oedipus behaves with the fury of a blustering bully,
instead of that patient submission and pathetic remorse which are so
suited to his condition.--WARTON.]
[Footnote 26: In the first edition he had written
Which shall o'er long posterity prevail.
The more forcible phrase which he substituted for "long posterity," was
from Dryden's Virg. AEn. iii. 132: