ISM. Deadly to look on.
CH. Alas! alas! thou Destiny, awarder of bitterness, wretched! and thou
dread shade of OEdipus! and dark Erinnys! verily art thou great in
might.
ANT. Thou in sooth knowest this by passing through it.
ISM. And so dost thou, having learned it just as soon as he.
ANT. After that thou didst return to the city.
ISM. An antagonist too to this man here in battle-fray.
ANT. Deadly to tell.
ISM. Deadly to look on.
ANT. Alas! the trouble.
ISM. Alas! the horrors upon our family and our land, and me above all.
ANT. Alas! alas! and me, be sure, more than all.
ISM. Alas! alas! for the wretched horrors! O sovereign Eteocles, our
chieftain!
ANT. Alas! ye most miserable of all men.
ISM. Alas! ye possessed by Ate.
ANT. Alas! alas! where in the land shall we place them both? Alas! in
the spot that is most honorable. Alas! alas! a woe fit to sleep beside
my father.[177]
_Enter_ HERALD.
'Tis my duty to announce the good pleasure and the decree of the
senators of the people of this city of Cadmus. It is resolved to bury
this body of Eteocles for his attachment to his country, with the dear
interment in earth! for in repelling our foes he met death in the city,
and being pure in respect to the sacred rites of his country, blameless
hath he fallen where 'tis glorious for the young to fall; thus, indeed,
hath it been commissioned me to announce concerning this corpse: But [it
has been decreed] to cast out unburied, a prey for dogs, this the corpse
of his brother Polynices, inasmuch as he would have been the overturner
of the land of Cadmus, if some one of the gods had not stood in
opposition to his spear: and even now that he is dead, he will lie under
the guilt of pollution with the gods of his country, whom he having
dishonored was for taking the city by bringing against it a foreign
host. So it is resolved that he, having been buried dishonorably by
winged fowls, should receive his recompense, and that neither piling up
by hands of the mound over his tomb should follow, nor any one honor him
with shrill-voiced wailings, but that he be ungraced with a funeral at
the hands of his friends. Such is the decree of the magistracy of the
Cadmaeans.
ANT. But I say to the rulers of the Cadmaeans, if not another single
person is willing to take part with me in burying him, I will bury him,
and will expose myself[178] to peril by burying my brother. And I feel
no shame at being guilty of this disobedient insubordination against the
city. Powerful is the tie of the common womb from which we sprung, from
a wretched mother and a hapless sire. Wherefore, my soul, do thou,
willing with the willing share in his woes, with the dead, thou living,
with sisterly feeling--and nought shall lean-bellied wolves tear his
flesh--let no one suppose it. All woman though I be, I will contrive a
tomb and a deep-dug grave for him, bearing earth in the bosom-fold of
my fine linen robe, and I myself will cover him; let none imagine the
contrary: an effective scheme shall aid my boldness.
HER. I bid thee not to act despite the state in this matter.
ANT. I bid thee not announce to me superfluous things.
HER. Yet stern is a people that has just escaped troubles.
ANT. Ay, call it stern[179]--yet this [corpse] shall not lie unburied.