_Ant._ Thou, then, by full trial knowest....
_Ism._ Thou, too, no whit later learning....
_Ant._ When thou cam'st back to this city[131]....
_Ism._ Rival to our chief in warfare.
_Ant._ Woe, alas! for all our troubles!
_Ism._ Woe, alas! for all our evils!
_Ant._ Evils fallen on our houses!
_Ism._ Evils fallen on our country!
_Ant._ And on me before all others....
_Ism._ And to me the future waiting.... 1000
_Ant._ Woe for those two brothers luckless!
_Ism._ King Eteocles, our leader!
_Ant._ Oh, before all others wretched!
_Ism._ . . . . .
_Ant._ Ah, by Atè frenzy-stricken!
_Ism._ Ah, where now shall they be buried?
_Ant._ There where grave is highest honour.
_Ism._ Ah, the woe my father wedded!
_Enter a_ Herald
_Her._ 'Tis mine the judgment and decrees to publish
Of this Cadmeian city's counsellors:
It is decreed Eteocles to honour,
For his good-will towards this land of ours, 1010
With seemly burial, such as friend may claim;
For warding off our foes he courted death;
Pure as regards his country's holy things,
Blameless he died where death the young beseems;
This then I'm ordered to proclaim of him.
But for his brother's, Polyneikes' corpse,
To cast it out unburied, prey for dogs,
As working havoc on Cadmeian land,
Unless some God had hindered by the spear
Of this our prince;[132] and he, though, dead, shall gain 1020
The curse of all his father's Gods, whom he
[_Pointing to_ POLYNEIKES
With alien host dishonouring, sought to take
Our city. Him by ravenous birds interred
Ingloriously, they sentence to receive
His full deserts; and none may take in hand
To heap up there a tomb, nor honour him
With shrill-voiced wailings; but he still must lie,
Without the meed of burial by his friends.
So do the high Cadmeian powers decree.
_Ant._ And I those rulers of Cadmeians tell,[133] 1030
That if no other care to bury him,
I will inter him, facing all the risk,
Burying my brother: nor am I ashamed
To thwart the State in rank disloyalty;
Strange power there is in ties of blood, that we,
Born of woe-laden mother, sire ill-starred,
Are bound by: therefore of thy full free-will,
Share thou, my soul, in woes he did not will,
Thou living, he being dead, with sister's heart.
And this I say, no wolves with ravening maw,
Shall tear his flesh—No! no! let none think that!
For tomb and burial I will scheme for him, 1040
Though I be but weak woman, bringing earth
Within my byssine raiment's fold, and so
Myself will bury him; let no man think
(I say't again) aught else. Take heart, my soul!
There shall not fail the means effectual.
_Her._ I bid thee not defy the State in this.
_Ant._ I bid thee not proclaim vain words to me.
_Her._ Stern is the people now, with victory flushed.
_Ant._ Stern let them be, he shall not tombless lie.
_Her._ And wilt thou honour whom the State doth loathe?
_Ant._ *Yea, from the Gods he gets an honour due.[134]1050
_Her._ It was not so till he this land attacked.
_Ant._ He, suffering evil, evil would repay.
_Her._ Not against one his arms were turned, but all.
_Ant._ Strife is the last of Gods to end disputes:
Him I will bury; talk no more of it.
_Her._ Choose for thyself then, I forbid the deed.
_Chor._ Alas! alas! alas!
Ye haughty boasters, race-destroying,
Now Fates and now Erinnyes, smiting
The sons of Œdipus, ye slew them,
With a root-and-branch destruction. 1060
What shall I then do, what suffer?
What shall I devise in counsel?
How should I dare nor to weep thee,
Nor escort thee to the burial?
But I tremble and I shrink from
All the terrors which they threatened,
They who are my fellow-townsmen.
Many mourners thou (_looking to the bier of_ ETEOCLES) shalt
meet with;
But he, lost one, unlamented,
With his sister's wailing only
Passeth. Who with this complieth?
_Semi-Chor. A_. Let the city doom or not doom
Those who weep for Polyneikes;
We will go, and we will bury, 1070
Maidens we in sad procession;
For the woe to all is common,
And our State with voice uncertain,
Of the claims of Right and Justice;
Hither, thither, shifts its praises.
_Semi-Chor. B._ We will thus, our chief attending,
Speak, as speaks the State, our praises:
Of the claims of Right and Justice;[135]
For next those the Blessed Rulers,
And the strength of Zeus, he chiefly
Saved the city of Cadmeians
From the doom of fell destruction,
From the doom of whelming utter,
In the flood of alien warriors.
[_Exeunt_ ANTIGONE _and Semi-Chorus A., following
the corpse of_ POLYNEIKES; ISMENE
_and Semi-Chorus B. that of_ ETEOCLES.
-----
Footnote 73:
Probably directed against the tendency of the Athenians, as shown in
their treatment of Miltiades, and later in that of Thukydides, to
punish their unsuccessful generals, “_pour encourager les autres_.”
Footnote 74:
Teiresias, as in Sophocles (_Antig._ v. 1005), sitting, though blind,
and listening, as the birds flit by him, and the flames burn steadily
or fitfully; a various reading gives “apart from sight.”
Footnote 75:
Enyo, the goddess of war, and companion of Ares.
Footnote 76:
Amphiaraos the seer had prophesied that Adrastos alone should return
home in safety. On his car, therefore, the other chieftains hung the
clasps, or locks of hair, or other memorials which in the event of
their death were to be taken to their parents.
Footnote 77:
The Hellenic feeling, such as the Platæans appealed to in the
Peloponnesian war (Thuc. iii. 58, 59), that it was noble and right for
Hellenes to destroy a city of the barbarians, but that they should
spare one belonging to a people of their own stock.
Footnote 78:
The characteristic feature of the Argive soldiers was, that they bore
a shield painted white (comp. Sophocles, _Antig._ v. 114). The leaders
alone appear to have embellished this with devices and mottoes.
Footnote 79:
In solemn supplications, the litanies of the ancient world, especially
in those to Pallas, the suppliants carried with them in procession the
shawl or _peplos_ of the Goddess, and with it enwrapt her statue. To
carry boughs of trees in the hands was one of the uniform, probably
indispensable, accompaniments of such processions.
Footnote 80:
The words recall our thoughts to the original use of the trident,
which became afterwards a symbol of Poseidon, as employed by the
sailors of Hellas to spear or harpoon the larger fish of the
Archipelago. Comp. _Pers._ v. 426, where the slaughter of a defeated
army is compared to tunny-fishing.
Footnote 81:
Cadmos, probably “the man from the East,” the Phœnikian who had
founded Thebes, and sown the dragon's seed, and taught men a Semitic
alphabet for the non-Semitic speech of Hellas.
Footnote 82:
Worthy of his name as the Wolf-destroyer, mighty to destroy his foes.
Footnote 83:
Possibly “_from_ battlements attacked.” In the primitive sieges of
Greek warfare stones were used as missiles alike by besieged and
besiegers.
Footnote 84:
The name of Onca belonged especially to the Theban worship of Pallas,
and was said to have been of Phœnikian origin, introduced by Cadmos.
There seems, however, to have been a town Onkæ in Bœotia, with which
the name was doubtless connected.
Footnote 85:
“Alien,” on account of the difference of dialect between the speech of
Argos and that of Bœotia, though both were Hellenic.
Footnote 86:
The vehemence with which Eteocles reproves the wild frenzied wailing
of the Chorus may be taken as an element of the higher culture showing
itself in Athenian life, which led Solon to restrain such lamentations
by special laws (Plutarch, _Solon_, c. 20). Here, too, we note in
Æschylos an echo of the teaching of Epimenides.
Footnote 87:
As now the sailor of the Mediterranean turns to the image of his
patron saint, so of old he ran in his distress to the figure of his
God upon the prow of his ship (often, as in Acts xxviii. II, that of
the _Dioscuri_), and called to it for deliverance (comp. Jonah i. 8).
Footnote 88:
Eteocles seems to wish for a short, plain prayer for deliverance,
instead of the cries and supplications and vain repetitions of the
Chorus.
Footnote 89:
The thought thus expressed was, that the Gods, yielding to the
mightier law of destiny, or in their wrath at the guilt of men, left
the city before its capture. The feeling was all but universal. Its
two representative instances are found in Virgil, _Æn._ 351—
“Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis
Di quibus imperium hoc steterat;”
and the narrative given alike by Tacitus (_Hist._ v. 13), and Josephus
(_Bell. Jud._ vi. 5, 3), that the cry “Let us depart hence,” was heard
at midnight through the courts of the Temple, before the destruction
of Jerusalem.
Footnote 90:
_Sc._ Blood must be shed in war. Ares would not be Ares without it. It
is better to take it as it comes.
Footnote 91:
_Sc._, the company of Gods, Pallas, Hera and the others whom the
Chorus had invoked.
Footnote 92:
Reference to this custom, which has passed from Pagan temples into
Christian churches, is found in the _Agamemnon_, v. 562. It was
connected, of course, with the general practice of offering as _ex
votos_ any personal ornaments or clothing as a token of thanksgiving
for special mercies.
Footnote 93:
Rivers and streams as the children of Tethys and Okeanos.
Footnote 94:
Here, as in v. 571, Tydeus appears as the real leader of the
expedition, who had persuaded Adrastos and the other chiefs to join in
it, and Amphiaraos, the prophet, the son of Œcleus, as having all
along foreseen its disastrous issue. The account of the expedition in
the _Œdipus at Colonos_ (1300-1330) may be compared with this.
Footnote 95:
The legend of the Medusa's head on the shield of Athena shows the
practice of thus decorating shields to have been of remote date. In
Homer it does not appear as common, and the account given of the
shield of Achilles lays stress upon the work of the artist (Hephæstos)
who wrought the shield in relief, not, as here, upon painted insignia.
They were obviously common in the time of Æschylos.
Footnote 96:
The older families of Thebes boasted that they sprang from the
survivors of the Sparti, who, sprung from the Dragon's teeth, waged
deadly war against each other, till all but five were slain. The later
settlers, who were said to have come with Cadmos, stood to these as
the “greater” to the “lesser _gentes_” at Rome.
Footnote 97:
So in the _Antigone_ of Sophocles (v. 134), Capaneus appears as the
special representative of boastful, reckless impiety.
Footnote 98:
Artemis, as one of the special Deities to whom Thebes was consecrated.
Footnote 99:
Apparently an Asiatic invention, to increase the terror of an attack
of war-chariots.
Footnote 100:
The phrase and thought were almost proverbial in Athens. Men, as
citizens, were thought of as fed at a common table, bound to
contribute their gifts to the common stock. When they offered up their
lives in battle, they were giving, as Pericles says (Thucyd. ii. 43),
their noblest “contribution,” paying in full their subscription to the
society of which they were members.
Footnote 101:
Thyiad, another name for the Mænads, the frenzied attendants on
Dionysos.
Footnote 102:
_Sc._, in the legends of Typhon, not he, but Zeus, had proved the
conqueror. The warrior, therefore, who chose Typhon for his badge was
identifying himself with the losing, not the winning side.
Footnote 103:
The name, as we are told in v. 542, is Parthenopæos, the maiden-faced.
Footnote 104:
The Sphinx, besides its general character as an emblem of terror, had,
of course, a special meaning as directed to the Thebans. The warrior
who bore it threatened to renew the old days when the monster whom
Œdipus had overcome had laid waste their city.
Footnote 105:
_Sc._, the Sphinx on his shield will not be allowed to enter the city.
It will only serve as a mark, attracting men to attack both it and the
warrior who bears it.
Footnote 106:
The quarrel between Tydeus and the seer Amphiaraos had been already
touched upon.
Footnote 107:
I have used the old English word to express a term of like technical
use in Athenian law processes. As the “sumpnour” called witnesses or
parties to a suit into court, so Tydeus had summoned the Erinnys to do
her work of destruction.
Footnote 108:
_Sc._, so pronounced his name as to emphasise the significance of its
two component parts, as indicating that he who bore it was a man of
much contention.
Footnote 109:
The words are obscure, but seem to refer to the badge of Polyneikes,
the figure of Justice described in v. 643 as on his shield. How shall
that Justice, the seer asks, console Jocasta for her son's death?
Another rendering gives,
“And how shall Justice quench a mother's life?”
the “mother” being the country against which Polyneikes wars.
Footnote 110:
The words had a twofold fulfilment (1) in the burial of Amphiaraos, in
the Theban soil; and (2) in the honour which accrued to Thebes after
his death, through the fame of the oracle at his shrine.
Footnote 111:
The passage cannot be passed over without noticing the old tradition
(Plutarch, _Aristeid._ c. 3), that when the actor uttered these words,
he and the whole audience looked to Aristeides, surnamed the Just, as
recognising that the words were true of him as they were of no one
else. “Best,” instead of “just,” is, however, a very old various
reading.
Footnote 112:
If the former reference to Aristeides be admitted, we can scarcely
avoid seeing in this passage an allusion to Themistocles, as one with
whose reckless and democratic policy it was dangerous for the more
conservative leader to associate himself.
Footnote 113:
The far-off city, not of Thebes, but of Hades. In the legend of
Thebes, the earth opened and swallowed up Amphiaraos, as in 583.
Footnote 114:
The short spear was usually carried under the shelter of the shield;
when brought into action it was, of course, laid bare.
Footnote 115:
Perhaps “since death is at nigh hand.”
Footnote 116:
The Chorus means that if Eteocles would allow himself to be overcome
in this contest of his wishes with their prayers the Gods would honour
that defeat as if it were indeed a victory. He makes answer that the
very thought of being overcome implied in the word “defeat” in
anything is one which the true warrior cannot bear.
Footnote 117:
The “Chalyb stranger” is the sword, thought of as taking its name from
the Skythian tribe of the Chalybes, between Colchis and Armenia, and
passing through the Thrakians into Greece.
Footnote 118:
The two brothers, _i.e._, are set at one again, but it is not in the
bonds of friendship, but in those of death.
Footnote 119:
The image meets us again in _Agam._ 980. Here the thought is, that a
man too prosperous is like a ship too heavily freighted. He must part
with a portion of his possession in order to save the rest. Not to
part with them leads, when the storm rages, to an enforced abandonment
and utter loss.
Footnote 120: