The grieving housewives eye it; heaped and blent, Earth's boons are spoiled and spent, And waste to nothingness; and O alas, Young maids, forlorn ye pa.s.s- Fresh horror at your hearts-beneath the power Of those who crop the flower!

Ye own the ruffian ravisher for lord, And night brings rites abhorred!

Woe, woe for you! upon your grief and pain There comes a fouler stain.

[Enter, on one side, THE SPY; on the other, ETEOCLES and the SIX CHAMPIONS.

SEMI-CHORUS

Look, friends! methinks the scout, who parted hence To spy upon the foemen, comes with news, His feet as swift as wafting chariot-wheels.

SEMI-CHORUS

Ay, and our king, the son of Oedipus, Comes prompt to time, to learn the spy's report- His heart is fainter than his foot is fast!

THE SPY

Well have I scanned the foe, and well can say Unto which chief, by lot, each gate is given.

Tydeus already with his onset-cry Storms at the gate called Proetides; but him The seer Amphiaraus holds at halt, Nor wills that he should cross Ismenus' ford, Until the sacrifices promise fair.

But Tydeus, mad with l.u.s.t of blood and broil, Like to a c.o.c.katrice at noontide hour, Hisses out wrath and smites with scourge of tongue The prophet-son of Oecleus-Wise thou art, Faint against war, and holding back from death!

With such revilings loud upon his lips He waves the triple plumes that o'er his helm Float overshadowing, as a courser's mane; And at his shield's rim, terror in their tone, Clang and reverberate the brazen bells.

And this proud sign, wrought on his shield, he bears- The vault of heaven, inlaid with blazing stars; And, for the boss, the bright moon glows at full, The eye of night, the first and lordliest star.

Thus with high-vaunted armour, madly bold, He clamours by the stream-bank, wild for war, As a steed panting grimly on his bit, Held in and chafing for the trumpet's bray!

Whom wilt thou set against him? when the gates Of Proetus yield, who can his rush repel?

ETEOCLES

To me, no blazon on a foeman's shield Shall e'er present a fear! such pointed threats Are powerless to wound; his plumes and bells, Without a spear, are snakes without a sting.

Nay, more-that pageant of which thou tellest- The nightly sky displayed, ablaze with stars, Upon his shield, palters with double sense- One headstrong fool will find its truth anon!

For, if night fall upon his eyes in death, Yon vaunting blazon will its own truth prove, And he is prophet of his folly's fall.

Mine shall it be, to pit against his power The loyal son of Astacus, as guard To hold the gateways-a right valiant soul, Who has in heed the throne of Modesty And loathes the speech of Pride, and evermore Shrinks from the base, but knows no other fear.

He springs by stock from those whom Ares spared, The men called Sown, a right son of the soil, And Melanippus styled. Now, what his arm To-day shall do, rests with the dice of war, And Ares shall ordain it; but his cause Hath the true badge of Right, to urge him on To guard, as son, his motherland from wrong.

CHORUS

Then may the G.o.ds give fortune fair Unto our chief, sent forth to dare War's terrible arbitrament!

But ah! when champions wend away, I shudder, lest, from out the fray, Only their blood-stained wrecks be sent!

THE SPY

Nay, let him pa.s.s, and the G.o.ds' help be his!

Next, Capaneus comes on, by lot to lead The onset at the gates Electran styled: A giant he, more huge than Tydeus' self, And more than human in his arrogance- May fate forefend his threat against our walls!

G.o.d willing, or unwilling-such his vaunt- I will lay waste this city; Pallas' self, Zeus' warrior maid, although she swoop to earth And plant her in my path, shall stay me not.

And, for the flashes of the levin-bolt, He holds them harmless as the noontide rays.

Mark, too, the symbol on his shield-a man Scornfully weaponless but torch in hand, And the flame glows within his grasp, prepared For ravin: lo, the legend, wrought in words, Fire for the city bring I, flares in gold!

Against such wight, send forth-yet whom? what man Will front that vaunting figure and not fear?

ETEOCLES

Aha, this profits also, gain on gain!

In sooth, for mortals, the tongue's utterance Bewrays unerringly a foolish pride!

Hither stalks Capaneus, with vaunt and threat Defying G.o.d-like powers, equipt to act, And, mortal though he be, he strains his tongue In folly's ecstasy, and casts aloft High swelling words against the ears of Zeus.

Right well I trust-if justice grants the word- That, by the might of Zeus, a bolt of flame In more than semblance shall descend on him.

Against his vaunts, though reckless, I have set, To make a.s.surance sure, a warrior stern- Strong Polyphontes, fervid for the fray; A st.u.r.dy bulwark, he, by grace of Heaven And favour of his champion Artemis!

Say on, who holdeth the next gate in ward?

CHORUS

Perish the wretch whose vaunt affronts our home!

On him the red bolt come, Ere to the maiden bowers his way he cleave, To ravage and bereave!

THE SPY

I will say on. Eteoclus is third- To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang O'er the inverted helmet's brazen rim, To dash his stormers on Neistae gate.

He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe And yearn to charge upon the gates amain.

They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith, Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound.

High too and haughty is his shield's device- An armed man who climbs, from rung to rung, A scaling ladder, up a hostile wall, Afire to sack and slay; and he too cries, (By letters, full of sound, upon the shield) Not Ares' self shall cast me from the wall.

Look to it, send, against this man, a man Strong to debar the slave's yoke from our town.

ETEOCLES (pointing to MEGAREUS) Send will I-even this man, with luck to aid- By his worth sent already, not by pride And vain pretence, is he. 'Tis Megareus, The child of Creon, of the Earth-sprung born!

He will not shrink from guarding of the gates, Nor fear the maddened charger's frenzied neigh, But, if he dies, will n.o.bly quit the score For nurture to the land that gave him birth, Or from the shield-side hew two warriors down Eteoclus and the figure that he lifts- Ay, and the city pictured, all in one, And deck with spoils the temple of his sire!

Announce the next pair, stint not of thy tongue!

CHORUS

O thou, the warder of my home, Grant, unto us, Fate's favouring tide, Send on the foemen doom!

They fling forth taunts of frenzied pride, On them may Zeus with glare of vengeance come; THE SPY

Lo, next him stands a fourth and shouts amain, By Pallas Onca's portal, and displays A different challenge; 'tis Hippomedon!

Huge the device that starts up from his targe In high relief; and, I deny it not, I shuddered, seeing how, upon the rim, It made a mighty circle round the shield- No sorry craftsman he, who wrought that work And clamped it all around the buckler's edge!

The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire!

The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole, Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew Erect above the concave of the shield: Loud rang the warrior's voice; inspired for war, He raves to slay, as doth a Baccha.n.a.l, His very glance a terror! of such wight Beware the onset! closing on the gates, He peals his vaunting and appalling cry!

ETEOCLES

Yet first our Pallas Onca-wardress she, Planting her foot hard by her gate-shall stand, The Maid against the ruffian, and repel His force, as from her brood the mother-bird Beats back the wintered serpent's venom'd fang And next, by her, is Oenops' gallant son, Hyperbius, chosen to confront this foe, Ready to seek his fate at Fortune's shrine!

In form, in valour, and in skill of arms, None shall gainsay him. See how wisely well Hermes hath set the brave against the strong!

Confronted shall they stand, the shield of each Bearing the image of opposing G.o.ds: One holds aloft his Typhon breathing fire, But, on the other's shield, in symbol sits Zeus, calm and strong, and fans his bolt to flame- Zeus, seen of all, yet seen of none to fail!

Howbeit, weak is trust reposed in Heaven- Yet are we upon Zeus' victorious side, The foe, with those he worsted-if in sooth Zeus against Typhon held the upper hand, And if Hyperbius, (as well may hap When two such foes such diverse emblems bear) Have Zeus upon his shield, a saving sign.

CHORUS

High faith is mine that he whose shield Bears, against Zeus, the thing of hate.

The giant Typhon, thus revealed, A monster loathed of G.o.ds eterne And mortal men-this doom shall earn A shattered skull, before the gate!

THE SPY

Heaven send it so!

A fifth a.s.sailant now Is set against our fifth, the northern, gate, Fronting the death-mound where Amphion lies The child of Zeus.

This foeman vows his faith, Upon a mystic spear-head which he deems More holy than a G.o.dhead and more sure To find its mark than any glance of eye, That, will they, nill they, he will storm and sack The hold of the Cadmeans. Such his oath- His, the bold warrior, yet of childish years, A bud of beauty's foremost flower, the son Of Zeus and of the mountain maid. I mark How the soft down is waxing on his cheek, Thick and close-growing in its tender prime- In name, not mood, is he a maiden's child- Parthenopaeus; large and bright his eyes But fierce the wrath wherewith he fronts the gate: Yet not unheralded he takes his stand Before the portal; on his brazen shield, The rounded screen and shelter of his form, I saw him show the ravening Sphinx, the fiend That shamed our city-how it glared and moved, Clamped on the buckler, wrought in high relief!

And in its claws did a Cadmean bear- Nor heretofore, for any single prey, Sped she aloft, through such a storm of darts As now awaits her. So our foe is here- Like, as I deem, to ply no stinted trade In blood and broil, but traffick as is meet In fierce exchange for his long wayfaring!

ETEOCLES

Ah, may they meet the doom they think to bring- They and their impious vaunts-from those on high!

So should they sink, hurled down to deepest death!

This foe, at least, by thee Arcadian styled, Is faced by one who bears no braggart sign, But his hand sees to smite, where blows avail- Actor, own brother to Hyperbius!

He will not let a boast without a blow Stream through our gates and nourish our despair, Nor give him way who on his hostile shield Bears the brute image of the loathly Sphinx!

Blocked at the gate, she will rebuke the man Who strives to thrust her forward, when she feels Thick crash of blows, up to the city wall.

With Heaven's goodwill, my forecast shall be true.

CHORUS

Home to my heart the vaunting goes, And, quick with terror, on my head Rises my hair, at sound of those Who wildly, impiously rave!

If G.o.ds there be, to them I plead- Give them to darkness and the grave.

THE SPY

Fronting the sixth gate stands another foe, Wisest of warriors, bravest among seers- Such must I name Amphiaraus: he, Set steadfast at the h.o.m.oloid gate, Berates strong Tydeus with reviling words- The man of blood, the bane of state and home, To Argos, arch-allurer to all ill, Evoker of the fury-fiend of h.e.l.l, Death's minister, and counsellor of wrong Unto Adrastus in this fatal field.