I too have the same desire.JocastaWoe is me! what will you do, my sons?PolyneicesThe event will show.JocastaOh, try to escape your father’s curse! Exit Jocasta.EteoclesMay destruction seize our whole house!PolyneicesSoon my sword will be busy, plunged in gore. But I call my native land and the gods to witness, with what dishonor and bitter treatment I am being driven forth, as though I were a slave, not a son of Oedipus as much as he. If anything happens to you, my city, blame him, not me;for I did not come willingly, and unwillingly I am driven from the land. And you, Phoebus, lord of highways, and my home, farewell, and my comrades, and statues of the gods, where sheep are sacrificed. For I do not know if I can ever again address you; though hope is not yet asleep, which makes me confident that with the gods’ helpI shall slay him and rule this land of Thebes. Exit Polyneices.EteoclesGet out of the country! It was a true name our father gave you, when, prompted by some god, he called you Polyneices, man of many quarrels. Exit Eteocles.

ChorusCadmus of Tyre came to this land, and at his feet a four-footed,untamed heifer threw itself down, fulfilling an oracle, where the god’s prophecy told him to make his home in the plains rich with wheat,and where the lovely waters of Dirce pour over the fields, the green and deep-seeded fields; here Bromius’ mother gave birthfrom her union with Zeus; Bromius, round whom the ivy twined its wreaths while he was still a baby, covering him and blessing him in the shades of its green foliage,a Bacchic dance for the maids and wives inspired in Thebes.

ChorusThere was Ares’ murderous dragon, a savage guard,watching with wandering eye the watery rivers and fresh streams. Cadmus destroyed it with a jagged stone, when he came there to draw lustral water; smiting the deadly headwith a blow of his beast-slaying arm; and by the counsel of ~~PalIas,~~ the motherless goddess, he cast the teeth upon the deep fields to fall to the earth,