Groaning spreads throughout the city, too: the walls groan; the land that loves its sons groans. But for those who come after them there remains their property, on which account the strifeof those terrible-fated men came to fulfillment in death. In their haste to anger they apportioned their property so that each has an equal share. To those who loved them their reconciler is not blameless,nor is Ares agreeable.

ChorusUnder strokes of iron they are come to this, and under strokes of iron there await them—what, one might perhaps ask—shares in their father’s tomb.As the brothers were to divide the substance of their dead father, their equal inheritance was the tomb. λαχαί means both apportioning of possessions and digging.