The Phoenician Women

Euripides

Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.

  1. One thing tell me, by the gods, if you know anything of Polyneices; for this too is my concern, if he is alive.
Messenger
  1. As yet your sons are living, the pair of them.
Jocasta
  1. God bless you! How did you succeed in beating off from our gates the Argive army, when beleaguered? Tell me, so that I may go within and cheer the old blind man, since our city is still safe.
Messenger
  1. After Creon’s son, who gave up his life for his country, had taken his stand on the turret’s top and plunged a dark-hilted sword through his throat to save this land, your son told off seven companies with their captains to the seven gates to keep watch on the Argive warriors,
  2. and stationed cavalry to cover cavalry, and infantry to support infantry, so that assistance might be close at hand for any weak point in the walls. Then from our lofty towers we saw the Argive army with their white shields leaving
  3. Teumesus, and, when near the trench, they charged up to our Theban city at a run. In one loud burst from their ranks and from our walls rang out the battle-cry and trumpet-call.
  4. First to the Neitian gate, Parthenopaeus, son of the huntress,
  5. led a company bristling with thick rows of shields, and he had his own device in the centre of his shield: Atalanta slaying the Aetolian boar with an arrow shot from far. To the gates of Proetus
  6. came the prophet Amphiaraus, bringing the victims on a chariot; he had no boastful sign, but weapons chastely plain.
  7. Next lord Hippomedon came marching to the Ogygian gates with this device in the middle of his shield:
  8. Argus the all-seeing dappled with eyes on the watch, some open with the rising stars, others hiding when they set, as could be seen after he was slain.
  9. At the Homoloian gates Tydeus had his post,
  10. a lion’s skin with shaggy mane upon his shield, while the Titan Prometheus bore a torch in his right hand, to fire the town.
  11. Your own Polyneices led the battle against the Fountain gate; upon his shield for a device
  12. were the colts of Potniae galloping at frantic speed, revolving by some clever contrivance on pivots by the handle, so as to appear distraught.
  13. At Electra’s gate Capaneus brought up his company, bold as Ares for the battle;
  14. this device his shield bore upon its iron back: an earth-born giant carrying on his shoulders a whole city which he had wrenched from its base, a hint to us of the fate in store for Thebes.
  15. Adrastus was at the seventh gate;
  16. a hundred vipers engraved on his shield, as he bore on his left arm the hydra the boast of Argos, and serpents were carrying off in their jaws the sons of Thebes from within our very walls. Now I was able to see each of them,
  17. as I carried the watch-word along to the leaders of our companies.