Seven Against Thebes
Aeschylus
Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.
- Oh, the grief—
- Oh, the evils—
- For home and land.
- Above all for me,
- And more also for me.
- Ah I pity your grievous suffering, my king.
- Pity for you both, most lamentable of all men.
- You were possessed by delusion.
- Where shall we lay them in the earth?
- Ah, where their honor is greatest.
- To lie beside their father, a cause for him of sorrow.
Enter a Herald.Herald
- It is my duty to announce the will and decrees of the council on behalf of the people of this our Cadmean city. It is decreed, first, that Eteocles here, on account of his goodwill towards the city, is to be buried in a kindly grave in its soil;
- for hating the enemy he chose death in the city and driven by piety towards his ancestral shrines, he died without reproach where it is an honor for the young to die. This is how I was commanded to speak regarding him. But as for his brother, it is decreed that this corpse of Polyneices