Seven Against Thebes

Aeschylus

Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.

  1. and endured a bloody crop. Madness united the frenzied bridal pair.
Chorus
  1. Now it is as if a sea of evils pushes its swell onward. As one wave sinks, the sea raises up another,
  2. triple-crested, which crashes around the city’s stern. In between a narrow defense stretches—no wider than a wall. I fear that the city will be overthrown along with its kings.
Chorus
  1. For the compensation is heavy when curses uttered long ago are fulfilled, and once the deadly curse has come into existence, it does not pass away. When the fortune of seafaring merchants has grown too great,
  2. it must be thrown overboard.
Chorus
  1. For whom have the gods and divinities that share their altar and the thronging assembly of men ever admired
  2. so much as they honored Oedipus then, when he removed that deadly, man-seizing plague from our land?
Chorus
  1. But when, his sanity regained, he grew miserable in his wretched
  2. marriage, then carried away by his grief and with maddened heart he accomplished a double evil. With the hand that killed his father he struck out his eyes, which were dearer to him than his children.
Chorus
  1. Next he launched brutal, wrathful words against the sons he had bred—ah! curses from a bitter tongue—that wielding iron in their hands they would one day divide his property.
  2. So now I tremble in fear that the swift-running Erinys will bring this to fulfillment.
Enter Messenger.
Messenger
  1. Take heart, you daughters who were nurtured by your mother. Our city has escaped the yoke of slavery; the boasts of the powerful men have fallen to the ground.
  2. The city enjoys fair weather and has taken on no water even though it has been buffeted by many waves. The walls hold, and we have fortified the gates with champions fully capable in single-handed combat. For the most part all is well, at six of the gates.