Seven Against Thebes

Aeschylus

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

  1. Under 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.)
  2. Our shrill, heart-rending wail goes with them—product of lamentation and pain felt of its own accord—a wail from a distressed mind, joyless, pouring forth tears from a heart
  3. that wastes away as I weep for these two princes.
Chorus
  1. Over these poor men it can be said that they did much to harm our citizens and also the ranks of all the foreigners
  2. who died in abundance in the fighting. Ill-fated beyond all women who are called by the name of mother is she who bore them. After she made her own child her own husband,
  3. she gave birth to these sons, who have thus ended their lives with kindred hands giving death for death.
Chorus
  1. Of the same seed, in truth, they were utterly destroyed in unloving divisions,
  2. in maddened discord, in the ending of their strife. Their hatred has ceased. Their life has been mingled in the blood-soaked earth. Now truly their blood is one.
  3. Ruthless is that which resolved their strife, the stranger from across the sea, sharpened iron rushed from the fire. Ruthless, too, was Ares, the cruel divider of their property, who made their father’s curses come true.
Chorus
  1. They hold in misery their allotted portion of god-given sorrows. Beneath their corpses there will be boundless wealth of earth. Ah, you have wreathed
  2. your race with many troubles! In the final outcome the Curses have raised their piercing cry, now that the family is turned to flight in all directions. A trophy to Ruin now stands at the gate
  3. where they struck each other and where, having conquered them both, the divine power stayed its hand.
The following antiphonal dirge is sung by the two sisters—Antigone standing by the bier of Polynices, Ismene by that of Eteocles.
Antigone
  1. You were struck as you struck.
Ismene
  1. You died as you killed.
Antigone
  1. By the spear you killed—
Ismene
  1. By the spear you died—
Antigone
  1. Your deed made you wretched.
Ismene
  1. You suffering made you wretched.
Antigone
  1. Let the lament come.
Ismene
  1. Let the tears come.