Stasimon 5
[Episode]
Loudly, loudly raise the wail, and with white hands strike upon your heads!
1350
Creon
Oh, wretched Jocasta! what an end to life and marriage you have found the riddling of the Sphinx! Tell me how her two sons accomplished the bloody deed,
the struggle caused by the curse of Oedipus.
1355
Messenger
Of our successes before the towers you know, for the walls are not far away so as to prevent your learning each event as it occurred. Now when they,
the young sons of the old Oedipus, had adorned themselves in their bronze armor, they went and took their stand between the armies, chieftains both and two generals for the contest and the single combat. Then Polyneices, turning his eyes towards Argos, lifted up a prayer:
1360
O Lady Hera, for I am yours, since I have married the daughter of Adrastus and dwell in your land, grant that I may slay my brother, and give my right hand, which is set against him, the victory, stained with his blood. Asking for a shameful crown, to kill his brother.
1365
And tears came to the eyes of many at their sad fate, and men looked at one another, casting their glances round.
1370
But Eteocles, looking towards the temple of Pallas with the golden shield, prayed: Daughter of Zeus, grant that this arm may launch the spear of victory
against my brother’s breast and slay him who has come to sack my country.
1375
When the Tuscan trumpet, like a torch, blew the signal for the bloody battle, they darted wildly against one another;
like boars whetting their savage tusks, they joined battle, their beards wet with foam. They kept shooting out their spears, but crouched beneath their shields to let the steel glance off in vain; but if either saw the other’s eye above the rim,
1380
he would aim his lance there, eager to outwit him with the point.
1385
But both kept such careful outlook through the spy-holes in their shields, that their weapons found nothing to do; while from the onlookers far more than the combatants trickled the sweat caused by terror for their friends.
Eteocles, in kicking aside a stone that rolled beneath his tread, exposed a limb outside his shield, and Polyneices, seeing a chance of dealing him a blow, aimed at it, and the Argive shaft passed through his leg;
1390
the Danaid army, one and all, cried out for joy. And the wounded man, seeing Polyneices’ shoulder bare in this effort, plunged his spear with all his might into his breast, restoring gladness to the citizens of Thebes, though he broke off the spear-head.
1395
And so, at a loss for a weapon, he retreated step by step, till catching up a splintered rock he let it fly and broke the other’s spear in the middle; and now the combat was equal, for each had lost his lance.
1400
Then clutching their sword-hilts
they closed, and round and round, with shields clashing, they fought a wild battle. And Eteocles introduced the crafty Thessalian trick, having some knowledge of it from his association with that country. Disengaging himself from the immediate contest,
1405
he drew back his left foot but kept his eye closely on the pit of the other’s stomach from a distance; then advancing his right foot he plunged the weapon through his navel and fixed it in his spine. Down fell Polyneices, dripping with blood,
1410
ribs and belly contracting in his agony. But the other, thinking his victory now complete, threw down his sword and began to despoil him, wholly intent on that, without a thought for himself. And this indeed tripped him up; for Polyneices, who had fallen first, was still faintly breathing,
1415
and having in his grievous fall kept his sword, he made a last effort and drove it through the heart of Eteocles. They both lie there, fallen side by side, biting the dust with their teeth, and they have not decided the mastery.
1420
Chorus Leader
Ah, ah, how I mourn for your sorrows, Oedipus! The god, it seems, has fulfilled those curses of yours.
1425
Messenger
Now hear what further woes succeeded. Just as her two sons had fallen and lay dying, their wretched mother came on the scene,
her daughter with her, in great haste. When she saw their mortal wounds, she wailed: O my sons, the help I bring is too late. And throwing herself on each in turn she wept and mourned, sorrowing over all her toil in nursing them, and their sister, by her side, mourned also:
1430
Supporters of your mother’ s age, dearest brothers, leaving me forlorn, unwed! Then lord Eteocles with one deep dying gasp, hearing his mother, laid on her his clammy hand,
1435
and though he could not say a word, his moistened eye was eloquent to prove his love. And Polyneices was still breathing, and seeing his sister and his old mother he said: Mother, our end has come; I pity you
1440
and my sister Antigone and my dead brother. For I loved him though he became my enemy, I loved him in spite of all. Bury me, mother, and you, my sister, in my native land; pacify the city’s wrath that l may get at least that much
1445
of my own fatherland, although I lost my home. With your hand, mother, close my eyes—he himself places her fingers on the lids—and farewell; for already the darkness wraps me round.
1450
So both at once breathed out their life of sorrow.
But when their mother saw this sad event, in her overmastering grief she snatched a sword from the dead, and did a fearful deed; for she drove the steel right through her throat, and there she lies, dead with those she loved so well, her arms thrown round them both.
1455
