THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES
A monologue from the
play by Aeschylus
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Dramas of Aeschylus. Trans. Anna Swanwick. London:
George Bell and Sons, 1907. |
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- ETEOCLES: Burghers of Cadmos, timely words beseem
- Him at the stern who guards the city's weal,
- Guiding the helm with lids unsoothed by sleep;
- For, if we prosper, God alone is praised,
- But if, which Heaven forfend, mischance befall,
- One man, Eteocles, through all the town,
- In noiseful rhymes and wailings manifold
- Would by the folk be chanted; which may Zeus,
- True to his sacred name, Averter, turn
- From our Cadmeian city; you meanwhile
- It now behoveth--him alike who fails
- Of youth's fair prime, and him whose bloom is past,
- Yet nursing still his body's stalwart strength,
- And each one grown to manhood, as befits--
- The State to aid and shrines of native gods,
- That ne'er their homes be erased; to aid
- Your children too, and this your mother earth,
- Beloved nurse, who, while your childish limbs
- Crept on her friendly plain, all nurture-toil
- Full kindly entertained, and fostered you
- Her denizens to be, in strait like this
- Shield-bearing champions, trusty in her cause.
- And so far, to the present day, in sooth
- God in our favour hath inclined the scale;
- For unto us, so long beleaguered here,
- War prospers in the main, through heaven's high will;--
- But now, so speaks the seer, augur divine,
- Without fire omens, but in ear and mind
- Marking, with faultless skill, presageful birds,--
- He, lord of these divining arts, declares
- That the prime onset of the Achaian host,
- Night-plotted, threatens even now the town;
- Haste, to the turrets then and bastion-gates
- Rush in full panoply;--the breastwork throng,
- Take station on the platforms of the towers,
- And, biding at the outlets of the ports,
- Be of good courage, nor this alien swarm
- Dread over-much; God will rule all for good.
- Myself have scouts sent forth and army spies,
- Who, as I trust, no bootless journey make;
- And having heard their tidings, in no wise
- Shall I by guileful stratagem be caught.
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MONOLOGUES BY AESCHYLUS |
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