Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete

These things are not for tears, but for Endurance.
My son is like his sire—a parricide!
Toil, exile, beggary—daily bread doled out
From stranger hands—these are your gifts, my son!
My nurses, guardians—they who share the want,
Or earn the bread, are daughters; call them not
Women, for they to me are men.  Go to!
Thou art not mine—I do disclaim such issue.
Behold, the eyes of the avenging God
Are o’er thee! but their ominous light delays
To blast thee yet.  March on—march on—to Thebes!
Not—not for thee, the city and the throne;
The earth shall first be reddened with thy blood—
Thy blood and his, thy foe—thy brother!  Curses!
Not for the first time summoned to my wrongs—
Curses!  I call ye back, and make ye now
Allies with this old man!

*     *     *     *     *     *

Yea, curses shall possess thy seat and throne,
If antique Justice o’er the laws of earth
Reign with the thunder-god.  March on to ruin!
Spurned and disowned—the basest of the base—
And with thee bear this burden: o’er thine head
I pour a prophet’s doom; nor throne nor home
Waits on the sharpness of the levelled spear:
Thy very land of refuge hath no welcome;
Thine eyes have looked their last on hollow Argos.
Death by a brother’s hand—dark fratricide,
Murdering thyself a brother—shall be thine.
Yea, while I curse thee, on the murky deep
Of the primeval hell I call!  Prepare
These men their home, dread Tartarus!  Goddesses,
Whose shrines are round me—ye avenging Furies!
And thou, oh Lord of Battle, who hast stirred
Hate in the souls of brethren, hear me—hear me!—
And now, ‘tis past!—enough!—depart and tell
The Theban people, and thy fond allies,
What blessings, from his refuge with the Furies,
The blind old Oedipus awards his sons!” 352 (#x28_x_28_i149)

As is usual with Sophocles, the terrific strength of these execrations is immediately followed by a soft and pathetic scene between Antigone and her brother. Though crushed at first by the paternal curse, the spirit of Polynices so far recovers its native courage that he will not listen to the prayer of his sister to desist from the expedition to Thebes, and to turn his armies back to Argos. “What,” he says,

“Lead back an army that could deem I trembled!”

Yet he feels the mournful persuasion that his death is doomed; and a glimpse of the plot of the “Antigone” is opened upon us by his prayer to his sister, that if he perish, they should lay him with due honours in the tomb. The exquisite loveliness of Antigone’s character touches even Polynices, and he departs, saying,

“With the gods rests the balance of our fate;
But thee, at least—oh never upon thee
May evil fall!  Thou art too good for sorrow!”

The chorus resume their strains, when suddenly thunder is heard, and Oedipus hails the sign that heralds him to the shades. Nothing can be conceived more appalling than this omen. It seems as if Oedipus had been spared but to curse his children and to die. He summons Theseus, tells him that his fate is at hand, and that without a guide he himself will point out the spot where he shall rest. Never may that spot be told—that secret and solemn grave shall be the charm of the land and a defence against its foes. Oedipus then turns round, and the instinct within guides him as he gropes along. His daughters and Theseus follow the blind man, amazed and awed. “Hither,” he says,

“Hither—by this way come—for this way leads
The unseen conductor of the dead 353 (#x28_x_28_i152) —and she
Whom shadows call their queen! 354 (#x28_x_28_i155)  Oh light, sweet light,
Rayless to me—mine once, and even now
I feel thee palpable, round this worn form,
Clinging in last embrace—I go to shroud
The waning life in the eternal Hades!”

Thus the stage is left to the chorus, and the mysterious fate of Oedipus is recited by the Nuntius, in verses which Longinus has not extolled too highly. Oedipus had led the way to a cavern, well known in legendary lore as the spot where Perithous and Theseus had pledged their faith, by the brazen steps which make one of the entrances to the infernal realms;

“Between which place and the Thorician stone—
The hollow thorn, and the sepulchral pile
He sat him down.”

And when he had performed libations from the stream, and laved, and decked himself in the funeral robes, Jove thundered beneath the earth, and the old man’s daughters, aghast with horror, fell at his knees with sobs and groans.

“Then o’er them as they wept, his hands he clasped,
And ‘Oh my children,’ said he, ‘from this day
Ye have no more a father—all of me
Withers away—the burden and the toil
Of mine old age fall on ye nevermore.
Sad travail have ye home for me, and yet
Let one thought breathe a balm when I am gone—
The thought that none upon the desolate world
Loved you as I did; and in death I leave
A happier life to you!’

Thus movingly,
With clinging arms and passionate sobs, the three
Wept out aloud, until the sorrow grew
Into a deadly hush—nor cry nor wail
Starts the drear silence of the solitude.
Then suddenly a bodiless voice is heard
And fear came cold on all.  They shook with awe,
And horror, like a wind, stirred up their hair.
Again, the voice—again—‘Ho! Oedipus, Why linger we so long?
Come—hither—come.’”

Oedipus then solemnly consigns his children to Theseus, dismisses them, and Theseus alone is left with the old man.

“So groaning we depart—and when once more
We turned our eyes to gaze, behold, the place
Knew not the man!  The king alone was there,
Holding his spread hands o’er averted brows
As if to shut from out the quailing gaze
The horrid aspect of some ghastly thing