and that neither piling up by hands of the mound over his tomb should follow, nor any one honour him with shrill-voiced wailings, but that he be ungraced with a funeral at the hands of his friends. Such is the decree of the magistracy of the

Cadmæans.

ANT. But I say to the rulers of the Cadmeans, if not another single person is willing to take part with me in burying him, I will bury him, and will expose myself1 to peril by burying my brother. And I feel no shame at being guilty of this disobedient insubordination against the city. Powerful is the tie of the common womb from which we sprung, from a wretched mother, and a hapless sire. Wherefore, my soul, do thou, willing with the willing share in his woes, with the dead, thou living, with sisterly feeling-and nought shall lean-bellied wolves tear his flesh-let no one suppose it. All woman though I be, I will contrive a tomb and deep-dug grave for him, bearing earth in the bosom-fold of my fine-linen robe, and I myself will cover him; let none imagine the contrary: an effective scheme shall aid my boldness.

HER. I bid thee not to act despite the state in this matter. ANT. I bid thee not announce to me superfluous things. HER. Yet stern is a people that has just escaped troubles. ANT. Aye, call it stern,-yet this [corpse] shall not lie

unburied.

HER. What! wilt thou honour with a tomb him whom our state abhors?

ANT. Heretofore he has not been honoured by the gods. HER. Not so, at least before he put this realm in jeopardy. ANT. Having suffered injuriously he repaid with injury.

1 Wellauer (not Scholefield, as Griffiths says) defends the common reading from Herodot. V. 49.

2 Tpáxvve. But T. Burgess' emendation тpaxús yɛ seems better, and is approved by Blomfield.

Soph. Ant. 44. ᾗ γὰρ νοεῖς θάπτειν σφ ̓ ἀπόρρητον πόλει;

4 I have taken Griffiths' translation of what Dindorf rightly calls "lectio vitiosa," and of stuff that no sane person can believe came from the hand of Eschylus. Paley, who has often seen the truth where all others bave failed, ingeniously supposes that où is a mistaken insertion, and, omitting it, takes diarɛríμntai in this sense: "jam hic non amplius a diis honoratur; ergo ego eum honorabo." See his highly satisfactory note, to which I will only add that the reasoning of the Antigone of Sophocles, vss, 515, sqq. gives ample confirmation to his view of this passage.

F

66

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.

1052-1078

HER. Aye, but this deed of his fell on all instead of one. ANT. Contention is the last of the gods to finish a dispute, and I will bury him; make no more words.

HER. Well, take thine own way—yet I forbid thee. Exit HERALD. CH. Alas! alas! O ye fatal Furies, proudly triumphant, and destructive to this race, ye that have ruined the family of Edipus from its root. What will become of me? What shall I do? What can I devise? How shall I have the heart neither to bewail thee nor to escort thee to the tomb? But I dread and shrink from the terror of the citizens. Thou, at all events, shalt in sooth have many mourners; but he, wretched one, departs unsighed for, having the solitarywailing dirge of his sister. Who will agree to this?

SEM. Let the state do or not do aught to those who bewail Polynices. We, on this side will go and join to escort his funeral procession; for both this sorrow is common to the race, and the state at different times sanctions different maxims of justice.

SEM. But we will go with this corpse, as both the city and justice join to sanction. For next to the Immortals and the might of Jove, this man prevented the city of the Cadmeans from being destroyed, and thoroughly overwhelmed by the surge of foreign enemies.

1 Blomfield would either omit this verse, or assign it to the chorus.

1-13

THE PERSIANS.

THE ill-boding dream of Atossa is confirmed by a messenger from the Persian army, giving an account of the defeat at Salamis, and the shade of Darius, being invoked, denounces the mad folly of Xerxes, with whose lamentations, upon his disgraceful return, the play concludes.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CHORUS OF AGED PERSIANS.
ATOSSA, THE QUEEN-MOTHER.
A MESSENGER.

THE GHOST OF DARIUS.
XERXES.

CH. These are the faithful band' left by the Persians who have gone into the land of Hellas, and guardians of these opulent abodes abounding in gold, whom our prince Xerxes himself, a monarch descended from Darius, selected according to seniority, to have the superintendence of the realm. And now for some time my ill-boding soul within me has been in a state of exceeding agitation concerning the return of our monarch, and of the army in its rich array, for the whole native power of Asia hath gone, and [my mind] calls for its youthful hero2.

1 TIOTȧ = oi Toroi, see Blomfield, who shows that this was a customary epithet applied to the Satraps and other Persian dignitaries. Siebelis, Diatrib. in Eschyli Persas, pp. 37, sqq. brings a great show of learning to prove that these were the Eunuchs, especially from their being consulted by Atossa, and moreover supposes both from the etymology of certain of the names, and the enumeration of those allies of the Persians only, who were chiefly infamous for their effeminacy, that a stream of irony runs throughout the whole of this chorus, admirably calculated to please an Athenian audience. This is confirmed by Eschylus having ventured to employ a parody of the commencement of Phrynichus' Phoenissæ, which ran thus: τάδ' ἐστι Περσῶν τῶν πάλαι βεβηκότων (see Sieb. ibid, p. 39). The scene is laid at Susa, where the royal residence and treasury was. See Herodot. V. 49. Hence Susa is placed "inter ornamenta regni" by Curtius V. 1, 7.

2 I have, with Paley, followed the clear and satisfactory explanation which Linwood has confirmed in his Lexicon, s. v. Bavčev. He well

And neither does any messenger nor any horseman arrive at the city of the Persian who, having quitted the city of Susa and of Ecbatana1, and the antique Cissian fortress, set forth, some on steeds, some in ships, and the infantry in slow march, forming a dense file of war. Amistres2, for instance, and Artaphrenes, and Megabayes, and Astaspes, leaders of the Persians, kings, subalterns of the great king, speed their way, inspectors of the great host, both those that conquer with the bow, and mounted upon steeds, fearful to look upon3, and terrible in fight, through their stern determination of spirit. Artembaces too, rejoicing in his charger, and Masistres, and stout Imæus that slays with the bow, and Pharandaces and Sosthanes, driver of steeds. And others Nile, the mighty stream and nourisher of many, sent forth; Susiscanes, Pegastagon native of Egypt, and the lord of sacred Memphis mighty Arsames, and Ariomardus ruler of ancient Thebes, and the dwellers in the fens, skilful rowers of galleys, and in multitude beyond all numbering. There follows a crowd of Lydians, delicate in their habits of life, and they that hold every nation native on the continent, whom Mithragathes and valiant Arcteus, inspector-princes, and Sardis that teems with gold, send forth in many chariots, in ranks of double and treble yokes, a spectacle fearful to look upon. The borderers too on sacred Tmolus are bent on casting the yoke of servitude around Hellas, Mardon, Tharybis, [twin] anvils of the spear, and the Mysians who launch the javelin. Babylon too, that teems with gold, sends forth her mingled multitude in long array, remarks that we cannot supply 'Ασία from 'Ασιατογενής, because the subject referred to is not really the same in both cases. Jelf, Gk. Gr. § 566, 3, says "Bavlε avopa, the shout was 'ȧvýp;'" comparing Eur. Hipp. 168, άvтεov "Aρтεμiv. But the passages are not parallels. The force of Bavla is well illustrated by Stanley.

1 Ecbatana was another royal residence. Cf. Herodot. I. 98; Curtius, V. 8, 1.

2 Siebelis (pp. 43, 4) will entertain the reader with some facetious etymologies of some of these Persian names. At all events, Eschylus

was not very particular about their orthography or prosody.

3 Blomfield observes from Herodot. Erato CXII. that this was no more than the truth.

4 This is Blomfield's interpretation, who supposes the Ionians to be designated by this circumlocution, but Dindorf approves the correction of Schutz, omitting roùs, and writing oï r'.

5 i. e. with four or six horses.

both those who embark in ships, and are trust in their valour to draw the bow. And the scimitar-wielding populace from all Asia follows in their train, under the dread mandates of the king. Such a flower of men is gone from the Persian land; concerning whom the Asiatic soil which reared them is shrivelled with vehement anxiety: and parents and wives, as they count the day, shudder at the lengthening date.

The royal armament that makes havoc of cities, hath some time since passed over to the adjoining opposite region, having crossed the frith of Helle daughter of Athamas1, on a cablefastened raft, after flinging a many-rivetted causeway by way of yoke over the neck of Ocean. And against every land does the impetuous lord of many-peopled Asia urge forward his godlike armament in two divisions, of infantry, and of forces drawn from the sea, trusting in his strong sturdy commanders, a man equal to the gods of the race that sprung from gold. And flashing from his eyes the dark-blue glare of the deadly serpent, appointed with many a warrior and many a mariner, and urging on his Syrian3 car, he is leading on a war victorious with the bow against men who are famous for the spear. And no one is of such approved prowess as that, having made stand against a mighty torrent of men, he can repulse, by mighty bulwarks, the irresistible billow of the sea. For terrible to approach is the army of Persians, and valiant of soul the host. But what mortal man shall elude the treacherous deceit of the deity? Who is he that with an agile foot, of easy spring, can bound over it? For fawning on him at first

1 Hygin. Fab. III.: "Phrixus et Helle, insania a Libero objecta, cum in sylvis errarent, nebula mater eo dicitur venisse, et arietem inauratum adduxisse Neptuni et Theophanes filium, eumque natos suos ascendere jussit, et Colchos ad regem Æetam Solis filium transire, ibique arietem Marti immolare. Quo cum ascendissent, et aries eos in pelagus detulisset, Helle de ariete decidit, ex quo Hellespontum pelagus est appellatum." 2 Schol. a. prefers it. It alludes to the way in which Jove was feigned to have visited Danae, v. 86.

3 i. e. Assyrian. See Blomfield.

4 Great stress is constantly laid upon the superiority of the hand to hand contests of the Grecian weapons over the archery of the barbarians. See Herodot. V. 49, VII. 211, and Siebelis, p. 41.

5 Wellauer vainly attempts to defend ȧváσowv. Although the enallage proposed by Blomfield is defensible, I still prefer regarding andnμaros merely as the attributive genitive, with Linwood's Lex. p. 33, and Jelf's Gk. Gr. 521, Obs. 3.