Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/169

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Wretchedest of mortal kind!

Sinning with a frenzied mind!

Where to lay them—in what grave?

Where most honour they may have!

Yea, these children of his woe

Shall be their father's bedfellow!

Hold! Let me first discharge a duty. I

Am come with mandate from the Governors

Appointed by the people of this realm

Cadmean. Their high will and pleasure is

That, forasmuch as good Eteocles

Was loyally affected to this land,

Ye do inter him in its tender soil;

Thereby acknowledging he gave his life

For love of her and hatred of her foes;

And, being perfect and without reproach

God-ward and to the temples of his fathers,

Died, as became his youth, in guiltlessness.

Touching the said deceased Eteocles

So much I am commanded to convey.

But for his brother—Polyneices—ye

Are to cast forth unburied his remains

For dogs to gnaw; as a conspirator

Against the integritv of Cadmus' realm,