Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/173

143 ANTIGONE 143

He hovered o'er our land, With snow-white wing bedecked, Begirt with myriad arms, And flowing horsehair crests.

Antistrophe I.

He stood above our towers, 125

Encircling, with his spears all blood-bestained,

The portals of our gates ;

He went, before he filled

His jaws with blood of men, Ere the pine-fed Hephaestus ^ 130

Had seized our crown of towers.

So loud the battle din That Ares loves was raised around his rear, A conflict hard e'en for his dragon foe.^

For breath of haughty speech 135

Zeus hateth evermore ;

And seeing them advance.

With mighty rushing stream.

And clang of golden arms,

With brandished fire he hurls 140

One who rushed eagerly

From topmost battlement

To shout out, " Victory ! "

Strophe II.

Crashing to earth he fell,^

Down-smitten, with his torch, 145

- 1 The god of fire is here used for the element itself.

^ As the Argive army was compared to the eagle, so Thebes to the eagle's great enemy, the serpent. Here, probably, is a reference to the mythos of the descent of the Thebans from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus.

^ The unnamed leader whose fall is thus singled out for special men- tion was Capaneus, who bore on his shield the figure of a naked man brandishing a torch and crying, " I will burn the city."