Page:Sophocles (Storr 1912) v1.djvu/291

 Beleaguer all the plain that circles Thebes.

Foremost the peerless warrior, peerless seer,

Amphiaraüs with his lightning lance;

Next an Aetolian, Tydeus, Oeneus’ son;

Eteoclus of Argive birth the third;

The fourth Hippomedon, sent to the war

By his sire Talaos; Capaneus, the fifth,

Vaunts he will fire and raze the town; the sixth

Parthenopaeus, an Arcadian born

Named of that maid, longtime a maid and late

Espousèd, Atalanta’s true-born child;

Last I thy son, or thine at least in name,

If but the bastard of an evil fate,

Lead against Thebes the fearless Argive host.

Thus by thy children and thy life, my sire,

We all adjure thee to remit thy wrath

And favour one who seeks a just revenge

Against a brother who has banned and robbed him.

For victory, if oracles speak true,

Will fall to those who have thee for ally.

So, by our fountains and familiar gods

I pray thee, yield and hear; a beggar I

And exile, thou an exile likewise; both

Involved in one misfortune find a home

As pensioners, while he, the lord of Thebes,

O agony! makes mock of thee and me.

I’ll scatter with a breath the upstart’s might,

And bring thee home again and stablish thee,

And stablish, having cast him out, myself. 269