Euripides' PHOENISSAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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81 pages - You are on Page 63

Messenger: Of our successes before the towers thou knowest, for the
walls are not so far away as to prevent thy learning each event as
it occurred. Now when they, the sons of aged Oedipus, had donned their
brazen mail, they went and took their stand betwixt the hosts, chieftains
both and generals too, to decide the day by single combat. Then Polyneices,
turning his eyes towards Argos, lifted up a prayer; "O Hera, awful
queens-for thy servant I am, since I have wedded the daughter of Adrastus
and dwell in his land,-grant that I may slay my brother, and stain
my lifted hand with the blood of my conquered foe. A shameful prize
it is I ask, my own brother's blood." And to many an eye the tear
would rise at their sad fate, and men looked at one another, casting
their glances round.

But Eteocles, looking towards the temple of Pallas with the golden
shield, prayed thus, "Daughter of Zeus, grant that this right arm
may launch the spear of victory against my brother's breast and slay
him who hath come to sack my country." Soon as the Tuscan trumpet
blew, the signal for the bloody fray, like the torch that falls,'
they darted wildly at one another and, like boars whetting their savage
tusks, began the fray, their beards wet with foam; and they kept shooting
out their spears, but each crouched beneath his shield to let the
steel glance idly off; but if either saw the other's face above the
rim, he would aim his lance thereat, eager to outwit him.

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