The Spy:
The home stands safe-but ah, the princes twain-
Leader:
Who? what of them? I am distraught with fear.
The Spy:
Hear now, and mark! the sons of Oedipus-
Leader:
Ah, my prophetic soul! I feel their doom.
The Spy:
Have done with questions!-with I-with their lives crushed out-
Leader:
Lie they out yonder? the full horror speak!
Did hands meet hands more close than brotherly?
Came fate on each. and in the selfsame hour?
The Spy:
Yea, blotting out the lineage ill-starred!
Now mix your exultation and your tears,
Over a city saved, the while its lords,
Twin leaders of the fight, have parcelled out
With forged arbitrament of Scythian steel
The full division of their fatherland,
And, as their father's imprecation bade,
Shall have their due of land, a twofold grave.
So is the city saved; the earth has drunk
Blood of twin princes, by each other slain.
Studies
