Aeschylus' THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES Complete

Translated by E. Morshead.

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58 pages - You are on Page 54

Herald: I bear command to tell to one and all
What hath approved itself and now is law,
Ruled by the counsellors of Cadmus' town.
For this Eteocles, it is resolved
To lay him on his earth-bed, in this soil,
Not without care and kindly sepulture.
For why? he hated those who hated us,
And, with all duties blanielessly performed
Unto the sacred ritual of his sires,
He met such end as gains our city's grace,-
With auspices that do ennoble death.
Such words I have in charge to speak of him:
But of his brother Polyneices, this-
Be he cast out unburied, for the dogs
To rend and tear: for he presumed to waste
The land of the Cadmeans, had not Heaven-
Some god of those who aid our fatherland-
Opposed his onset, by his brother's spear,
To whom, tho' dead, shall consecration come!
Against him stood this wretch, and brought a horde
Of foreign foemen, to beset our town.
He therefore shall receive his recompense,
Buried ignobly in the maw of kites-
No women-wailers to escort his corpse
Nor pile his tomb nor shrill his dirge anew-
Unhouselled, unattended, cast away
So, for these brothers, doth our State ordain.

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