In common ruin; maidens in their prime
Are with new sorrow filled; for they
Of haughty foemen now must own the sway,
Forceful their wretched couch who climb; 360
Their hope that death, their tear-fraught woes to end,
O'er them may soon her sheltering night extend.
Leader of 1st Half Chorus.
The army-scout, to me it seemeth, friends,
Brings us some recent tiding from the host,
Plying in haste his charioteering feet.
Leader of 2nd Half Chorus.
And lo! our king, offspring of Œdipus,
Comes in fair time the herald's news to hear.
Unmeasured too his footsteps are through haste.
[Enter Eteocles and Train.]
Messenger.
I, the foe's movements knowing, can report 370
How at the gates each hath his post by lot.
Tydeus already at the Proitid gates
Raves; but to cross Ismenos' ford the seer
Forbids, for inauspicious are the rites.
But Tydeus, frenzied, hankering for fight,
Blusters with yell like serpent's noonday hiss,
And at the skilful seer, Oïcles' son,
Aimeth the taunt that he, through cowardice,
Fawneth on death and battle. Shouting thus,
A triple shadowy plume, his helmet's mane,
He shakes, and underneath his hollow shield, 380
