No More Learning

ETEOCLES

Words shall not blunt the edge of my resolve.

CHORUS

Yet the god loves to let the weak prevail.

ETEOCLES

That to a swordsman, is no welcome word!

CHORUS

Shall thine own brother's blood be victory's palm?

ETEOCLES

Ill which the gods have sent thou canst not shun!
[_Exit_ ETEOCLES. CHORUS

I shudder in dread of the power,
abhorred by the gods of high heaven,
The ruinous curse of the home
till roof-tree and rafter be riven!
Too true are the visions of ill,
too true the fulfilment they bring
To the curse that was spoken of old
by the frenzy and wrath of the king!
Her will is the doom of the children,
and Discord is kindled amain,
And strange is the Lord of Division,
who cleaveth the birthright in twain,--
The edged thing, born of the north,
the steel that is ruthless and keen,
Dividing in bitter division
the lot of the children of teen!
Not the wide lowland around,
the realm of their sire, shall they have,
Yet enough for the dead to inherit,
the pitiful space of a grave!

Ah, but when kin meets kin, when sire and child,
Unknowing, are defiled
By shedding common blood, and when the pit
Of death devoureth it,
Drinking the clotted stain, the gory dye--
Who, who can purify?
Who cleanse pollution, where the ancient bane
Rises and reeks again?
Whilome in olden days the sin was wrought,
And swift requital brought--
Yea on the children of the child came still
New heritage of ill!
For thrice Apollo spoke this word divine,
From Delphi's central shrine,
To Laius--_Die thou childless_! thus alone
Can the land's weal be won!
But vainly with his wife's desire he strove,
And gave himself to love,
Begetting Oedipus, by whom he died,
The fateful parricide!
The sacred seed-plot, his own mother's womb,
He sowed, his house's doom,
A root of blood! by frenzy lured, they came
Unto their wedded shame.
And now the waxing surge, the wave of fate,
Rolls on them, triply great--
One billow sinks, the next towers, high and dark,
Above our city's bark--
Only the narrow barrier of the wall
Totters, as soon to fall;
And, if our chieftains in the storm go down,
What chance can save the town?
Curses, inherited from long ago,
Bring heavy freight of woe:
Rich stores of merchandise o'erload the deck,
Near, nearer comes the wreck--
And all is lost, cast out upon the wave,
Floating, with none to save!

Whom did the gods, whom did the chief of men,
Whom did each citizen
In crowded concourse, in such honour hold,
As Oedipus of old,
When the grim fiend, that fed on human prey,
He took from us away?

But when, in the fulness of days,
he knew of his bridal unblest,
A twofold horror he wrought,
in the frenzied despair of his breast--
Debarred from the grace of the banquet,
the service of goblets of gold,
He flung on his children a curse
for the splendour they dared to withhold,
A curse prophetic and bitter--
_The glory of wealth and of pride,
With iron, not gold, in your hands,
ye shall come, at the last, to divide_!
Behold, how a shudder runs through me,
lest now, in the fulness of time,
The house-fiend awake and return,
to mete out the measure of crime!
[_Enter_ THE SPY.

THE SPY

Take heart, ye daughters whom your mothers' milk
Made milky-hearted! lo, our city stands,
Saved from the yoke of servitude: the vaunts
Of overweening men are silent now,
And the State sails beneath a sky serene,
Nor in the manifold and battering waves
Hath shipped a single surge, and solid stands
The rampart, and the gates are made secure,
Each with a single champion's trusty guard.
So in the main and at six gates we hold
A victory assured; but, at the seventh,
The god that on the seventh day was born,
Royal Apollo, hath ta'en up his rest
To wreak upon the sons of Oedipus
Their grandsire's wilfulness of long ago.

CHORUS

What further woefulness besets our home?

THE SPY

The home stands safe--but ah, the princes twain--

CHORUS

Who? what of them? I am distraught with fear.