Chorus.
Be not, belovéd—child of Œdipus—
Like unto him out of whose mouth proceeds
All wickedness! Alas! It is enough
If our Cadmeans with these Argives fight:
There's water for that blood; but brother-murder
Is like the tettered slough that will not off:
'Tis spotted with the guilt that ne'er grows old!
If evil come, so it be free from shame,
Why let it come. All titles else save honour
Die when we die and sleep with us in the grave:
But if to evil thou add infamy
How shall men speak it fair and call it honest?
Child, what crav'st thou? Let not the battle-lust
Bloody with dripping spears thy ruin be!
Forth from thy soul the evil passion thrust
Or e'er it mount apace and master thee!
Eteocles.
Since in this power that speeds the event I feel
The insupportable blast of God's own breath,
Blow, wind! Fill, sails! And where Cocytus' tide
Heaves dark, with gleams of Phoebus' fiery hate,
Down-wind let drift the last of Laius' line!
Chorus.
This is some fierce unnatural appetite
That hungers after flesh unseethed and raw!
Famished for human victims! The loathed rite
Whose fruit is sour, whose blood sins 'gainst the law!
Eteocles.
It is my father's curse! I feel the glare
Of those hard eyes not moist with human tears!
