wretched plight for thy drudgery; for better do I deem it to be a lackey to this rock, than to be born the confidential courier of father Jove. Thus is it meet to repay insult in kind.

MER. Thou seemest to revel in thy present state.

PR. Revel! Would that I might see my foes thus revelling, and among these I reckon thee.

MER. What dost thou impute to me also any blame for thy mischances?

PR. In plain truth, I detest all the gods, as many of them as, after having received benefits at my hands, are iniquitously visiting me with evils.

MER. I hear thee raving with no slight disorder.

PR. Disordered I would be, if disorder it be to loathe one's foes.

MER. Thou wouldst be beyond endurance, wert thou in prosperity.

PR. Woe's me!

MER. This word of thine Jove knows not.

PRO. Aye, but Time as he grows old teaches all things, MER. And yet verily thou knowest not yet how to be discreet.

PRO. No i'faith, or I should not have held parley with thee, menial as thou art.

MER. Thou seemest disposed to tell naught of the things which the sire desires.

PR. In sooth, being under obligation as I am to him, I am bound to return his favour.

MER. Thou floutest me, forsooth as if I were a boy.

PR. Why, art thou not a boy, and yet sillier than one, if thou lookest to obtain any information from me? There is no outrage nor artifice by which Jupiter shall bring me to utter this, before my torturing shackles shall have been loosened. Wherefore let his glowing lightning be hurled, and with the white feathered shower of snow, and thunderings beneath the earth let him confound and embroil the universe; for naught of these things shall bend me so much as even to say by whom it is doomed that he shall be put down from his sovereignty.

MER. Consider now whether this determination seems availing.

PR. Long since has this been considered and resolved.

MER. Resolve, O vain one, resolve at length in consideration of thy present sufferings to come to thy right senses.

PR. Thou troublest me with thine admonitions as vainly as [thou mightest] a billow1. Never let it enter your thoughts that I, affrighted by the purpose of Jupiter, shall become womanish, and shall importune the object whom I greatly loathe, with effeminate upliftings of my hands, to release me from these shackles: I want much of that.

MER. With all that I have said I seem to be speaking to no purpose: for not one whit art thou melted or softened in thy heart by entreaties, but art champing the bit like a colt fresh yoked, and struggling against the reins. But on the strength of an impotent scheme art thou thus violent; for obstinacy in one not soundly wise, itself by itself availeth less than nothing. And mark, if thou art not persuaded by my words, what a tempest and three-fold surge of ills, from which there is no escape, will come upon thee. For in the first place the Sire will shiver this craggy cleft with thunder and the blaze of his bolt, and will overwhelm thy body, and a clasping arm of rock shall bear thee up. And after thou shalt have passed through to its close a long space of time, thou shalt come back into the light! and a winged hound of Jupiter, a blood-thirsting eagle, shall ravenously mangle thy huge lacerated frame, stealing upon thee an unbidden guest, and [tarrying] all the livelong day, and shalt banquet his fill on the black viands of thy liver. To such labours look thou for no termination, until some god shall appear as a substitute in thy pangs, and shall be willing to go both to gloomy Hades, and to the murky depths around Tartarus. Wherefore advise thee, since this is no fictitious vaunt, but uttered in great earnestness; for the divine

1 Milton, Samson Agon.

Dalilah. "I see thou art implacable, more deaf

To prayers than winds or seas.'

Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1.

"You may as well go stand upon the beach
And bid the main flood bate his usual height."

See Schrader on Musæus, 320.

2 See Linwood's Lexicon. Cf. Nonnus, Dionys. II. p. 45, 22. δεσμὰ φυγών δολόμητις ὁμαρτήσειε Προμηθεύς, ἥπατος ἡβώοντος ἀφειδέα δαιτυμονῆα

οὐρανίης θρασὺν ὄρνιν ἔχων πομπῆα κελεύθου.

D

mouth knows not how to utter falsehood, but will bring every But do thou look around and reflect, and never

word to pass.
for a moment deem pertinacity better than discretion.

CH. To us indeed Mercury seems to propose no unseasonable counsel; for he bids thee to abandon thy recklessness, and seek out wise consideration. Be persuaded; for to a wise man 'tis disgraceful to err.

PR. To me already well aware of it hath this fellow urged his message; but for a foe to suffer horribly at the hands of foes is no indignity. Wherefore let the doubly-pointed wreath of his fire be hurled at me, and æther be torn piecemeal by thunder, and spasm of savage blasts; and let the wind rock earth from her base, roots and all, and with stormy surge mingle in rough tide the billow of the deep and the paths of the stars; and fling my body into black Tartarus, with a whirl, in the stern eddies of necessity. Yet by no possible means shall he visit me with death.

MER. Resolutions and expressions, in truth, such as these of thine, one may hear from maniacs. For in what point doth his fate fall short of insanity'? What doth it abate from ravings? But do ye then at any rate, that sympathise with him in his sufferings, withdraw hence speedily somewhither from this spot, lest the harsh bellowing of the thunder smite you with idiotcy.

CH. Utter and advise me to something else, in which too thou mayest prevail upon me; for in this, be sure, thou hast intruded a proposal not to be borne. How is it that thou urgest me to practise baseness? Along with him here I am willing to endure what is destined, for I have learned to abhor traitors; and there is no evil, which I hold in greater abomination.

:

MER. Well then, bear in mind the things of which I forewarn you and do not, when ye have been caught in the snares of Atè, throw the blame on fortune, nor ever at any time say that Jove cast you into unforeseen calamity: no indeed, but ye your ownselves: for well aware, and not on a sudden, nor in ignorance, will ye be entangled by your senselessness in an impervious net of Atè.

Exit MERCURY. PR. And verily in deed and no longer in word doth the earth

1 I have adopted Dindorf's emendation. See his note.

heave, and the roaring echo of thunder rolls bellowing by us; and deep blazing wreaths of lightning are glaring, and hurricanes whirl the dust; and blasts of all the winds are leaping forth, shewing one against the other a strife of conflict gusts; and the firmament is embroiled with the deep1. Such is this onslaught that is clearly coming upon me from Jove, a cause for terror. O dread majesty of my mother Earth, O æther that diffusest thy common light, thou beholdest the wrongs I suffer.

1 How the cosmoramic effects here described were represented on the stage, it is difficult to say, but such descriptions are by no means rare in the poets. Compare Musæus, 314, sqq. Lucan, I. 75 sqq. and a multitude in the notes of La Cerda on Virgil, Æn. I. 107, and Barthius on Claudian. Gigant. 31, sqq. Nonnus, Dionys. I. p. 12.

1-13

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES.

THE siege of the city of Thebes, and the description of the seven champions of the Theban and Argive armies. The deaths of the brothers Polynices and Eteocles, the mournings over them, by their sisters Antigone and Ismene, and the public refusal of burial to the ashes of Polynices, against which Antigone boldly protests, conclude the play.

ETEOCLES.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

A MESSENGER.

CHORUS OF THEBAN VIRGINS.

ISMENE.
ANTIGONE.
A HERALD.

SCENE. The Acropolis of Thebes.—Compare v. 227, ed. Blomf.

TIME. Early in the morning; the length of the action can scarcely be fixed with absolute certainty. It certainly did not exceed twelve hours.

The expedition of "the Seven" against Thebes is fixed by Sir I. Newton, B.C. 928. Cf. his Chronology, p. 27. Blair carries it as far back as B.C. 1225. OLD TRANSLATOR.

ETEOCLES. Citizens of Cadmus! it is fitting that he should speak things seasonable, who has the care of affairs on the poop of a state, managing the helm, not lulling his eyelids in slumber. For if we succeed, the gods are the cause; but if, on the other hand, (which heaven forbid,) mischance should befall, Eteocles alone would be much bruited through the city by the townsmen in strains clamorous and in wailings, of which may Jove prove righty called the Averter to the city of the Cadmæans1. And now it behoves you-both him who still falls short of youth in its prime, and him who in point of age has passed his youth, nurturing the ample vigour of his frame and each that is in his prime2, as is best fitting1 Or, "of which may Jove the Averter be what his name imports." See Paley and Linwood's Lex.

2 This interpretation is now fully established. See Paley. Thus Cæsar, B. G. I. 29, " qui arma ferre possent; et item separatius pueri, senes;" II. 28, Eteocles wishes even the axpeior to assist in the common defence.