Aeschylus' Septem Contra Thebas / Seven Against Thebes

Spy / Scout / Messenger - Seven warriors, impetuous leaders of their companies, shedding a bull’s blood into a black-bound shield, and touching with their hands the victim’s gore, have sworn an oath by Ares, by, Enyo, and by bloodthirsty Rout, that they will bring destruction on the city of the Cadmeans and ravage it by force of arms, or in death imbrue this land of ours with their blood. (42-48)

Eteocles - O Zeus and Earth (Gaia), and ye gods that guard our city, and Curse, the potent spirit of the vengeance of my sire, do not, I entreat ye, extirpate in ruin utter and complete, with ravage by the foe, a city that speaks the speech of Hellas, and our hearths and homes. O may they never constrain in slavery’s yoke a land of freedom and the town of Cadmus! But show yourselves our strength. Methinks it is our common cause I urge. For a State that prospers pays honours to the gods. (69-77)

Cadmus & the Dragon

Eteocles - You, I ask, insufferable creatures that ye are! is this the best course to save the town, does this hearten our beleaguered soldiery – to fling yourselves before the images of the gods that guard the city and shout and shriek and make decent folk detest you? Neither in evil days nor in gladsome prosperity may I have to house with womankind. Has she the upper hand, – ’tis insolence past living with; but, if seized with fear, to home and city she is a still greater bane. So now, by hurrying to and fro in flight, in your clamour ye have spread craven cowardice among the townsfolk. (181-192)

Chorus – Hark! I hear the snorting of steeds!
Eteocles – For all thy hearing, hear not too plainly.
Chorus – The stronghold groans from its base, as if they were girding it about.
Eteocles – Well, it is enough, I hope, that I take thought thereon.
Chorus – I am adread, the battering grows louder at the ports.
Eteocles – Hold thy peace! Say naught of this about the town!
Chorus – O guardian company of gods, abandon not our battlements!
Eteocles – Plague on thee! Wilt thou not hold thy peace and suffer in patience?
Chorus – Gods of our city! Save me from the fate of slavery!
Eteocles – ’Tis thou, thou, that art making a slave of me and of the whole city.
Chorus – O Almighty Zeus, turn thy bolt upon the foe!
Eteocles – O Zeus, what a breed thou hast given us in womankind!
Chorus – A breed beset with miseries, even as men whose city is captured.
Eteocles – What! ill-omened words and thy hands upon the statues of the gods?
Chorus – Aye, for that I am faint of heart, fear runs away with my tongue. (245-259)

Chorus - Tumult reigns through the town, against it advances a towering net of ruin. Man encounters man and is laid low by the spear. For the babes at their breast resound the wailing cries of young mothers, all streaming with blood. Kindred are the prey of scattering bands. Pillager encounters pillager; the empty-handed hails the empty-handed, fain to have a partner, all greedy neither for less nor equal share…Young women, enslaved, suffer a new misery. There it is to expect a captive’s woeful bed, bed as of a happy mate but a triumphant foe’s – the coming of the nightly rite to alleviate her tears and anguish! (345-355 & 363-8)

[The Scout is seen approaching from one side; Eteocles from the other]
Leader of the First Half-Chorus –
My friends, the scout, methinks, is bringing to us some recent tidings of the host, urging in hot haste the joints of his legs that bear him hither.
Leader of the Second Half-Chorus –
And lo! here comes our lord himself, the son of Oedipus, at the fit moment to hear the messenger’s report. He, too, from haste keeps not his even pace.
(369-374)

Messenger – [of Tydeus] …he shakes three overshadowing crests, his helmet’s mane, while from beneath his shield bronze-wrought bells peal forth a fearsome clang. On his shield he beareth this presumptuous device – a sky of cunning workmanship, ablaze with stars, and in the centre of his buckler shines, most revered among the stars, the bright full moon, the eye of night. Raving thus in his vaunting garniture, he shouts upon the river-bank, lusting for the fray, like some charger that panting in fury against the bit, chafes while it awaits the trumpet’s blare. (384-394)

Eteocles – [of Melanippus] Right nobly born is he, and he holds in reverence the throne of Honour and detests boastful speech. Laggard in deeds of shame, yet no dastards, is he wont to be. From the Heroes of the Dragon’s blood whom Ares spared, his stock is sprung, and a true scion of our soil is Melanippus. As for the issue, Ares with his dice will determine that; but Justice, [i.e. Dike] his true kin in blood, sends him forth, charged to ward off the foeman’s spear from the mother that gave him birth. (410-416)

Zeus & Typhon

Messenger – [citing Amphiaraus shouting at Tydeus] “murderer, troubler of the State, Argos’ chief teacher in the ways of wrong, summoner of the Avenging Curse, minister of bloodshed, counsellor unto Adrastus in his present evil course.” (572-5)

Chorus – For what art thou so eager, child? Let not mad [margos] lust for battle fill thy soul and carry thee away. Cast from thee the evil passion at its birth….
…Nay resist its impulse. A craven’s name thou shalt not bear if thou hast prospered well in life. Will not the sable-palled Avenging Spirit [Erinyes] quit the house, when the gods receive oblation at thy hands? (686-8 & 698-701)
Messenger – Dead are the men, by hands that slew their own.
Chorus – Were they slain together by hands thus close akin?
[i.e. both by birth and in cruelty.]
Messenger – Thus all too equal was their destiny to them both. Of itself alone, in very truth, it maketh an end of the ill-starred race. Cause have we here for joy and tears – … (810-5)

Antigone – Smitten, thou didst smite.
Ismene – And slaying, thou wast slain.
Antigone – By the spear thou didst slay –
Ismene – By the spear thou wast slain –
Antigone – Unhappy in thy deed.
Ismene – Unhappy in thy sufferings.
Antigone – Let lament be poured forth.
Ismene – Let tears be poured forth.
Antigone – Thou liest prostrate –
Ismene – Thou who didst slay.
Antigone – Ah me!
Ismene – Ah me! (957-962)

Oedipus &

The Sphynx

Select Bibliography:

Brown, A.L. ‘The End of the Seven Against Thebes’, Classical Quarterly, vol. 26 (1976), pp. 206-219.

*Brown, A. L. ‘Eteocles and the Chorus in the Seven Against Thebes’, Phoenix, vol. 31, no. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 300-318.*

Burnett, A.P. ‘Curse and Dream in Aeschylus’ Septem,’ Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 14 (1973), pp. 343-68.

Conacher, D. J., Aeschylus: The Earlier Plays and Related Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.

Dawe, R. ‘The End of the Seven Against Thebes’, Classical Quarterly, NS vol. 17 (1967), pp. 16-28.

*Detienne, Marcel. ‘Being Born Impure in the City of Cadmus and Oedipus,’ Arion, 3^rd. Series, vol. 10, no. 3 (Winter, 2003), pp. 35-47.*

*DeVito, Ann. ‘Amphiaraus, and Necessity in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes,’ Hermes, vol. 127, No. 2 (2^nd Qtr., 1999), pp. 165-171.*

Flintoff, E. ‘The Ending of the Seven Against Thebes’, Mnemosyne, vol. 33 (1980), pp. 344-71.

*Jackson, E. ‘The Argument of Septem Contra Thebas,’ Phoenix, vol. 42, no. 1 (Winter, 1988), pp. 287-303.*

Kirkwood, G. ‘Eteocles Oiakostrophos,’ Phoenix, vol. 23 (1969), pp. 9-25.

Otis, B. ‘The Unity of the Seven Against Thebes,’ Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 3 (1960), pp. 153-74.

Podlecki, J. ‘The Character of Eteocles in Aeschylus’ Septem’, Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 95 (1964), pp. 283-99.

Thalmann, William G. Dramatic Art in Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes. Yale: YUP, 1978.

Zeitlin, Froma. 'Thebes: Theatre of the Self and Society in Athenian Drama,' in Peter Euben, ed.Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (Berkeley: U of California P, 1986), pp. 101-41.

Zeitlin, Froma. ‘Patterns of Gender in Aeschylus’ Drama: Seven Against Thebes and the Danaid Trilogy’, Cabinet of the Muses. Mark Griffith & Donald J. Mastronarde, eds. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990; 103-115.