After a choral ode a piece of intense tragic horror follows. The messenger tells the names of the champions who are to assault the gates. As he names them and the boastful or impious mottoes on their shields, the King names the Theban champions who are to quell their pride in the fear of the gods. Five of the insolent attackers are mentioned, then the only righteous one of the invading force, Amphiaraus the seer; he it was who rebuked the violence of Tydeus, the evil genius among the besiegers, and openly reviled Polyneices for attacking his own native land. He had prophesied his own death before the city, yet resolved to meet his fate nobly; on his shield alone was no device, for he wished to be, not to seem, a good man. The pathos of the impending ruin of a great character through evil associations is heightened by the terror of what follows. Only one gate remains without an assailant, the gate Eteocles is to defend; it is to be attacked by the King's own brother, Polyneices. Filled with horror, the Chorus begs him send another to that gate, for "there can be no old age to the pollution of kindred bloodshed". Recognising that his father's curse is working itself out, he departs to kill and be killed by his own brother, for "when the gods send evil none can avoid it". In an interval the Chorus reflect on their King's impending doom. His father's curse strikes them with dread; Oedipus himself was born of a father Laius who, though warned thrice by Apollo that if he died without issue he would save his land, listened to the counsels of friends and in imprudence begat his own destroyer. Their song is interrupted by a messenger who announces that they have prospered at six gates, but at the seventh the two brothers have slain each other. This news inspires another song in which the joy of deliverance gradually yields to pity for an unhappy house, cursed and blighted, the glory of Oedipus serving but to make more acute the shame of his latter end and the triumph of the ruin he invoked on his sons. The agony of this scene is intensified by the entry of Ismene and Antigone, Oedipus' daughters, the latter mourning for Polyneices, the former for Eteocles. The climax is reached when a herald announces a decree made by the senate and people. Eteocles, their King who defended the land, was to be buried with all honours, but Polyneices was to lie unburied. Calmly and with great dignity Antigone informs the herald that if nobody else buries her brother, she will. A warning threat fails to move her. The play closes with a double note of terror at the doom of Polyneices and pity for the death of a brave King.