CHORUS. Perish the wretch whose vaunt affronts our home! On him the red bolt come, Ere to the maiden bowers his way he cleave, To ravage and bereave! THE SPY. I will say on. Eteoclus is third— To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang O’er the inverted helmet’s brazen rim, To dash his stormers on Neistae gate. He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe And yearn to charge upon the gates amain. They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith, Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound. High too and haughty is his shield’s device— An armèd man who climbs, from rung to rung, A scaling ladder, up a hostile wall, Afire to sack and slay; and he too cries, (By letters, full of sound, upon the shield) _Not Ares’ self shall cast me from the wall_. Look to it, send, against this man, a man Strong to debar the slave’s yoke from our town. ETEOCLES (_pointing to_ MEGAREUS) Send will I—even this man, with luck to aid— By his worth sent already, not by pride And vain pretence, is he. ’Tis Megareus, The child of Creon, of the Earth-sprung born! He will not shrink from guarding of the gates, Nor fear the maddened charger’s frenzied neigh, But, if he dies, will nobly quit the score For nurture to the land that gave him birth, Or from the shield-side hew two warriors down Eteoclus and the figure that he lifts— Ay, and the city pictured, all in one, And deck with spoils the temple of his sire! Announce the next pair, stint not of thy tongue! CHORUS. O thou, the warder of my home, Grant, unto us, Fate’s favouring tide, Send on the foemen doom! They fling forth taunts of frenzied pride, On them may Zeus with glare of vengeance come; THE SPY. Lo, next him stands a fourth and shouts amain, By Pallas Onca’s portal, and displays A different challenge; ’tis Hippomedon! Huge the device that starts up from his targe In high relief; and, I deny it not, I shuddered, seeing how, upon the rim, It made a mighty circle round the shield— No sorry craftsman he, who wrought that work And clamped it all around the buckler’s edge! The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire! The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole, Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew Erect above the concave of the shield: Loud rang the warrior’s voice; inspired for war, He raves to slay, as doth a Bacchanal, His very glance a terror! of such wight Beware the onset! closing on the gates, He peals his vaunting and appalling cry! ETEOCLES. Yet first our Pallas Onca—wardress she, Planting her foot hard by her gate—shall stand, The Maid against the ruffian, and repel His force, as from her brood the mother-bird Beats back the wintered serpent’s venom’d fang And next, by her, is Oenops’ gallant son, Hyperbius, chosen to confront this foe, Ready to seek his fate at Fortune’s shrine!