'reddes,' ingeminat 'reddes; non si te ferreus agger ambiat aut triplices alio tibi carmine muros Amphion auditus agat, nil tela nec ignes obstiterint, quin ausa luas nostrisque sub armis captivo moribundus humum diademate pulses. tu merito; ast horum miseret, quos sanguine viles coniugibus natisque infanda ad proelia raptos proicis excidio, bone rex. o quanta Cithaeron funera sanguineusque vadis, Ismene, rotabis! haec pietas, haec magna fides! nec crimina gentis mira equidem duco: sic primus sanguinis auctor incestique patrum thalami; sed fallit origo: Oedipodis tu solus eras, haec praemia morum ac sceleris, violente, feres! nos poscimus annum; sed moror.' haec audax etiamnum in limine retro vociferans iam tunc impulsa per agmina praeceps evolat. 'Thou shalt give it back,' he cries, 'thou shalt give it back. Though thou wert girdled with a wall of bronze, or Amphion's voice be heard and with a new song raise triple bulwarks about thee; fire and sword should not save thee from the doom of thy daring, and, struck down by our swords, thy diadem should smite the ground as thou fallest dying, our captive. Thus shouldst _thou_ have thy desert; but _these_ I pity, whose blood thou ratest lightly, and whom thou snatchest from their children and their wives to give them over to death, thou virtuous king. What vast slaughter, Cithaeron, and thou, Ismenus, shalt thou see whirl down thy blood-stained shallows. This is thy piety, this thy true faith! nor marvel I at the crimes of such a race: 'twas for this that thou hadst such an author of thy being, for this thy father's marriage-bed was stained with incest. But thou art deceived as to thine own birth and thy brother's; thou alone wast begotten of Oedipus, that shall be the reward for thy nature and thy crime, fierce man. We ask but for a year! But I tarry over long.' These words he shouted back at him while he still lingered on the threshold; then headlong burst through the crowd of foemen and sped away. As he is here, so is he always, unwavering in decision, prompt of speech and of action. Caught in ambush, ill-armed and solitary, by the treacherous Thebans, as he returns from his futile embassy, he never hesitates; he seizes the one point of vantage, crushes his foes, and when he speaks, speaks briefly and to the point. He spares the last of his fifty assailants and sends him back to Thebes with a message of defiance, brief, natural, and manly (ii. 697): quisquis es Aonidum, quem crastina munere nostro manibus exemptum mediis Aurora videbit, haec iubeo perferre duci: cinge aggere portas, tela nova, fragiles aevo circum inspice muros, praecipue stipare viros densasque memento multiplicare acies! fumantem hunc aspice late ense meo campum: tales in bella venimus.