_Eteoc._ Yea, fierce and hot the Curse of Œdipus; And all too true the visions of the night, My father's treasured store distributing. _Chor._ Yield to us women, though thou lov'st us not. _Eteoc._ Speak then what may be done, and be not long. 710 _Chor._ Tread not the path that to the seventh gate leads. _Eteoc._ Thou shall not blunt my sharpened edge with words. _Chor._ And yet God loves the victory that submits.[116] _Eteoc._ That word a warrior must not tolerate. _Chor._ Dost thou then haste thy brother's blood to shed? _Eteoc._ If the Gods grant it, he shall not 'scape harm. [_Exeunt_ ETEOCLES, Scout, _and_ Captains STROPHE I _Chor._ I fear her might who doth this whole house wreck, The Goddess unlike Gods, The prophetess of evil all too true, The Erinnys of thy father's imprecations, 720 Lest she fulfil the curse, O'er-wrathful, frenzy-fraught, The curse of Œdipus, Laying his children low. This Strife doth urge them on. ANTISTROPHE I And now a stranger doth divide the lots, The Chalyb,[117] from the Skythians emigrant, The stern distributor of heaped-up wealth, The iron that hath assigned them just so much Of land as theirs, no more, As may suffice for them As grave when they shall fall, Without or part or lot In the broad-spreading plains. 730 STROPHE II And when the hands of each The other's blood have shed, And the earth's dust shall drink The black and clotted gore, Who then can purify? Who cleanse thee from the guilt? Ah me! O sorrows new, That mingle with the old woes of our house! ANTISTROPHE II I tell the ancient tale Of sin that brought swift doom; 740 Till the third age it waits, Since Laios, heeding not Apollo's oracle, (Though spoken thrice to him In Pythia's central shrine,) That dying childless, he should save the State. STROPHE III But he by those he loved full rashly swayed, Doom for himself begat, His murderer Œdipus, 750 Who dared to sow in field Unholy, whence he sprang, A root of blood-flecked woe. Madness together brought Bridegroom and bride accursed. ANTISTROPHE III