the way; which rudeness the hot youth resenting, a scuffle ensued, in which the charioteer {260} and his master were slain, while the attendant fled. The murdered prince was Laius; and Oedipus, unwittingly, nay, doing everything he could to elude the fate, had slain his own father. But the ancient Fury, for a season, concealed her vengeance, and allowed a brief glory to be shed round her victim, that he might thereafter be plunged in more terrible darkness. The Sphynx, a monstrous creature, of Egyptian birth, half virgin, half lion, had been sent by wrathful Mars, to desolate the Theban country, devouring, with her bloody jaws, whosoever could not solve her famous riddle. When depopulation proceeded at a fearful rate from this cause, the Thebans promised Iocaste, the widow of Laius, and queen of the country, in marriage, to him who should succeed in explaining the enigma. Oedipus was successful; and, becoming king of Thebes, was married, in ignorance, to his own mother. Thus the net of destiny was drawn closer and closer round its victim; but the hour of doom was not yet come. Joined in this unnatural wedlock, the unfortunate son of Laius became the father of two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and of two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. Circumstances (which Sophocles narrates in his Oedipus Tyrannus) afterwards bringing the story of Oedipus' life and the nature of his connection with Iocaste to light, the unfortunate old king looking upon himself as an object of hatred to the gods, and unworthy to look upon the day, tore out his eyes, and was confined by his sons--whether from cruelty or superstition--in a separate house, and treated otherwise in a manner that appeared to him disrespectful and unkind.[f6] Enraged at this treatment, he pronounced an imprecation against them, that they should one day DIVIDE THEIR INHERITED LAND BY STEEL; whereupon they, to render any hostile collision impossible, made an agreement to exercise kingly authority over the whole Theban territory, each for a year at a time, while the other should leave the country. Eteocles, as the elder, reigned first; but when the appointed term came round, like other holders of power, he showed himself loath to quit; and Polynices, fleeing to Argos, sought assistance from Adrastus, king of that country. This prince, along with the Ætolian Tydeus, the father of Diomede, and other chiefs, marched against Thebes with a great armament, in order to force Eteocles to yield the yearly tenure of the throne to his brother, according to agreement. The appearance of this armament before the gates of the Cadmean city, and its sad issue, in the death, by their own {261} hands, of the two hostile brothers, form the subject of the present play.