Seven Against Thebes (405-435)

May the gods grant success to our champion, since he rises up in a just cause, to battle for his city! But I shudder

to watch the bloody deaths of men cut down for the sake of their own people.

Yes, may the gods so grant success to this man. Capaneus is stationed at the Electran gates, another giant of a man, greater than the one described before.

But his boast is too proud for a mere human, and he makes terrifying threats against our battlements—which, I hope, chance will not fulfil! For he says he will utterly destroy the city with god’s will or without it, and that not even conflict with Zeus, though it should fall before him in the plain, will stand in his way.

The god’s lightning and thunderbolts he compares to midday heat. For his shield’s symbol he has a man without armor bearing fire, and the torch, his weapon, blazes in his hands; and in golden letters he says I will burn the city.

Against such a man make your dispatch—who will meet him in combat, who will stand firm without trembling before his boasts?