Seven Against Thebes (452-490)

Death to him who exults so arrogantly over the city! May the thunderbolt stop him before he leaps into my home

and plunders me from my maiden chambers with his outrageous spear!

Now I will tell you about the man who next drew station at the gates. The third lot leaped out of the upturned bronze helmet for Eteoclus,

to hurl his band against the Neistan gates. He whirls his horses as they snort through their bridles, eager to fall against the gate. Their muzzles whistle in a barbarian way, filled with the breath of their haughty nostrils.

His shield is decorated in great style: an armored man climbs a ladder’s rungs to mount an enemy tower that he wants to destroy. This one, too, shouts in syllables of written letters that even Ares could not hurl him from the battlements.

Send a dependable opponent against this man, too, to keep the yoke of slavery from our city.

I would send this man here, and with good fortune. Exit Megareus. Indeed, he has already been sent, his only boast in his hands, Megareus, Creon’s seed, of the race of the sown- men.

He will not withdraw from the gate in fear of the thunder of the horses’ furious snorting; but either he will die and pay the earth the full price of his nurture, or will capture two men and the city on the shield, and then adorn his father’s house with the spoils.

Tell me about another’s boasts and do not begrudge me the full tale!