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ANTIGONE
Tell him thyself, unhappy one, what thou hast come to seek. As words
flow, perchance they touch to joy, perchance they glow with anger, or with
tenderness, and so they somehow give a voice to the dumb.
POLYNEICES
Then will I speak boldly,—for thou dost admonish me well,—first
claiming the help of the god himself, from whose altar the king of this
land raised me, that I might come hither, with warranty to speak and
hear, and go my way unharmed. And I will crave, strangers, that these
pledges be kept with me by you, and by my sisters here, and by my sire.—
But now I would fain tell thee, father, why I came.
I have been driven, an exile, from my fatherland, because, as eldestborn,
I claimed to sit in thy sovereign seat. Wherefore Eteocles, though
the younger, thrust me from the land, when he had neither worsted me in
argument, nor come to trial of might and deed,—no, but won the city
over. And of this I deem it most likely that the curse on thy house is the
cause; then from soothsayers also I so hear. For when I came to Dorian
Argos, I took the daughter of Adrastus to wife; and I bound to me by
oath all of the Apian land who are foremost in renown of war, that with
them I might levy the sevenfold host of spearmen against Thebes, and die
in my just cause, or cast the doers of this wrong from the realm.
Well, and wherefore have I come hither now? With suppliant prayers,
my father, unto thee—mine own, and the prayers of mine allies, who
now, with seven hosts behind their seven spears, have set their leaguer
round the plain of Thebes; of whom is swift-speared Amphiaraus, matchless
warrior, matchless augur; then the son of Oeneus, Aetolian Tydeus;
Eteoclus third, of Argive birth; the fourth, Hippomedon, sent by Talaos,
his sire; while Capaneus, the fifth, vaunts that he will burn Thebes with
fire, unto the ground; and sixth, Arcadian Parthenopaeus rushes to the
war, named from that virgin of other days whose marriage in after-time
gave him birth, trusty son of Atalanta. Last, I, thy son,—or if not thine,
but offspring of an evil fate, yet thine at least in name,—lead the fearless
host of Argos unto Thebes.
And we, by these thy children and by thy life, my father, implore thee
all, praying thee to remit thy stern wrath against me, as I go forth to
chastise my brother, who hath thrust me out and robbed me of my fatherland.
For if aught of truth is told by oracles, they said that victory should
be with those whom thou shouldst join.
Then, by our fountains and by the gods of our race, I ask thee to
hearken and to yield; a beggar and an exile am I, an exile thou; by court
to others we have a home, both thou and I, sharers of one doom; while he,
king in the house—woe is me!—mocks in his pride at thee and me alike.