s receive a sacrifice from
the hands [of the inmates].

ET. By the gods, indeed, we have now for some time been in a manner
neglected, and the pleasure which arises from our destruction is
welcomed by them; why should we any longer fawn[154] upon our deadly
doom?

CH. Do so now, while it is in thy power; since the demon, that may alter
with a distant shifting of his temper, will perchance come with a
gentler air; but now he still rages.

ET. Ay, for the curses of OEdipus have raged beyond all bounds; and
too true were my visions of phantoms seen in my slumbers, dividers of my
father's wealth.[155]

CH. Yield thee to women, albeit that thou lovest them not.

ET. Say ye then what one may allow you; but it must not be at length.

CH. Go not thou on in this way to the seventh gate.

ET. Whetted as I am, thou wilt not blunt me by argument.

CH. Yet god, at all events, honors an inglorious victory.

ET. It ill becomes a warrior to acquiesce in this advice.

CH. What! wilt thou shed the blood of thine own brother?

ET. By heaven's leave, he shall not elude destruction.

[_Exit_ ETEOCLES.

CH. I shudder with dread that the power that lays waste this house, not
like the gods, the all-true, the evil-boding Erinnys summoned by the
curses of the father, is bringing to a consummation the wrathful curses
of distracted OEdipus.[156] 'Tis this quarrel, fatal to his sons, that
arouses her. And the Chalybian stranger, emigrant from Scythia, is
apportioning their shares, a fell divider of possessions, the
stern-hearted steel,[157] allotting them land to occupy, just as much
as it may be theirs to possess when dead, bereft of their large
domains.[158] When they shall have fallen, slain by each other's hands
in mutual slaughter, and the dust of the ground shall have drunk up the
black-clotted blood of murder, who will furnish expiation? who will
purify them? Alas for the fresh troubles mingled with the ancient
horrors of this family! for I speak of the ancient transgression with
its speedy punishment; yet it abides unto the third generation; since
Laius, in spite of Apollo, who had thrice declared, in the central
oracles of Pytho, that, dying without issue, he would save the
state,[159] did, notwithstanding, overcome by his friends, in his
infatuation beget his own destruction, the parricide OEdipus, who
dared to plant in an unhallowed field, where he had been reared, a
bloody root.--'Twas frenzy linked the distracted pair