at has taken
place.

MESSENGER, CREON, CHORUS.

MESS. O wretched me! what language or what words can I utter? we are
undone--

CRE. Thou beginnest thy speech with no promising prelude.

MESS. Oh wretched me! doubly do I lament, for I hear great calamities.

CRE. In addition to the calamities that have happened dost thou still speak
of others?

MESS. Thy sister's sons, O Creon, no longer behold the light.

CRE. Ah! alas! thou utterest great ills to me and to the state.

MESS. O mansions of Oedipus, do ye hear these things of thy children who
have perished by similar fates?

CHOR. Ay, so that, had they but sense, they would weep.

CRE. O most heavy misery! Oh me wretched with woes! alas! unhappy me!

MESS. If that thou knewest the evils yet in addition to these.

CRE. And how can there be more fatal ills than these?

MESS. Thy sister is dead with her two children.

CHOR. Raise, raise the cry of woe, and smite your heads with the blows of
your white hands.

CRE. Oh unhappy Jocasta, what an end of thy life and of thy marriage hast
thou endured in the riddles of the Sphinx![45] But how took place the
slaughter of her two sons, and the combat arising from the curse of
Oedipus? tell me.

MESS. The success of the country before the towers indeed thou knowest; for
the circuit of the wall is not of such vast extent, but that thou must know
all that has taken place. But after that the sons of the aged Oedipus had
clad their limbs in brazen armor, they came and stood in the midst of the
plain between the two armies, ready for the contest, and the fierceness of
the single battle. And having cast a look toward Argos, Polynices uttered
his prayer; "O venerable Juno (for I am thine, since in marriage I joined
myself with the daughter of Adrastus, and dwell in that land), grant me to
slay my brother, and to cover with blood my hostile hand bearing the
victory." And Eteocles looking at the temple of Pallas, glorious in her
golden shield, prayed; "O Daughter of Jove, grant me with my hand to hurl
my victorious spear from this arm home to the breast of my brother, [and
slay him who came to lay waste my country."] And when the sound of the
Tuscan trumpet was raised, as the torch, the signal for the fierce battle,
they sped with dreadful rush toward each other; and like wild boars
whetting their savage tusks, they met, their cheeks all moist with foam;
and they rushed forward with their lances; but they couched beneath the