Parodos
[Choral 1]
Shaft of the sun, fairest light of all that have dawned
on Thebes of the seven
gates, you have shone forth at last, eye of golden day, advancing
over Dirce’s streams!
100
Chorus
You have goaded with a sharper bit the
warrior of the white shield, who came from Argos in full armor, driving him to
headlong retreat.
105
[Choral]
He set out against our land
because of the strife-filled claims of Polyneices, and like a screaming
eagle he flew over into our land, covered by his snow-white
wing,
110
Chorus
with a mass of weapons
and crested helmets.
115
[Choral 1]
He paused above our dwellings; he
gaped around our sevenfold portals with spears thirsting for blood; but
he left
Chorus
before his jaws were ever glutted with our gore, or
before the Fire-god’s pine-fed flame had seized our crown of towers.
120
So
fierce was the crash of battle swelling about his back, a match too hard
to win for the rival of the dragon.
125
[Choral]
For Zeus detests above all the
boasts of a proud tongue. And when he saw them advancing in a swollen
flood,
Chorus
arrogant their clanging
gold, he dashed with brandished fire one who was already starting to
shout victory when he had reached our ramparts.
130
[Choral 2]
Staggered, he fell to the earth
with a crash,
Chorus
torch in hand, a man
possessed by the frenzy of the mad attack, who just now was raging
against us with the blasts of his tempestuous hate. But his threats did
not fare as he had hoped, and to the other enemies mighty Ares dispensed
each their own dooms with hard blows,
135
Ares, our mighty ally at the turning-point.
140
[Choral]
For the seven captains, stationed
against an equal number at the seven gates, left behind their brazen
arms in tribute to Zeus the turner of battle—all but the accursed pair
who, born of one father and one
Chorus
mother, set against each other their spears, both victorious, and who
now share in a common death.
145
[Choral 2]
But since Victory whose name is
glory has come to us, smiling in joy equal to the joy of chariot-rich
Thebes,
Chorus
let us make for ourselves forgetfulness after
the recent wars, and visit all the temples of the gods with night-long
dance and song. And may Bacchus, who shakes the earth of Thebes, rule our dancing!
150
[Choral]
But look, the king of the land is
coming here, Creon, the son of Menoeceus, our new ruler in accordance
with the new circumstances fated by the gods. What policy is he setting
in motion,
155
Chorus
that he has proposed
this special conference of elders, and summoned it by a general
mandate?
160