together his side and his bowels falls weltering in blood.  But the other, as he were now the victor, and had subdued him in the fight, casting his sword on the ground, went to spoil him, not fixing his attention on himself, but on that his purpose.  Which thing also deceived him; for Polynices, he that fell first, still breathing a little, preserving his sword e’en in his deathly fall, with difficulty indeed, but he did stretch his sword to the heart of Eteocles.  And holding the dust in their gripe they both fall near one another, and determined not the victory.

CHOR.  Alas! alas! to what degree, O Oedipus, do I groan for thy misfortunes! but the God seems to have fulfilled thy imprecations.

MESS.  Hear now then woes even in addition to these—­For when her sons having fallen were breathing their last, at this moment the wretched mother rushes before them, and when she perceived them stricken with mortal wounds she shrieked out, “Oh my sons, I am come too late a succor:”  and throwing herself by the side of her children in turn, she wept, she lamented with moans her long anxiety in suckling them now lost:  and their sister, who accompanied to stand by her in her misery, at the same time broke forth; “O supporters of my mother’s age!  Oh ye that have betrayed my hopes of marriage, my dearest brothers!”—­But king Eteocles heaving from his breast his gasping breath, heard his mother, and putting out his cold clammy hand, sent not forth indeed a voice; but from his eyes spoke her in tears to signify affection.  But Polynices, who yet breathed, looking at his sister and his aged mother, thus spoke:  “We perish, O my mother; but I grieve for thee, and for this my sister, and my brother who lies dead, for being my friend, he became my enemy, but still my friend.—­But bury me, O mother of my being, and thou my sister, in my native land, and pacify the exasperated city, that I may obtain thus much at least of my country’s land, although I have lost the palace.  And close my eyelids with thy hand, my mother” (and he places it himself upon his eyes), “and fare ye well! for now darkness surroundeth me.”  And both breathed out their lives together.  And the mother, when she saw what had taken place, beyond endurance grieving, snatched the sword from the dead body, and perpetrated a deed of horror; for she drove the steel through the middle of her throat, and lies dead on those most dear to her, having each in her arms embraced.  But the people rose up hastily to a strife of opinions; we indeed, as holding, that my master was victorious; but they, that the other was; and there was also a contention between the generals, those on the other side contended, that Polynices first struck with the spear, but those on ours that there was no victory where the combatants died. [And in the mean time Antigone withdrew from the army;] but they rushed to arms; but fortunately by a sort of foresight the people of Cadmus had sat upon their