them sing a paean that
shall hearten the people. The messenger, in a noteworthy scene,
describes the appearance of each hostile chief. The seventh and last is
Polynices. Eteocles, although conscious of his father's curse,
nevertheless declares with gloomy resoluteness that he will meet his
brother in single combat, and, resisting the entreaties of the Chorus,
goes forth to his doom. The attack on the town is repelled, but the
brothers fall, each by the other's hand. Thus is the curse fulfilled.
Presently their bodies are wheeled in. Their sisters, Antigone and
Ismene, follow and sing a lament over the dead. A herald announces that
the Theban Senate forbid the burial of Polynices; his body shall be cast
forth as prey of dogs. Antigone declares her resolution to brave their
mandate, and perform the last sad rites for her brother.

"Dread tie, the common womb from which we sprang,--
Of wretched mother born and hapless sire."

The Chorus divides. The first semi-chorus sides with Antigone; the
second declares its resolution to follow to its last resting-place the
body of Eteocles. And thus the play ends. The theme is here sketched,
just at the close of the play, in outline, that Sophocles has developed
with such pathetic effect in his 'Antigone.'

The 'Prometheus' transports the reader to another world. The characters
are gods, the time is the remote past, the place a desolate waste in
Scythia, on the confines of the Northern Ocean. Prometheus had sinned
against the authority of Zeus. Zeus wished to destroy the old race of
mankind; but Prometheus gave them fire, taught them arts and
handicrafts, developed in them thought and consciousness, and so assured
both their existence and their happiness. The play deals with his
punishment. Prometheus is borne upon the scene by Force and Strength,
and is nailed to a lofty cliff by Hephaestus. His appeal to Nature, when
his tormentors depart and he is left alone, is peculiarly pathetic. The
daughters of Oceanus, constituting the Chorus, who have heard the sound
of the hammer in their ocean cave, are now borne in aloft on a winged
car, and bewail the fate of the outraged god. Oceanus appears upon a
winged steed, and offers his mediation; but this is scornfully rejected.
The resolution of Prometheus to resist Zeus to the last is strengthened
by the coming of Io. She too, as it seems, is a victim of the Ruler of
the Universe; driven by the jealous wrath of Hera, she roams fro