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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



146
Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, 720


πέφρικα τὰν ὠλεσίοικονCHORUS: I shudder in terror at the goddess who lays ruin to homes, a goddess unlike other divinities, who is an unerring omen of evil to come. I shudder that the Erinys invoked by the father's prayer will fulfil the over-wrathful curses that Oidipus spoke in madness. This strife that will destroy his sons drives the Erinys to fulfillment. A stranger distributes their inheritance, a Chalybian immigrant from Scythia, a bitter divider of wealth, savage-hearted iron that apportions land for them to dwell in, as much as they can occupy in death when they have lost their share in these wide plains. But when both have died, each killing the other in mutual slaughter, and the earth's dust has swallowed the black streams of their blood, who could offer sacrifice that might make purification? Who could cleanse them of their pollution? O, the new troubles of this house mixed with its evils of before! Indeed I speak of the ancient transgression, now swift in its retribution. It remains even into the third generation, ever since Laius — in defiance of Apollo who, at his Pythian oracle at the earth's center, said three times that the king would save his city if he died without offspring — ever since he, overcome by the thoughtlessness of his longing, fathered his own death, the parricide Oidipus, who sowed his mother's sacred field, where he was nurtured, and endured a bloody crop. Madness united the frenzied bridal pair. Now it is as if a sea of evils pushes its swell onward. As one wave sinks, the sea raises up another, triple-crested, which crashes around the city's stern. In between a narrow defense stretches — no wider than a wall. I fear that the city will be overthrown along with its kings. For the compensation is heavy when curses uttered long ago are fulfilled, and once the deadly curse has come into existence, it does not pass away. When the fortune of seafaring merchants has grown too great, it must be thrown overboard. For whom have the gods and divinities that share their altar and the thronging assembly of men ever admired so much as they honored Oidipus then, when he removed that deadly, man-seizing plague from our land? But when, his sanity regained, he grew miserable in his wretched marriage, then carried away by his grief and with maddened heart he accomplished a double evil. With the hand that killed his father he struck out his eyes, which were dearer to him than his children.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

11 results
1. Hesiod, Works And Days, 803-804, 802 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)

802. And prayed and washed your hands in it. If you
2. Hesiod, Theogony, 227-232, 793-806, 226 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)

226. From the beginning and this share she gained
3. Homer, Iliad, 9.568-9.572 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)

9.568. /By her side lay Meleager nursing his bitter anger, wroth because of his mother's curses; for she prayed instantly to the gods, being grieved for her brother's slaying; and furthermore instantly beat with her hands upon the all-nurturing earth, calling upon Hades and dread Persephone 9.569. /By her side lay Meleager nursing his bitter anger, wroth because of his mother's curses; for she prayed instantly to the gods, being grieved for her brother's slaying; and furthermore instantly beat with her hands upon the all-nurturing earth, calling upon Hades and dread Persephone 9.570. /the while she knelt and made the folds of her bosom wet with tears, that they should bring death upon her son; and the Erinys that walketh in darkness heard her from Erebus, even she of the ungentle heart. Now anon was the din of the foemen risen about their gates, and the noise of the battering of walls, and to Meleager the elders 9.571. /the while she knelt and made the folds of her bosom wet with tears, that they should bring death upon her son; and the Erinys that walketh in darkness heard her from Erebus, even she of the ungentle heart. Now anon was the din of the foemen risen about their gates, and the noise of the battering of walls, and to Meleager the elders 9.572. /the while she knelt and made the folds of her bosom wet with tears, that they should bring death upon her son; and the Erinys that walketh in darkness heard her from Erebus, even she of the ungentle heart. Now anon was the din of the foemen risen about their gates, and the noise of the battering of walls, and to Meleager the elders
4. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1567, 1580, 1241 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

1241. ἄγαν γʼ ἀληθόμαντιν οἰκτίρας ἐρεῖς. Χορός 1241. CHOROS.
5. Aeschylus, Eumenides, 417 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

417. Ἀραὶ δʼ ἐν οἴκοις γῆς ὑπαὶ κεκλήμεθα. Ἀθηνᾶ
6. Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, 722-726, 730-733, 742-757, 766-791, 721 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

721. θεόν, οὐ θεοῖς ὁμοίαν
7. Euripides, Medea, 1390, 1389 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

1389. The curse of our sons’ avenging spirit and of Justice
8. Sophocles, Ajax, 1390-1392, 835-844, 1389 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

9. Sophocles, Electra, 111-116, 110 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

10. Sophocles, Oedipus At Colonus, 1299, 1298 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

11. Sophocles, Women of Trachis, 808-812, 807 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)

807. while he moaned in his convulsions. And you shall soon see him, either alive or freshly dead. Such, Mother, are the designs and deeds against my father of which you have been found guilty. May Punishing Justice and the Erinys punish you for them! Yes, if it be right, that is my prayer.


Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
aegisthus Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
agamemnon Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 134
alēthēs, in aeschylus Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 134
cassandra Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8, 134
chorus of seven, alternative mode of knowledge Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
chorus of seven, awareness of reciprocity Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 133, 134
chorus of seven, interpretation of shields Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 133
chorus of suppliants Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
clytaemestra Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
clytemnestra Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
complementarity of pindar and aeschylus Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
contract, erinyes as agents of curses Fletcher, Performing Oaths in Classical Greek Drama (2012) 63
contract, inherited curse Fletcher, Performing Oaths in Classical Greek Drama (2012) 63
deianeira Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
earth, touching during oaths Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
electra Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
ending of seven Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 133
eteocles Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 133, 134
false oaths Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
great oath of the gods (megas, horkos) Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
horkos, gods) Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
hyllus Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
identity, proclamation of Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets (2004) 71
itinerant specialists, beggar priests' Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets (2004) 71
parental cursing Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
poetic culture of pindar and aeschylus Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
poinē Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 134
polyneices Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 133
revenge curses Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
styx, river Sommerstein and Torrance, Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece (2014) 9
thyestes Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 134
truth, and reciprocity Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 134
truth, gender and Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 134
vision, of cassandra Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8, 134
vision, of clytemnestra Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
vision, of danaids Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8
vision, of theban women Park, Reciprocity, Truth, and Gender in Pindar and Aeschylus (2023) 8, 134