"Tis thine, O king! the' afflicted to redress,
And fame has fill'd the world with thy success :
We, wretched women, sue for that alone
Which of thy goodness is refused to none:
Let fall some drops of pity on our grief,

If what we beg be just, and we deserve relief:
For none of us, who now thy grace implore,
But held the rank of sovereign-queen before;
Till, thanks to giddy chance, which never bears
That mortal bliss should last for length of years,
She cast us headlong from our high estate,
And here in hope of thy return we wait;
And long have waited in the temple nigh,
Built to the gracious goddess Clemency.
But reverence thou the power, whose name it bears,
Relieve the oppress'd, and wipe the widow's tears;
I, wretched I, have other fortune seen,

The wife of Capaneus, and once a queen:
At Thebes he fell; cursed be the fatal day!
And all the rest thou seest in this array,
To make their moan, their lords in battle lost
Before that town besieged by our confederate host:
But Creon, old and impious, who commands
The Theban city, and usurps the lands,
Denies the rites of funeral fires to those
Whose breathless bodies yet he calls his foes.
Unburn'd, unburied, on a heap they lie;
Such is their fate, and such his tyranny;
No friend has leave to bear away the dead,
But with their lifeless limbs his hounds are fed.'
At this she shriek'd aloud; the mournful train
Echo'd her grief, and grovelling on the plain
With groans, and hands upheld, to move his mind,
Besought his pity to their helpless kind!

The prince was touch'd, his tears began to flow,
And, as his tender heart would break in two,
He sigh'd; and could not but their fate deplore,
So wretched now, so fortunate before.

Then lightly from his lofty steed he flew,
And raising one by one the suppliant crew,
To comfort each, full solemnly he swore,
That by the faith which knights to knighthood bore,
And whate'er else to chivalry belongs,

He would not cease, till he revenged their wrongs.
That Greece should see perform'd what he declared;
And cruel Creon find his just reward.

He said no more, but shunning all delay,
Rode on; nor enter'd Athens on his way:
But left his sister and his queen behind;
And waved his royal banner in the wind;
Where in an argent field the god of war
Was drawn triumphant on his iron car;
Red was his sword and shield, and whole attire,
And all the godhead seem'd to glow with fire;
Even the ground glitter'd where the standard flew,
And the green grass was dyed to sanguine hue.
High on his pointed lance his pennon bore
His Cretan fight, the conquer'd Minotaure:
The soldiers shout around with generous rage,
And in that victory their own presage.
He praised their ardour: inly pleased to see
His host, the flower of Grecian chivalry.
All day he march'd, and all the' ensuing night,
And saw the city with returning light.
The process of the war I need not tell,-
How Theseus conquer'd, and how Creon fell:
Or after, how by storm the walls were won,
Or how the victor sack'd and burn'd the town:

How to the ladies he restored again
The bodies of their lords in battle slain,
And with what ancient rites they were interr'd:
All these to fitter time shall be deferr'd.
I spare the widows' tears, their woeful cries,
And howling at their husbands' obsequies;
How Theseus at these funerals did assist,
And with what gifts the mourning dames dismiss'd.
Thus when the victor-chief had Creon slain,
And conquer'd Thebes, he pitch'd upon the plain
His mighty camp, and when the day return'd,
The country wasted, and the hamlets burn'd;
And left the pillagers, to rapine bred,

Without control to strip and spoil the dead.
There, in a beap of slain, among the rest
Two youthful knights they found beneath a load
oppress'd

Of slaughter'd foes, whom first to death they sent,
The trophies of their strength, a blood monument.
Both fair, and both of royal blood they seem'd,
Whom kinsmen to the crown the heralds deem'd;
That day in equal arms they fought for fame;
Their swords, their shields, their surcoats were the

same.

Close by each other laid they press'd the ground, Their manly bosoms pierced with many a grisly wound;

Nor well alive nor wholly dead they were,
But some faint signs of feeble life appear:
The wandering breath was on the wing to part,
Weak was the pulse, and hardly heaved the heart.
These two were sisters' sons; and Arcite one,
Much famed in fields, with valiant Palamon.
From these their costly arms the spoilers rent,
And softly both convey'd to Theseus' tent;

Waom known of Creon's line, and cured with care, He to his city sent, as prisoners of the war, Hopeless of ransom, and condemn'd to lie In durance, doom'd a lingering death to die. This done, he march'd away with wariike sound, *ad to his Athens turn'd with laurels crown'd "happy long he lived, much loved, and more

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