Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus won first prize for the Athens City Dionysia Festival is 467 B.C.E. The play was originally the third part of a trilogy the first two plays being Laïos and Oedipus and of which we only have tiny fragments. In the version of Oedipus we know, Oedipus marries his mother but they have know children. In Aeschylus’ version, they have children, Eteoklês and Polyneikês.
In Seven Against Thebes, Eteoklês and Polyneikês play out the conclusion of the curse of Laïos. Apparently, the Oracle had told Laïos that if he wanted to save Thebes he should have no children. He had Oedipus and, hoping to avoid the curse, sent the baby out to be exposed. We all know what happens next. Oedipus inherits his father’s curse, his Erinys, and by marrying his mother and having Eteoklês and Polyneikês, he in turn passes on the curse to them. The curse finally ends in Seven Against Thebes when the two brothers kill each other.
Eteoklês and Polyneikês are twins and like so many twin stories, one, Eteoklês, is the good twin, the other, Polyneikês, is the evil twin. Eteoklês inherits the rule of Thebes and Polyneikês is sent away into exile. But Polyneikês wants Thebes for himself, so he eventually makes his return with an army.
The play opens with Eteoklês calling his city to arms as his brother’s army approaches. He knows what is in store, that he will have to face his brother and they will die. However, in his prayers, he does not plead to the gods for his own life, only that they spare his city:
O Zeus and Earth our mother
and the city’s gods, and you,
Fury, spirit Curse of my father Oedipus,
for you are powerful,
spare,
spare my city at least,
don’t
tear us up root and branch, homes, temples,
the victim of enemy hands!
Afte his prayers he exits and in comes the Chorus of Theban Women in a chaotic frenzy running around and screaming in fear, praying to the gods, whose statues are in the Acropolis where the scene is set, begging them to remember their rich offerings and sacrifices and all the city has done to honor them. Eteoklês returns and immediately chastises them for their cowardice, calling them “vile, insupportable creatures.” He then continues laying on the misogynist rhetoric and accuses them of being a danger to the city, of lowering the morale of the men who are preparing to fight. He tells them to shut up and go inside. To the women’s credit they do not go meekly but put up a bit of an argument.
While the men may fight and die, at least the men die with honor and do not have to suffer the aftermath. The men do not have to be divided up as spoils of war, raped and hauled off to serve in the houses of the enemy. Eteoklês continues to be harsh with the women. He has no sympathy or pity. Eventually the women must obey their king, and while they do not leave the stage, they retire to the background to observe and comment on Eteoklês choices to defend the Seven gates of Thebes.
The rest of the play is the Scout telling Eteoklês who his brother has chosen to attack each gate. The Scout tells the name of the warrior, his character, his armor and what emblem is on each man’s shield. Eteoklês then names a warrior from Thebes and explains why this man is so much better in character and honor and therefore more favored by the gods. And finally at the seventh gate is Polyneikês who Eteoklês goes out to meet.
We do not see the battle nor do we get a play-by-play. The brothers kill each other and Thebes is saved. The opposing army retreats and the bodies of the brothers are brought in on litters. The Chorus of Women cry and mourn, but most importantly they sing:
At the gate where
they perished,
these two,
at each others’ hands,
stands only the
trophy
to Ruin,
to Disaster,
to Destruction.
The Daimon,
the Spirit,
the Fury
triumphs over them,
and the Curse has
ceased to
rage.
I sort of liked this play better than The Persians at least on paper. There was more intensity on the page, more sense of movement of threat and doom. The introduction to the play talks copiously about the Greek concept of areté, an ideal of heroic honor, and how in each stage of the play Eteoklês moves closer and closer to that fulfilling that ideal until he achieves it in his death. The whole idea of areté is an interesting historical and cultural belief, but I can’t say that I really understand it. Nor can I say I really understood how is played out in Seven Against Thebes. Lucky for me though, the play can be enjoyed even without worrying about Eteoklês’ honor.
I haven’t yet read this but have been meaning to read some more classical drama so may soon.
Have you read Sophocles telling of the Oedipus legend in his three Thebian plays?
I heard about the Seven Against Thebes story a while back while I was reading Antigone – where sister tries to bury brother and ends up dead. That family is just dysfunctional.
I have always loved this play–and The Persians, and The Supplicants–although none of them get much performance time. But these early plays (I think) draw so much on Aeschylus’s military experience and the horros of war he saw (timely, no?). He is reporting on the inhumanity of war and of making all brothers fight brothers. These are less “clean” the Sophocles’ OEDIPUS plays–and Sophocles is great, too, in my opinion–but there is something here that is so dark, so dramatic, and so theatrical that I simply love them. And he writes interesting women’s voices, even in the form of The Chorus.
As someone who spends most of her time with modern literature, I’m always fascinated by the chasm that separates modern theatre from the ancients. It seems to me that spectators back in 467 B.C. had completely different expectations for what made a cracking drama. I went to the theatre at the beginning of the week and watched a very enjoyable thriller that wasn’t so far from the plot of this Greek play (at one point, when we’ve been thinking the female protagonist has slept with the son she gave away at birth, the ‘son’ reveals he’s been lying about his identity and actually says ‘This isn’t Greek tragedy, Camille’). But there was no city to be saved, no greater purpose at stake than the survival of each character. I think that’s the honor we don’t quite understand any more – the sense of a mission beyond ourselves, the notion of responibility to some ideal or community that is not self-centred. Well, I’m just playing around with the thought here. I really do know nothing about the ancients!
What a completely different world this play describes! I’m sure some connections can be drawn between the play and today’s world, but based on your description, it seems very foreign to me. But fascinating at the same time …
I read this one last summer. It’s just great, isn’t it? You’ve certainly done a wonderful job of describing it here.
Sarah, I haven’t read all of Sophocles’ Oedipus plays but I have read a couple. A re-read of them is in my not too distant future.
Dark Orpheus, dysfunctional somehow seems too mild a description
Pearl, yes, I like the grittiness of Aeschylus very much. I agree about the women’s voices too. He allows them to be interesting (even though the parts were being acted by men!). I am getting ready to read The Suppliants and looking forward to it.
Litlove, I think you are onto something. All the characters in the play are part of something bigger. It is as if their lives do not really belong to them sometimes. What they want for themselves personally doesn’t matter in the face of the bigger picture of home, city, or country. While honor certainly brings personal glory and fame, it does seem that is attained in service to the larger community.
Dorothy, it does feel foreign but at the same time it has a vague familiarity.
Emily, thank you. It is a great play. I loved the descriptions of the emblems on the shields and the frenzy of the Theban women chorus.
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