[* I.e. Eteocles and Polynices.]

That which made Eteocles and Polynices enemies was nothing else than this opinion which they had about royal power, their opinion about exile, that the one is the extreme of evils, the other the greatest good.

For this reason also a father is reviled by his son, when he gives no part to his son of the things which are considered to be good; and it was this which made Polynices and Eteocles enemies, the opinion that royal power was a good.

" Polynices in his conference with Jocasta in Euripides, reckons up five miseries of a banished man, the least of which alone were enough to deject some pusillanimous creatures.

" Be not ashamed of thy birth then, thou art a gentleman all the world over, and shalt be honoured, when as he, strip him of his fine clothes, dispossess him of his wealth, is a funge (which Polynices in his banishment found true by experience, gentry was not esteemed) like a piece of coin in another country, that no man will take, and shall be contemned.

"And the two brothers were seen, transported with rage and fury, endeavouring like Eteocles and Polynices to plunge their swords into each other's hearts, and to assure themselves of the throne by the death of their rival.

"And the two brothers were seen, transported with rage and fury, like Eteocles and Polynices, each endeavouring to plunge his sword into the other's heart, and to assure himself of the throne by the death of his rival.

Creon, King of Thebes, has ordered, under penalty of death, that no one shall bestow the rites of burial on Prince Polynices, who has fallen after bearing arms against his own country.

Antigone, sister of Polynices, resolves to disobey this cruel order, and having failed to persuade her sister, Ismene, to aid her, carries out her plan alone.

ETÉOCLES, a son of Oedipus, king of Thebes, agreed on the banishment of his father to govern the state alternately with his brother Polynices, but failing to keep his engagement, the latter appealed to his guardian, out of which there arose the War of the Seven against Thebes, which ended in the slaughter of the whole seven, upon which the brothers thought to end the strife in single combat, when each fell by the sword of the other.

JOCASTE, the wife of Laius, king of Thebes, and mother of Oedipus; she afterwards married him not knowing that he was her son, and on discovery of the crime put an end to herself, though not till after she had become the mother of Etéocles, Polynices, Antigone, and Ismenë.

Oedipus had pronounced an awful curse upon his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, for their unfilial neglect,"they should one day divide their land by steel."

Polynices appealed to Adrastus King of Argos for help, and seven chiefs appeared before the walls of Thebes to enforce his claim, and beleaguered the town.

The seventh and last is Polynices.

A herald announces that the Theban Senate forbid the burial of Polynices; his body shall be cast forth as prey of dogs.

From Racine he took 'Polynice,' 'Merope' had been treated by Maffei and Voltaire, and Shakespeare had immortalized the story of Brutus.