Amphiaros

Before the seven wide-open gates of Thebes,

in dreadful fratricidal dispute

lay the prince's army, ready for battle,

sworn in sacred oaths to murder.

And with the dazzling light of their armor,

girt as if they intended to wage war with the world,

they dreamed with joy of battles and triumphs -

all but Amphiaros the magnificent.

For he reads in the eternal cycle of the stars

whom the coming hours threaten with hostility.

The sun-god's powerful son

sees clearly into the future's nebulous distance.

He knows of Destiny's fatal covenant:

he knows how the dice - the iron ones - will fall;

he sees Moira with bloody claws...

but heroes spurn the sacred mouth.

He saw the violent acts of murder,

and knew what the Fates were spinning for him.

So he went to battle, a lost man,

by his own wife shamefully betrayed.

He was aware of the heavenly flame,

which hotly burned in his strong soul;

the proud man called himself a son of Apollo,

with a divine heart beating in his breast.

"What? I, to whom the gods have spoken,

I, surrounded by the sacred, wafting fragrance of Wisdom -

am I, in common battle,

to be killed at the hand of Periklymenos?

I would rather die through my own power

and in the time to come it will be heard with astonishment

from the sacred lips of future singers

how I boldly leapt into the eternal night."

And when the bloody struggle began,

and the plains echoed with murderous cries,

he called desperately: "It approaches with force,

what the infallible Fates have woven.

But in my breast surges divine blood,

so, worthy of my father, I will die."

And he turned the horses for life or for death,

and plunged toward the river's high, raging flood.

Wildly the horses snort, loudly the chariot rattles,

the stamping of hoofs crush the road.

And faster and faster still it races,

as if it were hunting the fleeing Time.

As if he had stolen the torch of heaven,

he comes flying in a tornado of wind;

terrified, the gods lift their reedy heads

from the waves of the foaming flood.

But suddenly, as if heaven were on fire,

a lightning-bolt plunges down from the sky

and the earth tears apart into terrible gaps;

then the son of Apollo calls loudly, rejoicing:

"Thank you, o Powerful One! You stand by me.

Your lightning is the seal of immortality;

I will follow you, Zeus!" and he seized the reins

and spurred the horse down into the abyss.