Matheson Collection > Togail na Tebe

THE THEBAID
BOOK I
A certain noble, revered, and honourable king, had assumed
sway and proprietorship over the pleasant and splendid capital
city of Thebes in Greece. His name was Laius ; and he had a
son, Oedipus ; and from that Oedipus sprang the two fair dis-
tinguished sons, to wit, Polynices and Eteocles. They are those
brothers that killed one another in the great war between the
Thebans and the Greeks, as they contended on each side for the
sovereignty of Thebes, the capital city.
Now at that time it came into the mind of Statius the well-
born eminent poet of the Franks to describe the origin of the
Thebans, how they sprang from Cadmus, son of Agenor, that
Agenor who was high-king of Tyre and Sidon, and whose
daughter was the well-born maiden named Europa. With her
Jove fell deeply in love so that he must needs go in the shape
of a bull to fetch her over expanse of sea and ocean. And when
he had crossed that sea to Crete, he returned to his own shape,
and he held that maiden in great affection, and to that maiden
Jove gave the great reward that Europe, one of the three
principal divisions of the world, should be named from her.
As for Agenor, however, anger, intense rage, and deep grief
took possession of him when he discovered the loss of his well-
beloved daughter Europa. Now the plan Agenor then took was
to send his well-beloved son over sea and land to seek his sister
throughout the world, and he told him, unless he found his
sister, not to come again or be seen by him. Then indeed Cad-
mus searched the world's fastnesses and the wondrous isles of
the vast ocean that girds the globe, and he experienced a deal
of toil, trouble, and perils of sea and land throughout the world
both by sea and by land, and found not the maiden during all
that time, though he suffered much tribulation, and for that the
reason was that he might not cross Jupiter the son of Saturn,
head of the gods, to make known against him his stolen love.