Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

the hours that slowly linger,

      Counting each day as it passes.

Strophe I

      The king's great host, destroying cities mighty,

      Hath to the land beyond the sea passed over,

      Crossing the straits of Athamantid Helle,12

      On raft by ropes secured,

      And thrown his path, compact of many a vessel,

      As yoke upon the neck of mighty ocean.

Antistrophe I

      Of populous Asia thus the mighty ruler

      'Gainst all the land his God-sent host directeth

      In two divisions, both by land and water,

      Trusting the chieftains stern,

      The men who drive the host to fight, relentless —

      He, sprung from gold-born race, a hero godlike.13

Strophe II

      Glancing with darkling look, and eyes as of ravening dragon,

      With many a hand, and many a ship, and Syrian chariot driving,14

      He upon spearmen renowned brings battle of conquering arrows.15

Antistrophe II

      Yea, there is none so tried as, withstanding the flood of the mighty,

      To keep within steadfast bounds that wave of ocean resistless;

      Hard to fight is the host of the Persians, the people stout-hearted.

Mesode

      Yet ah! what mortal can ward the craft of the God all-deceiving?

      Who, with a nimble foot, of one leap is easily sovereign?

      For Atè, fawning and kind, at first a mortal betraying,

      Then in snares and meshes decoys him,

      Whence one who is but man in vain doth struggle to 'scape from.

Strophe III

      For Fate of old, by the high Gods' decree,

      Prevailed, and on the Persians laid this task,

      Wars with the crash of towers,

      And set the surge of horsemen in array,

      And the fierce sack that lays a city low.

Antistrophe III

      But now they learnt to look on ocean plains,16

      The wide sea hoary with the violent blast,

      Waxing o'er confident

      In cables formed of many a slender strand,

      And rare device of transport for the host.

Strophe IV

      So now my soul is torn,

      As clad in mourning, in its sore affright,

      Ah me! ah me! for all the Persian host!

      Lest soon our country learn

      That Susa's mighty fort is void of men.

Antistrophe IV

      And through the Kissians' town

      Shall echo heavy thud of hands on breast.

      Woe! woe! when all the crowd of women speak

      This utterance of great grief,

      And byssine robes are rent in agony.

Strophe V

      For all the horses strong,

      And host that march on foot,

      Like swarm of bees, have gone with him who led

      The vanguard of the host.

      Crossing the sea-washed, bridge-built promontory

      That joins the shores of either continent.17

Antistrophe V

      And beds with tears are wet

      In grief for husbands gone,

      And Persian wives are delicate in grief,

      Each yearning for her lord;

      And each who sent her warrior-spouse to battle

      Now mourns at home in dreary solitude.

      But come, ye Persians now,

      And sitting in this ancient hall of ours,

      Let us take thought deep-counselling and wise,

      (Sore need is there of that,)

      How fareth now the great king Xerxes, he

      Who calls Dareios sire,

      Bearing the name our father bore of old?

      Is it the archers' bow that wins the day?

      Or does the strength prevail

      Of iron point that heads the spear's strong shaft?

      But lo! in glory like the face of gods,

      The mother of my king, my queen, appears:

      Let us do reverent homage at her feet;

      Yea, it is meet that all

      Should speak to her with words of greeting kind.

Enter Atossa in a chariot of state

      Chor. O sovereign queen of Persian wives deep-zoned,

      Mother of Xerxes, reverend in thine age,

      Wife of Dareios! hail!

      'Twas thine to join in wedlock with a spouse

      Whom Persians owned as God,18

      And of a God thou art the mother too,

      Unless its ancient Fortune fails our host.

      Atoss. Yes, thus I come, our gold-decked palace leaving,

      The bridal bower Dareios with me slept in.

      Care gnaws my heart, but now I tell you plainly

      A tale, my friends, which may not leave me fearless,

      Lest boastful wealth should stumble at the threshold,

      And with his foot o'erturn the prosperous fortune

      That great Dareios raised with Heaven's high blessing.

      And twofold care untold my bosom haunteth:

      We may not honour wealth that has no warriors,

      Nor on the poor shines light to strength proportioned;

      Wealth without stint we have, yet for our eye we tremble;

      For as the eye of home I deem a master's presence.

      Wherefore, ye Persians, aid me now in counsel;

      Trusty and old, in you lies hope of wisdom.

      Chor. Queen of our land! be sure thou need'st not utter

      Or thing or word twice o'er, which power may point to;

      Thou bid'st us counsel give who fain would serve thee.

      Atoss. Ever with many visions of the night19

      Am I encompassed, since my son went forth,

      Leading a mighty host, with aim to sack

      The land of the Ionians. But ne'er yet

      Have I beheld a dream so manifest

      As

12

Helle the daughter of Athamas, from whom the Hellespont took its name. For the description of the pontoons formed by boats, which were moored together with cables and finally covered with faggots, comp. Herod, vii. 36.

13

“Gold-born,” sc., descended from Perseus, the child of Danaë.

14

Syrian, either in the vague sense in which it became almost synonymous with Assyrian, or else showing that Syria, properly so called, retained the fame for chariots which it had had at a period as early as the time of the Hebrew Judges (Judg. v. 3). Herodotos (vii. 140) gives an Oracle of Delphi in which the same epithet appears.

15

The description, though put into the mouth of Persians, is meant to flatter Hellenic pride. The Persians and their army were for the most part light-armed troops only, barbarians equipped with javelins or bows. In the sculptures of Persepolis, as in those of Nineveh and Khorsabad, this mode of warfare is throughout the most conspicuous. They, the Hellenes, were the hoplites, warriors of the spear and the shield, the cuirass and the greaves.

16

A touch of Athenian exultation in their life as seamen. To them the sea was almost a home. They were familiar with it from childhood. To the Persians it was new and untried. They had a new lesson to learn, late in the history of the nation, late in the lives of individual soldiers.

17

The bridge of boats, with the embankment raised upon it, is thought of as a new headland putting out from the one shore and reaching to the other.

18

Stress is laid by the Hellenic poet, as in the Agamemnon (v. 895), and in v. 707 of this play, on the tendency of the East to give to its kings the names and the signs of homage which were due only to the Gods. The Hellenes might deify a dead hero, but not a living sovereign. On different grounds the Jews shrank, as in the stories of Nebuchadnezzar and Dareios (Dan. iii. 6), from all such acts.

19

In the Greek, as in the translation, there is a change of metre, intended apparently to represent the transition from the tone of eager excitement to the ordinary level of discourse.