Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

O hateful Power, how thou of all their hopes

      Hast robbed the Persians! Bitter doom my son

      Devised for glorious Athens, nor did they,

      The invading host who fell at Marathon,

      Suffice; but my son, counting it his task

      To exact requital for it, brought on him

      So great a crowd of sorrows. But I pray,

      As to those ships that have this fate escaped,

      Where did'st thou leave them? Can'st thou clearly tell?

      Mess. The captains of the vessels that were left,

      With a fair wind, but not in meet array,

      Took flight: and all the remnant of the army

      Fell in Bœotia – some for stress of thirst

      About the fountain clear, and some of us,

      Panting for breath, cross to the Phokians' land,

      The soil of Doris, and the Melian gulf,

      Where fair Spercheios waters all the plains

      With kindly flood, and then the Achæan fields

      And city of the Thessali received us,

      Famished for lack of food;43 and many died

      Of thirst and hunger, for both ills we bore;

      And then to the Magnetian land we came,

      And that of Macedonians, to the stream

      Of Axios, and Bolbe's reed-grown marsh,

      And Mount Pangaios and the Edonian land.

      And on that night God sent a mighty frost,

      Unwonted at that season, sealing up

      The whole course of the Strymon's pure, clear flood;44

      And they who erst had deemed the Gods as nought,

      Then prayed with hot entreaties, worshipping

      Both earth and heaven. And after that the host

      Ceased from its instant calling on the Gods,

      It crosses o'er the glassy, frozen stream;

      And whosoe'er set forth before the rays

      Of the bright God were shed abroad, was saved;

      For soon the glorious sun with burning blaze

      Reached the mid-stream and warmed it with its flame,

      And they, confused, each on the other fell.

      Blest then was he whose soul most speedily

      Breathed out its life. And those who yet survived

      And gained deliverance, crossing with great toil

      And many a pang through Thrakè, now are come,

      Escaped from perils, no great number they,

      To this our sacred land, and so it groans,

      This city of the Persians, missing much

      Our country's dear-loved youth. Too true my tale,

      And many things I from my speech omit,

      Ills which the Persians suffer at God's hand.

      Chor. O Power resistless, with what weight of woe

      On all the Persian race have thy feet leapt!

      Atoss. Ah! woe is me for that our army lost!

      O vision of the night that cam'st in dreams,

      Too clearly did'st thou show me of these ills!

      But ye (to Chorus) did judge them far too carelessly;

      Yet since your counsel pointed to that course,

      I to the Gods will first my prayer address.

      And then with gifts to Earth and to the Dead,

      Bringing the chrism from my store, I'll come.

      For our past ills, I know, 'tis all too late,

      But for the future, I may hope, will dawn

      A better fortune! But 'tis now your part

      In these our present ills, in counsel faithful

      To commune with the Faithful; and my son,

      Should he come here before me, comfort him,

      And home escort him, lest he add fresh ill

      To all these evils that we suffer now. [Exit

      Chor. Zeus our king, who now to nothing

      Bring'st the army of the Persians,

      Multitudinous, much boasting;

      And with gloomy woe hast shrouded

      Both Ecbatana and Susa;

      Many maidens now are tearing

      With their tender hands their mantles,

      And with tear-floods wet their bosoms,

      In the common grief partaking;

      And the brides of Persian warriors,

      Dainty even in their wailing,

      Longing for their new-wed husbands,

      Reft of bridal couch luxurious,

      With its coverlet so dainty,

      Losing joy of wanton youth-time,

      Mourn in never-sated wailings.

      And I too in fullest measure

      Raise again meet cry of sorrow,

      Weeping for the loved and lost ones.

Strophe I

      For now the land of Asia mourneth sore,

      Left desolate of men,

      'Twas Xerxes led them forth, woe! woe!

      'Twas Xerxes lost them all, woe! woe!

      'Twas Xerxes who with evil counsels sped

      Their course in sea-borne barques.

      Why was Dareios erst so free from harm,

      First bowman of the state,

      The leader whom the men of Susa loved,

Antistrophe I

      While those who fought as soldiers or at sea,

      These ships, dark-hulled, well-rowed,

      Their own ships bore them on, woe! woe!

      Their own ships lost them all, woe! woe!

      Their own ships, in the crash of ruin urged,

      And by Ionian hands?45

      The king himself, we hear, but hardly 'scapes,

      Through Thrakè's widespread steppes,

      And paths o'er which the tempests wildly sweep.

Strophe II

      And they who perished first, ah me!

      Perforce unburied left, alas!

      Are scattered round Kychreia's shore,46 woe! woe!

      Lament, mourn sore, and raise a bitter cry,

      Grievous, the sky to pierce, woe! woe!

      And let thy mourning voice uplift its strain

      Of loud and full lament.

Antistrophe II

      Torn by the whirling flood, ah me!

      Their carcases are gnawed, alas!

      By the dumb brood of stainless sea, woe! woe!

      And

43

So Herodotos (viii. 115) describes them as driven by hunger to eat even grass and leaves.

44

No trace of this passage over the frozen Strymon appears in Herodotos, who leaves the reader to imagine that it was crossed, as before, by a bridge. It is hardly, indeed, consistent with dramatic probability that the courier should have remained to watch the whole retreat of the defeated army; and on this and other grounds, the latter part of the speech has been rejected by some critics as a later addition.

45

The Ionians, not of the Asiatic Ionia, but of Attica.

46

Kychreia, the archaic name of Salamis.