Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus

such his wisdom, he provoked not God.

      And Kyros' son came fourth, and ruled the host;

      And Mardos fifth held sway, his country's shame,57

      Shame to the ancient throne; and him with guile

      Artaphrenes58 the brave smote down, close leagued

      With men, his friends, to whom the work was given.

      [Sixth, Maraphis and seventh Artaphrenes,]

      And I obtained this post that I desired,

      And with a mighty host great victories won.

      Yet no such evil brought I on the state;

      But my son Xerxes, young, thinks like a youth,

      And all my solemn charge remembers not;

      For know this well, my old companions true,

      That none of us who swayed the realm of old,

      Did e'er appear as working ills like these.

      Chor. What then, O King Dareios? To what end

      Lead'st thou thy speech? And how, in this our plight,

      Could we, the Persian people, prosper best?

      Dar. If ye no more attack the Hellenes' land,

      E'en though the Median host outnumbers theirs.

      To them the very land is true ally.

      Chor. What meanest thou? How fights the land for them?

      Dar. *It slays with famine those vast multitudes.

      Chor. We then a host, select, compact, will raise.

      Dar. Nay, e'en the host which now in Hellas stays59

      Will ne'er return in peace and safety home.

      Chor. How say'st thou? Does not all the barbarous host

      Cross from Europa o'er the straits of Hellè?

      Dar. But few of many; if 'tis meet for one

      Who looks upon the things already done

      To trust the oracles of Gods; for they,

      Not these or those, but all, are brought to pass:

      If this be so, then, resting on vain hopes,60

      He leaves a chosen portion of his host:

      And they abide where, watering all the plain,

      Asôpos pours his fertilising stream

      Dear to Bœotian land; and there of ills

      The topmost crown awaits them, penalty

      Of wanton outrage and of godless thoughts;

      For they to Hellas coming, held not back

      In awe from plundering sculptured forms of Gods61

      And burning down their temples; and laid low

      Are altars, and the shrines of Gods o'erthrown,

      E'en from their base. They therefore having wrought

      Deeds evil, now are suffering, and will suffer

      Evil not less, and not as yet is seen

      E'en the bare groundwork of the ills, but still

      They grow up to completeness. Such a stream

      Of blood and slaughter soon shall flow from them

      By Dorian spear upon Platæan ground,62

      And heaps of corpses shall to children's children,

      Though speechless, witness to the eyes of men

      That mortal man should not wax overproud;

      For wanton pride from blossom grows to fruit,

      The full corn in the ear, of utter woe,

      And reaps a tear-fraught harvest. Seeing then,

      Such recompense of these things, cherish well

      The memory of Athens and of Hellas;

      Let no man in his scorn of present fortune,

      And thirst for other, mar his good estate;

      Zeus is the avenger of o'er-lofty thoughts,

      A terrible controller. Therefore now,

      Since voice of God bids him be wise of heart,

      Admonish him with counsel true and good

      To cease his daring sacrilegious pride;

      And thou, O Xerxes' mother, old and dear,

      Go to thy home, and taking what apparel

      Is fitting, go to meet thy son; for all

      The costly robes around his limbs are torn

      To rags and shreds in grief's wild agony.

      But do thou gently soothe his soul with words;

      For he to thee alone will deign to hearken;

      But I must leave the earth for darkness deep:

      And ye, old men, farewell, although in woe,

      And give your soul its daily bread of joy;

      For to the dead no profit bringeth wealth.

[Exit, disappearing in the earth.

      Chor. I shudder as I hear the many woes

      Both past and present that on Persians fall.

      Atoss. [O God, how many evils fall on me!63

      And yet this one woe biteth more than all,

      Hearing my son's shame in the rags of robes

      That clothe his limbs. But I will go and take

      A fit adornment from my house, and try

      To meet my son. We will not in his troubles

      Basely abandon him whom most we love.]

Strophe I

      Chor. Ah me! a glorious and a blessed life

      Had we as subjects once,

      When our old king, Dareios, ruled the land,

      Meeting all wants, dispassionate, supreme,

      A monarch like a God.

Antistrophe I

      For first we showed the world our noble hosts;

      And laws of tower-like strength

      Directed all things; and our backward march

      After our wars unhurt, unsuffering led

      Our prospering armies home.

Strophe II

      How many towns he took,

      Not crossing Halys' stream64

      Nor issuing from his home,

      There where in Strymon's sea,

      The Acheloian Isles65

      Lie near the coasts of Thrakian colonies.

Antistrophe II

      And those that lie outside the Ægæan main,

      The cities girt with towers,

      They hearkened to our king;

      And

57

Mardos. Under this name we recognise the Pseudo-Smerdis of Herodotos (iii. 67), who, by restoring the dominion of the Median Magi, the caste to which he himself belonged, brought shame upon the Persians.

58

Possibly another form of Intaphernes, who appears in Herodotos (iii. 70) as one of the seven conspirators against the Magian Pseudo-Smerdis.

60

Comp. the speech of Mardonios urging his plan on Xerxes (Herod. viii. 100).

61

This was of course a popular topic with the Athenians, whose own temples had been outraged. But other sanctuaries also, the temples at Delphi and Abæ, had shared the same fate, and these sins against the Gods of Hellas were naturally connected in the thoughts of the Greeks with the subsequent disasters of the Persians. In Egypt these outrages had an iconoclastic character. In Athens they were a retaliation for the destruction of the temple at Sardis (Herod. v. 102).

62

The reference to the prominent part taken by the Peloponnesian forces in the battle of Platæa is probably due to the political sympathies of the dramatist.

63

The speech of Atossa is rejected by Paley, on internal grounds, as spurious.

64

Apparently an allusion to the oracle given to Crœsos, that he, if he crossed the Halys, should destroy a great kingdom.

65

The name originally given to the Echinades, a group of islands at the mouth of the Acheloös, was applied generically to all islands lying near the mouth of all great rivers, and here, probably, includes Imbros, Thasos, and Samothrakè.