Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Read online

  CHORUS

  A mine of treasure in the earth, a fount of silver ore!

  ATOSSA

  Is it in skill of bow and shaft that Athens’ men excel?

  CHORUS

  Nay, they bear bucklers in the fight,

  and thrust the spear-point well.

  ATOSSA

  And who is shepherd of their host and holds them in command?

  CHORUS

  To no man do they bow as slaves, nor own a master’s hand.

  ATOSSA

  How should they bide our brunt of war, the East upon the West?

  CHORUS

  That could Darius’ valiant horde in days of yore attest!

  ATOSSA

  A boding word, to us who bore the men now far away!

  CHORUS

  Nay — as I deem, the very truth will dawn on us to-day.

  A Persian by his garb and speed, a courier draws anear —

  He bringeth news, of good or ill, for Persia’s land to hear.

  [Enter A MESSENGER.

  MESSENGER

  O walls and towers of all the Asian realm,

  O Persian land, O treasure-house of gold!

  How, by one stroke, down to destruction, down,

  Hath sunk our pride, and all the flower of war

  That once was Persia’s, lieth in the dust!

  Woe on the man who first announceth woe —

  Yet must I all the tale of death unroll!

  Hark to me, Persians! Persia’s host lies low.

  CHORUS

  O ruin manifold, and woe, and fear!

  Let the wild tears run down, for the great doom is here!

  MESSENGER

  This blow hath fallen, to the utterance, And I, past hope, behold

  my safe return!

  CHORUS

  Too long, alack, too long this life of mine,

  That in mine age I see this sudden woe condign!

  MESSENGER

  As one who saw, by no loose rumour led,

  Lords, I would tell what doom was dealt to us.

  CHORUS

  Alack, how vainly have they striven!

  Our myriad hordes with shaft and bow

  Went from the Eastland, to lay low

  Hellas, beloved of Heaven!

  MESSENGER

  Piled with men dead, yea, miserably slain,

  Is every beach, each reef of Salamis!

  CHORUS

  Thou sayest sooth — ah well-a-day!

  Battered amid the waves, and torn,

  On surges hither, thither, borne,

  Dead bodies, bloodstained and forlorn,

  In their long cloaks they toss and stray!

  MESSENGER

  Their bows availed not! all have perished, all,

  By charging galleys crushed and whelmed in death.

  CHORUS

  Shriek out your sorrow’s wistful wail!

  To their untimely doom they went;

  Ill strove they, and to no avail,

  And minished is their armament!

  MESSENGER

  Out on thee, hateful name of Salamis,

  Out upon Athens, mournful memory!

  CHORUS

  Woe upon this day’s evil fame!

  Thou, Athens, art our murderess;

  Alack, full many a Persian dame

  Is left forlorn and husbandless!

  ATOSSA

  Mute have I been awhile, and overwrought

  At this great sorrow, for it passeth speech,

  And passeth all desire to ask of it.

  Yet if the gods send evils, men must bear.

  (To the MESSENGER)

  Unroll the record! stand composed and tell,

  Although thy heart be groaning inwardly,

  Who hath escaped, and, of our leaders, whom

  Have we to weep? what chieftains in the van

  Stood, sank, and died and left us leaderless?

  MESSENGER

  Xerxes himself survives and sees the day.

  ATOSSA

  Then to my line thy word renews the dawn

  And golden dayspring after gloom of night!

  MESSENGER

  But the brave marshal of ten thousand horse,

  Artembares, is tossed and flung in death

  Along the rugged rocks Silenian.

  And Dadaces no longer leads his troop,

  But, smitten by the spear, from off the prow

  Hath lightly leaped to death; and Tenagon,

  In true descent a Bactrian nobly born,

  Drifts by the sea-lashed reefs of Salamis,

  The isle of Ajax. Gone Lilaeus too,

  Gone are Arsames and Argestes! all,

  Around the islet where the sea-doves breed,

  Dashed their defeated heads on iron rocks;

  Arcteus, who dwelt beside the founts of Nile,

  Adeues, Pheresseues, and with them

  Pharnuchus, from one galley’s deck went down.

  Matallus, too, of Chrysa, lord and king

  Of myriad hordes, who led unto the fight

  Three times ten thousand swarthy cavaliers,

  Fell, with his swarthy and abundant beard

  Incarnadined to red, a crimson stain

  Outrivalling the purple of the sea!

  There Magian Arabus and Artames

  Of Bactra perished — taking up, alike,

  In yonder stony land their long sojourn.

  Amistris too, and he whose strenuous spear

  Was foremost in the fight, Amphistreus fell,

  And gallant Ariomardus, by whose death

  Broods sorrow upon Sardis: Mysia mourns

  For Seisames, and Tharubis lies low —

  Commander, he, of five times fifty ships,

  Born in Lyrnessus: his heroic form

  Is low in death, ungraced with sepulchre.

  Dead too is he, the lord of courage high,

  Cilicia’s marshal, brave Syennesis,

  Than whom none dealt more carnage on the foe,

  Nor perished by a more heroic end.

  So fell the brave: so speak I of their doom,

  Summing in brief the fate of myriads!

  ATOSSA

  Ah well-a-day! these crowning woes I hear,

  The shame of Persia and her shrieks of dole!

  But yet renew the tale, repeat thy words,

  Tell o’er the count of those Hellenic ships,

  And how they ventured with their beakèd prows

  To charge upon the Persian armament.

  MESSENGER

  Know, if mere count of ships could win the day,

  The Persians had prevailed. The Greeks, in sooth,

  Had but three hundred galleys at the most,

  And other ten, select and separate.

  But — I am witness — Xerxes held command

  Of full a thousand keels, and, those apart,

  Two hundred more, and seven, for speed renowned! —

  So stands the reckoning, and who shall dare

  To say we Persians had the lesser host?

  ATOSSA

  Nay, we were worsted by an unseen power

  Who swayed the balance downward to our doom!

  MESSENGER

  In ward of heaven doth Pallas’ city stand.

  ATOSSA

  How then? is Athens yet inviolate?

  MESSENGER

  While her men live, her bulwark standeth firm!

  ATOSSA

  Say, how began the struggle of the ships?

  Who first joined issue? did the Greeks attack,

  Or Xerxes, in his numbers confident?

  MESSENGER

  O queen, our whole disaster thus befell,

  Through intervention of some fiend or fate —

  I know not what — that had ill will to us.

  From the Athenian host some Greek came o’er,

  To thy son Xerxes whispering this tale —

  Once let the gloom of night have gathered in,

 
The Greeks will tarry not, but swiftly spring

  Each to his galley-bench, in furtive flight,

  Softly contriving safety for their life.

  Thy son believed the word and missed the craft

  Of that Greek foeman, and the spite of Heaven,

  And straight to all his captains gave this charge —

  As soon as sunlight warms the ground no more,

  And gloom enwraps the sanctuary of sky,

  Range we our fleet in triple serried lines

  To bar the passage from the seething strait,

  This way and that: let other ships surround

  The isle of Ajax, with this warning word —

  That if the Greeks their jeopardy should scape

  By wary craft, and win their ships a road.

  Each Persian captain shall his failure pay

  By forfeit of his head. So spake the king,

  Inspired at heart with over-confidence,

  Unwitting of the gods’ predestined will.

  Thereon our crews, with no disordered haste,

  Did service to his bidding and purveyed

  The meal of afternoon: each rower then

  Over the fitted rowlock looped his oar.

  Then, when the splendour of the sun had set,

  And night drew on, each master of the oar

  And each armed warrior straightway went aboard.

  Forward the long ships moved, rank cheering rank,

  Each forward set upon its ordered course.

  And all night long the captains of the fleet

  Kept their crews moving up and down the strait.

  So the night waned, and not one Grecian ship

  Made effort to elude and slip away.

  But as dawn came and with her coursers white

  Shone in fair radiance over all the earth,

  First from the Grecian fleet rang out a cry,

  A song of onset! and the island crags

  Re-echoed to the shrill exulting sound.

  Then on us Eastern men amazement fell

  And fear in place of hope; for what we heard

  Was not a call to flight! the Greeks rang out

  Their holy, resolute, exulting chant,

  Like men come forth to dare and do and die

  Their trumpets pealed, and fire was in that sound,

  And with the dash of simultaneous oars

  Replying to the war-chant, on they came,

  Smiting the swirling brine, and in a trice

  They flashed upon the vision of the foe!

  The right wing first in orderly advance

  Came on, a steady column; following then,

  The rest of their array moved out and on,

  And to our ears there came a burst of sound,

  A clamour manifold. — On, sons of Greece!

  On, for your country’s freedom! strike to save

  Wives, children, temples of ancestral gods,

  Graves of your fathers! now is all at stake.

  Then from our side swelled up the mingled din

  Of Persian tongues, and time brooked no delay —

  Ship into ship drave hard its brazen beak

  With speed of thought, a shattering blow! and first

  One Grecian bark plunged straight, and sheared away

  Bowsprit and stem of a Phoenician ship.

  And then each galley on some other’s prow

  Came crashing in. Awhile our stream of ships

  Held onward, till within the narrowing creek

  Our jostling vessels were together driven,

  And none could aid another: each on each

  Drave hard their brazen beaks, or brake away

  The oar-banks of each other, stem to stern,

  While the Greek galleys, with no lack of skill,

  Hemmed them and battered in their sides, and soon

  The hulls rolled over, and the sea was hid,

  Crowded with wrecks and butchery of men.

  No beach nor reef but was with corpses strewn,

  And every keel of our barbarian host

  Hurried to flee, in utter disarray.

  Thereon the foe closed in upon the wrecks

  And hacked and hewed, with oars and splintered planks,

  As fishermen hack tunnies or a cast

  Of netted dolphins, and the briny sea

  Rang with the screams and shrieks of dying men,

  Until the night’s dark aspect hid the scene.

  Had I a ten days’ time to sum that count

  Of carnage, ‘twere too little! know this well —

  One day ne’er saw such myriad forms of death!

  ATOSSA

  Woe on us, woe! disaster’s mighty sea

  Hath burst on us and all the Persian realm!

  MESSENGER

  Be well assured, the tale is but begun —

  The further agony that on us fell

  Doth twice outweigh the sufferings I have told!

  ATOSSA

  Nay, what disaster could be worse than this?

  Say on! what woe upon the army came,

  Swaying the scale to a yet further fall?

  MESSENGER

  The very flower and crown of Persia’s race,

  Gallant of soul and glorious in descent,

  And highest held in trust before the king,

  Lies shamefully and miserably slain.

  ATOSSA

  Alas for me and for this ruin, friends!

  Dead, sayest thou? by what fate overthrown?

  MESSENGER

  An islet is there, fronting Salamis —

  Strait, and with evil anchorage: thereon

  Pan treads the measure of the dance he loves

  Along the sea-beach. Thither the king sent

  His noblest, that, whene’er the Grecian foe

  Should ‘scape, with shattered ships, unto the isle,

  We might make easy prey of fugitives

  And slay them there, and from the washing tides

  Rescue our friends. It fell out otherwise

  Than he divined, for when, by aid of Heaven,

  The Hellenes held the victory on the sea,

  Their sailors then and there begirt themselves

  With brazen mail and bounded from their ships,

  And then enringed the islet, point by point,

  So that our Persians in bewilderment

  Knew not which way to turn. On every side,

  Battered with stones, they fell, while arrows flew

  From many a string, and smote them to the death.

  Then, at the last, with simultaneous rush

  The foe came bursting on us, hacked and hewed

  To fragments all that miserable band,

  Till not a soul of them was left alive.

  Then Xerxes saw disaster’s depth, and shrieked,

  From where he sat on high, surveying all —

  A lofty eminence, beside the brine,

  Whence all his armament lay clear in view.

  His robe he rent, with loud and bitter wail,

  And to his land-force swiftly gave command

  And fled, with shame beside him! Now, lament

  That second woe, upon the first imposed!

  ATOSSA

  Out on thee, Fortune! thou hast foiled the hope

  And power of Persia: to this bitter end

  My son went forth to wreak his great revenge

  On famous Athens! all too few they seemed,

  Our men who died upon the Fennel-field!

  Vengeance for them my son had mind to take,

  And drew on his own head these whelming woes.

  But thou, say on! the ships that ‘scaped from wreck —

  Where didst thou leave them? make thy story clear.

  MESSENGER

  The captains of the ships that still survived

  Fled in disorder, scudding down the wind,

  The while our land-force on Boeotian soil

  Fell into ruin, some beside the springs


  Dropping before they drank, and some outworn,

  Pursued, and panting all their life away.

  The rest of us our way to Phocis won,

  And thence to Doris and the Melian gulf,

  Where with soft stream Spercheus laves the soil.

  Thence to the northward did Phthiotis’ plain,

  And some Thessalian fortress, lend us aid,

  For famine-pinched we were, and many died

  Of drought and hunger’s twofold present scourge.

  Thence to Magnesia came we, and the land

  Where Macedonians dwell, and crossed the ford

  Of Axius, and Bolbe’s reedy fen,

  And mount Pangaeus, in Edonian land.

  There, in the very night we came, the god

  Brought winter ere its time, from bank to bank

  Freezing the holy Strymon’s tide. Each man

  Who heretofore held lightly of the gods,

  Now crouched and proffered prayer to Earth and Heaven!

  Then, after many orisons performed,

  The army ventured on the frozen ford:

  Yet only those who crossed before the sun

  Shed its warm rays, won to the farther side.

  For soon the fervour of the glowing orb

  Did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream,

  And men sank through and thrust each other down —

  Best was his lot whose breath was stifled first!

  But all who struggled through and gained the bank,

  Toilfully wending through the land of Thrace

  Have made their way, a sorry, scanted few,

  Unto this homeland. Let the city now

  Lament and yearn for all the loved and lost.

  My tale is truth, yet much untold remains

  Of ills that Heaven hath hurled upon our land.

  CHORUS

  Spirit of Fate, too heavy were thy feet,

  Those ill to match! that sprang on Persia’s realm.

  ATOSSA

  Woe for the host, to wrack and ruin hurled!

  O warning of the night, prophetic dream!

  Thou didst foreshadow clearly all the doom,

  While ye, old men, made light of woman’s fears!

  Ah well — yet, as your divination ruled

  The meaning of the sign, I hold it good,

  First, that I put up prayer unto the gods,

  And, after that, forth from my palace bring

  The sacrificial cake, the offering due

  To Earth and to the spirits of the dead.

  Too well I know it is a timeless rite

  Over a finished thing that cannot change!

  But yet — I know not — there may come of it

  Alleviation for the after time.

  You it beseems, in view of what hath happed,

  T’ advise with loyal hearts our loyal guards:

  And to my son — if, ere my coming forth,

  He should draw hitherward — give comfort meet,

  Escort him to the palace in all state,

  Lest to these woes he add another woe!