Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (5 page)

CHORUS
How meanest thou? by what defensive power?

GHOST OF DARIUS
She wastes by famine a too countless foe.

CHORUS
But we will bring a host more skilled than huge.

GHOST OF DARIUS
Why, e’en that army, camped in Hellas
still,
Shall never win again to home and weal!

CHORUS
How say’st thou? will not all the Asian host
Pass back from Europe over Helle’s ford?

GHOST OF DARIUS
Nay — scarce a tithe of all those myriads,
If man may trust the oracles of Heaven
When he beholds the things already wrought,
Not false with true, but true with no word false
If what I trow be truth, my son has left
A chosen rear-guard of our host, in whom
He trusts, now, with a random confidence!
They tarry where Asopus laves the ground
With rills that softly bless Boeotia’s
plain —
There is it fated for them to endure
The very crown of misery and doom,
Requital for their god-forgetting pride!
For why? they raided Hellas, had the heart
To wrong the images of holy gods,
And give the shrines and temples to the flame!
Defaced and dashed from sight the altars fell,
And each god’s image, from its pedestal
Thrust and flung down, in dim confusion lies!
Therefore, for outrage vile, a doom as dark
They suffer, and yet more shall undergo —
They touch no bottom in the swamp of doom,
But round them rises, bubbling up, the ooze!
So deep shall lie the gory clotted mass
Of corpses by the Dorian spear transfixed
Upon Plataea’s
field! yea, piles of slain
To the third generation shall attest
By silent eloquence to those that see —
Let not a mortal vaunt him overmuch
.
For pride grows rankly, and to ripeness brings
The curse of fate, and reaps, for harvest, tears!
Therefore when ye behold, for deeds like these,
Such stern requital paid, remember then
Athens and Hellas.
Let no mortal wight,
Holding too lightly of his present weal
And passionate for more, cast down and spill
The mighty cup of his prosperity!
Doubt not that over-proud and haughty souls
Zeus lours in wrath, exacting the account.
Therefore, with wary warning, school my son,
Though he be lessoned by the gods already,
To curb the vaunting that affronts high Heaven!
And thou, O venerable Mother-queen,
Beloved of Xerxes, to the palace pass
And take therefrom such raiment as befits
Thy son, and go to meet him: for his garb
In this extremity of grief hangs rent
Around his body, woefully unstitched,
Mere tattered fragments of once royal robes!
Go thou to him, speak soft and soothing words —
Thee, and none other, will he bear to hear,
As well I know. But I must pass away
From earth above, unto the nether gloom;
Therefore, old men, take my farewell, and clasp,
Even amid the ruin of this time,
Unto your souls the pleasure of the day,
For dead men have no profit of their gold!
       
[
The
GHOST OF DARIUS
sinks
.

CHORUS
Alas, I thrill with pain for Persia’s woes —
Many fulfilled, and others hard at hand!

ATOSSA
O spirit of the race, what sorrows crowd
Upon me! and this anguish stings me worst,
That round my royal son’s dishonoured form
Hang rags and tatters, degradation deep!
I will away, and, bringing from within
A seemly royal robe, will straightway strive
To meet and greet my son: foul scorn it were
To leave our dearest in his hour of shame.
       
[
Exit
ATOSSA.

CHORUS
Ah glorious and goodly they were,
   
the life and the lot that we
gained,
The cities we held in our hand
   
when the monarch invincible
reigned,
The king that was good to his realm,
   
sufficing, fulfilled of his sway,
A lord that was peer of the gods,
   
the pride of the bygone day!
Then could we show to the skies
   
great hosts and a glorious name,
And laws that were stable in might;
   
as towers they guarded our fame!
There without woe or disaster
   
we came from the foe and the
fight,
In triumph, enriched with the spoil,
   
to the land and the city’s
delight.
What towns ere the Halys he passed!
   
what towns ere he came to the
West,
To the main and the isles of the Strymon,
   
and the Thracian region possess’d!
And those that stand back from the main,
   
enringed by their fortified wall,
Gave o’er to Darius, the king,
   
the sceptre and sway over all!
Those too by the channel of Helle,
   
where southward it broadens and
glides,
By the inlets, Propontis! of thee,
   
and the strait of the Pontic
tides,
And the isles that lie fronting our sea-board,
   
and the Eastland looks on each
one,
Lesbo and Chios and Paros,
   
and Samos with olive-trees grown,
And Naxos, and Myconos’ rock,
  
 
and Tenos with Andros hard by,
And isles that in midmost Aegean,
   
aloof from the continent, lie —
And Lemnos and Icaros’ hold —
  
all these to his sceptre were
bowed,
And Cnidos and neighbouring Rhodes,
   
and Soli, and Paphos the proud,
And Cyprian Salamis, name-child of her
   
who hath wrought us this wrong!
Yea, and all the Ionian tract,
   
where the Greek-born inhabitants
throng,
And the cities are teeming with gold —
   
Darius was lord of them all,
And, great by his wisdom, he ruled,
   
and ever there came to his call,
In stalwart array and unfailing,
   
the warrior chiefs of our land,
And mingled allies from the tribes
   
who bowed to his conquering hand!
But now there are none to gainsay
   
that the gods are against us; we
lie
Subdued in the havoc of wreck,
   
and whelmed by the wrath of the
sky!
              
[
Enter
XERXES
in
disarray
.

XERXES
Alas the day, that I should fall
Into this grimmest fate of all,
 
This ruin doubly unforeseen!
On Persia’s
land what power of Fate
Descends, what louring gloom of hate?
 
How shall I bear my teen?
My limbs are loosened where they stand,
When I behold this aged band —
Oh God! I would that I too, I,
 
Among the men who went to die,
Were whelmed in earth by Fate’s command!

CHORUS
Ah welladay, my King! ah woe
For all our heroes’ overthrow —
 
For all the gallant host’s array,
 
For Persia’s honour, pass’d away,
 
For glory and heroic sway
 
Mown down by Fortune’s hand to-day!
Hark, how the kingdom makes its moan,
For youthful valour lost and gone,
By Xerxes shattered and undone!
 
He, he hath crammed the maw of hell
 
With bowmen brave, who nobly fell,
Their country’s mighty armament,
Ten thousand heroes deathward sent!
 
Alas, for all the valiant band,
 
O king and lord! thine Asian land
Down, down upon its knee is bent!

XERXES
Alas, a lamentable sound,
A cry of ruth! for I am found
A curse to land and lineage,
With none my sorrow to assuage!

CHORUS
Alas, a death-song desolate
 
I send forth, for thy home-coming!
A scream, a dirge for woe and fate,
 
Such as the Asian mourners sing,
A sorry and ill-omened tale
Of tears and shrieks and Eastern wail!

XERXES
Ay, launch the woeful sorrow’s cry,
The harsh, discordant melody,
For lo, the power, we held for sure,
Hath turned to my discomfiture!

CHORUS
Yea, dirges, dirges manifold
Will I send forth, for warriors bold,
For the sea-sorrow of our host!
The city mourns, and I must wail
With plashing tears our sorrow’s tale,
Lamenting for the loved and lost!

XERXES
Alas, the god of war, who sways
The scales of fight in diverse ways,
Gives glory to Ionia!
Ionian ships, in fenced array,
Have reaped their harvest in the bay,
A darkling harvest-field of Fate,
A sea, a shore, of doom and hate!

CHORUS
Cry out, and learn the tale of woe!
Where are thy comrades?
 
where the
band
Who stood beside thee, hand in hand,
 
A little while ago?
Where now hath Pharandákes gone,
Where Psammis, and where Pelagon?
Where now is brave Agdabatas,
And Susas too, and Datamas?
Hath Susiscanes past away,
The chieftain of Ecbatana?

XERXES
I left them, mangled castaways,
 
Flung from their Tyrian deck, and
tossed
On Salaminian water-ways,
 
From surging tides to rocky coast!

CHORUS
Alack, and is Pharnuchus slain,
And Ariomardus, brave in vain?
Where is Seualces’ heart of fire?
Lilaeus, child of noble sire?
Are Tharubis and Memphis
sped?
Hystaechmas, Artembáres dead?
And where is brave Masistes, where?
Sum up death’s count, that I may hear!

XERXES
Alas, alas, they came, their eyes surveyed
Ancestral Athens on that fatal day.
Then with a rending struggle were they laid
Upon the land, and gasped their life away!

CHORUS
And Batanochus’ child, Alpistus great,
 
Surnamed the Eye of State —
Saw you and left you him who once of old
Ten thousand thousand fighting-men enrolled?
His sire was child of Sesamas, and he
From Megabates sprang.
 
Ah, woe is
me,
 
Thou king of evil fate!
Hast thou lost Parthus, lost Oebares great?
 
Alas, the sorrow!
 
blow succeedeth blow
On Persia’s
pride; thou tellest woe on woe!

XERXES
Bitter indeed the pang for comrades slain,
 
The brave and bold! thou strikest
to my soul
Pain, pain beyond forgetting, hateful pain.
 
My inner spirit sobs and sighs with
dole!

CHORUS
Another yet we yearn to see,
And see not! ah, thy chivalry,
Xanthis, thou chief of Mardian men
Countless! and thou, Anchares bright,
And ye, whose cars controlled the fight,
Arsaces and Diaixis wight,
Kegdadatas, Lythimnas dear,
And Tolmus, greedy of the spear!
I stand bereft! not in thy train
Come they, as erst! ah, ne’er again
Shall they return unto our eyes,
Car-borne, ‘neath silken canopies!

XERXES
Yea, gone are they who mustered once the host!

CHORUS
Yea, yea, forgotten, lost!

XERXES
Alas, the woe and cost!

CHORUS
Alas, ye heavenly powers!
Ye wrought a sorrow past belief,
 
A woe, of woes the chief!
With aspect stern, upon us Ate looms!

XERXES
Smitten are we — time tells no heavier blow!

CHORUS
Smitten! the doom is plain!

XERXES
Curse upon curse and pang on pang we know!

CHORUS
With the Ionian power
We clashed, in evil hour!
Woe falls on Persia’s
race, yea, woe again, again!

XERXES
Yea, smitten am I, and my host is all to ruin hurled!

CHORUS
Yea verily — in mighty wreck hath sunk the Persian world!

XERXES (
holding up a torn robe and
a quiver
)
See you this tattered rag of pride?

CHORUS
I see it, welladay!

XERXES
See you this quiver?

CHORUS
Say, hath aught survived and ‘scaped the fray?

XERXES
A store for darts it was, erewhile!

CHORUS
Remain but two or three!

XERXES
No aid is left!

CHORUS
Ionian folk such darts, unfearing, see!

XERXES
Right resolute they are! I saw disaster unforeseen.

CHORUS
Ah, speakest thou of wreck, of flight, of carnage that hath been?

XERXES
Yea, and my royal robe I rent, in terror at their fall!

CHORUS
Alas, alas!

XERXES
Yea, thrice alas!

CHORUS
For all have perished, all!

XERXES
Ah woe to us, ah joy to them who stood against our pride!

CHORUS
And all our strength is minished and sundered from our side!

XERXES
No escort have I!

CHORUS
Nay, thy friends are whelmed beneath the tide!

XERXES
Wail, wail the miserable doom, and to the palace hie!

CHORUS
Alas, alas, and woe again!

XERXES
Shriek, smite the breast, as I!

CHORUS
An evil gift, a sad exchange, of tears poured out in vain!

XERXES
Shrill out your simultaneous wail!

CHORUS
Alas the woe and pain!

XERXES
O, bitter is this adverse fate!

CHORUS
I voice the moan with thee!

XERXES
Smite, smite thy bosom, groan aloud for my calamity!

CHORUS
I mourn and am dissolved in tears!

XERXES
Cry, beat thy breast amain!

CHORUS
O king, my heart is in thy woe!

XERXES
Shriek, wail, and shriek again!

CHORUS
O agony!

XERXES
A blackening blow —