Four Plays of Aeschylus Part 14

But we will bring a host more skilled than huge.

GHOST OF DARIUS

Why, e'en that army, camped in h.e.l.las still, Shall never win again to home and weal!

CHORUS

How say'st thou? will not all the Asian host Pa.s.s back from Europe over h.e.l.le's ford?

GHOST OF DARIUS

Nay-scarce a t.i.the 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 G.o.d-forgetting pride!

For why? they raided h.e.l.las, had the heart To wrong the images of holy G.o.ds, And give the shrines and temples to the flame!

Defaced and dashed from sight the altars fell, And each G.o.d'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 ma.s.s 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 h.e.l.las. Let no mortal wight, Holding too lightly of his present weal And pa.s.sionate 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 G.o.ds already, To curb the vaunting that affronts high Heaven!

And thou, O venerable Mother-queen, Beloved of Xerxes, to the palace pa.s.s 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 unst.i.tched, 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.ds, 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 pa.s.sed!

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 h.e.l.le, 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.d! 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, pa.s.s'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 h.e.l.l With bowmen brave, who n.o.bly 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 a.s.suage!

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 plas.h.i.+ng tears our sorrow's tale, Lamenting for the loved and lost!

XERXES

Alas, the G.o.d of war, who sways The scales of fight in diverse ways, Gives glory to Ionia!

Ionian s.h.i.+ps, in fenced array, Have reaped their harvest in the bay, A darkling harvest-field of Fate, A sea, a sh.o.r.e, 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 Pharandakes 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 n.o.ble sire?

Are Tharubis and Memphis sped?

Hystaechmas, Artembares 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!