Four Plays of Aeschylus Part 15

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