Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Read Free Page B

first!But all who struggled through and gained the bank,Toilfully wending through the land
of ThraceHave made their way, a sorry, scanted few,Unto this homeland. Let the city nowLament and yearn for all the loved and lost.My tale is truth, yet much untold remainsOf 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 ruledThe meaning of the sign, I hold it good,First, that I put up prayer unto the gods,And, after that, forth from my palace bringThe sacrificial cake, the offering dueTo Earth and to the spirits of the dead.Too well I know it is a timeless riteOver a finished thing that cannot change!But yet — I know not — there may come of itAlleviation 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!            [ Exit ATOSSA.
    CHORUS Zeus, lord and king! to death and noughtOur countless host by thee is brought.Deep in the gloom of death, to-day,Lie Susa and Ecbatana:How many a maid in sorrow standsAnd rends her tire with tender hands!How tears run down, in common painAnd woeful mourning for the slain!O delicate in dole and grief,Ye Persian women! past reliefIs now your sorrow! to the warYour loved ones went and come no more!Gone from you is your joy and pride —Severed the bridegroom from the bride —The wedded couch luxuriousIs widowed now, and all the housePines ever with insatiate sighs,And we stand here and bid arise,For those who forth in ardour wentAnd come not back, the loud lament!
    Land of the East, thou mournest for
the host,Bereft of all thy sons, alas the day!For them whom Xerxes led hath Xerxes lost —Xerxes who wrecked the fleet, and flung our hopes away!
    How came it that Darius once
controlled,And without scathe, the army of the bow,Loved by the folk of Susa,
wise and bold?Now is the land-force lost, the shipmen sunk below!
    Ah for the ships that bore them, woe is
me!Bore them to death and   doom!    the   crashing prowsOf fierce Ionian oarsmen swept the sea,And death was in their wake, and shipwreck murderous!
    Late, late and hardly — if true tales
they tell —Did Xerxes flee along the wintry wayAnd snows of Thrace
— but ah, the first who fellLie by the rocks or float upon Cychrea’s bay!
      Mourn, each and all! waft heavenward your cry,     Stung to the soul, bereaved,
disconsolate!   Wail out your anguish, till it
pierce the sky,In shrieks of deep despair, ill-omened, desperate!
      The dead are drifting, yea, are gnawed upon     By voiceless children of the
stainless sea,   Or battered by the surge! we mourn
and groanFor husbands gone to death, for childless agony!
      Alas the aged men, who mourn to-day     The ruinous sorrows that the gods
ordain!   O’er the wide Asian land, the
Persian swayCan force no tribute now, and can no rule sustain.
      Yea, men will crouch no more to fallen power     And kingship overthrown! the
whole land o’er,   Men speak the thing they will, and
from this hourThe folk whom Xerxes ruled obey his word no more.
      The yoke of force is broken from the neck —     The isle of Ajax
and th’ encircling wave   Reek with a bloody crop of death
and wreckOf Persia’s
fallen power, that none can lift nor save!                   [ Re-enter ATOSSA, in mourning robes .
    ATOSSA Friends, whosoe’er is versed in human ills,Knoweth right well that when a wave of woeComes on a man, he sees in all things fear;While, in flood-tide of fortune, ’tis his moodTo take that fortune as