Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments

_Translated by the late_

E. H. Plumptre D.D.

_Dean of Wells_

With Notes And Rhymed Choral Odes

In Two Parts

Boston U.S.A.

D. C. Heath & Co. Publishers

1901

Publisher'S Note

_The reception accorded to the pocket edition of Dean Plumptre's “Dante” has encouraged the publishers to issue in the same_ format _the Dean's masterly translation of the Tragedies of Æschylos._

_In preparing the present issue they have followed the carefully revised text of the second edition, and have included the scholarly and suggestive annotations with which the Dean invariably delighted to enrich his work as a translator._

_The seven Plays, which are all that remain of the seventy or eighty with which Æschylos is credited, are presented in their chronological order. Passages in which the reading or the rendering is more or less conjectural, and in which, accordingly, the aid of the commentator is advisable, are marked by an asterisk; and passages which are regarded as spurious by editors of authority have been placed in brackets._

_In translating the Choral Odes the Dean used such unrhymed metres—observing the strophic and antistrophic arrangement—as seemed to him most analogous in their general rhythmical effect to those of the original. He added in an appendix, however, for the sake of those who preferred the rhymed form with which they were familiar, a rhymed version of the chief Odes of the Oresteian trilogy. Those in the other dramas did not appear to him to be of equal interest, or to lend themselves with equal facility to a like attempt. The Greek text on which the translation is based is, for the most part, that of Mr. Paley's edition of 1861._

_A translation was also given of the Fragments which have survived the wreck of the lost plays, so that the work contains all that has been left to us associated with the name of Æschylos._

_In the present edition a chronological outline has been substituted for the biographical sketch of the poet, who from his daring enlargement of the scope of the drama, the magnificence of his spectacular effects and the splendour of his genius, was rightly honoured as “the Father of Tragedy.”_

Part I

_Page_

Chronological Outline Of The Life Of æSchylos 11

The Persians 17

The Seven Who Fought Against Thebes 65

Prometheus Bound 113

The Suppliants 161

Part II

_Page_

Agamemnon 9

The Libation-Pourers 87

Eumenides 137

Fragments 185

Rhymed Choruses

_From_ Agamemnon 191

_From_ The Libation-Pourers 210

_From_ Eumenides 219

Chronological Outline Of The Life Of æSchylos

B.C.

527 Peisistratos died.

525 Birth at Eleusis, in Attica, of Æschylos, son of Euphorion.

510 Expulsion of the Peisistratidæ. Democratic constitution of Cleisthenes.

Approximate date of incident in the legend that Æschylos was set to watch grapes as they were ripening for the vintage, and fell asleep; and lo! as he slept Dionysos appeared to him and bade him give himself to write tragedies for the great festival of the god. And when he awoke, he found himself invested with new powers of thought and utterance, and the work was as easy to him as if he had been trained to it for many years (Pausan, _Att._ i. 21, § 3).[1]

500 Birth of Anaxagoras.

499 Æschylos exhibited his first tragedy, in unsuccessful competition with Pratinas and Chœrilos.

The wooden scaffolding broke beneath the crowd of spectators, and the accident led the Athenians to build their first stone theatre for the Dionysiac festivals.

Partly out of annoyance at his defeat, it is said, and partly in a spirit of adventure, Æschylos sailed for Sicily.

497 Death of Pythagoras (?).

495 Birth of Sophocles at Colonos.

491 Æschylos at Athens.

490 The Battle of Marathon. Æschylos and his brothers, Kynægeiros and Ameinias, so distinguished themselves, that the Athenians ordered their heroic deeds to be commemorated in a picture.

Death of Theognis (?).

488 Prize awarded to Simonides for an elegy on Marathon. Æschylos, piqued, it is said, at his failure in the competition, again departed to Sicily.

485 Xerxes succeeded Dareios.

484 Æschylos won, in a dramatic contest with Pratinas, Chœrilos, and Phrynichos, the first of a series of thirteen successes.

Birth of Herodotos.

480 Athens burnt by Xerxes.

Æschylos fought at Artemisium and Salamis. At Salamis his brother Ameinias lost his hand, and was awarded the prize of valour.

Sophocles led the Chorus of Victory.

Birth of Euripides.

479 Æschylos at the Battle of Platæa.

477 Commencement of Athenian supremacy.

473 Æschylos carried off the first prize with _The Persians_ (the first of the extant plays), which belonged to a tetralogy that included two tragedies, _Phineus_ and _Glaucos_, and a satyric drama, _Prometheus the Fire-stealer_.

_The Persians_ has the interest of being a contemporary record of the great sea-fight at Salamis by an eye-witness.

471 Æschylos appears to have produced this year his next tetralogy, of which _The Seven against Thebes_ survives.

The play was directed against the policy of aiming at the supremacy of Athens by attacking other Greek States, and, in brief, maintained the policy of Aristeides as against that of Themistocles.

Birth of Thucydides.

468 Sophocles gained his first victory in tragedy with his _Triptolemos_; Æschylos defeated.

Æschylos charged with impiety, on the ground that he had profaned the Mysteries by introducing on the stage rites known only to the initiated; tried and acquitted; departure for Syracuse.

467 Æschylos at the court of Hieron at Syracuse, where he is said to have composed dramas on local legends, such as _The Women of Ætna_.

Death of Simonides.

461 Ostracism of Kimon; ascendency of Pericles.

460-59 Probable date of _The Suppliants_, if the play be connected with the alliance between Argos and Athens (B.C. 461), and the war with the Persian forces in Egypt, upon which the Athenians had entered as allies of the Libyan Prince Inaros. (B.C. 460.)

The date of _Prometheus Bound_ has been referred to B.C. 470 on the strength of a description of Ætna (vv. 370-380), which is supposed to be a reference to the eruption of B.C. 477. Internal evidence, however, seems to warrant the view that _The Suppliants_ and the _Prometheus Bound_ were separated by only a brief interval of time.

458 Æschylos in Athens. He found new men and new methods; institutions, held most sacred as the safeguard of Athenian religion, were being criticised and attacked; the Court of Areiopagos was threatened with abolition under pretence of reform.

Production of the Oresteian Trilogy (or, rather, tetralogy, as in addition to the _Agamemnon_, the _Libation-pourers_, and the _Eumenides_, there was a satyric drama, _Proteus_).

This trilogy was a conservative protest, religious, social, and political, which culminated in the assertion of the divine authority of the Areiopagos.

Popular feeling was once more excited against the poet, who left Athens never to return, and settled at Gela, in Sicily, under the patronage of Hieron.

456 Death of Æschylos, aged 69.

An oracle foretold that he was to die by a blow from heaven, and according to the legend, an eagle, mistaking the poet's head for a stone as he sat writing, dropped a tortoise on it to break the shell.

He was buried at Gela, and his epitaph, ascribed to himself, ran: “Beneath this stone lies Æschylos, son of Euphorion. At fertile Gela he died. Marathon can tell of his tested manhood, and the Persians who there felt his mettle.”

He is said to have produced between seventy and eighty plays, of which only seven survive.

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Footnote 1:

_Cf._, the legend of Caedmon, “the Father of English Song.”

The Persians[2]

Dramatis Personæ

Atossa

_Ghost of_ DAREIOS

_Messenger_

Xerxes

_Chorus of Persian Elders_

_ARGUMENT.—When Xerxes came to the throne of Persia, remembering how his father Dareios had sought to subdue the land of the Hellenes, and seeking to avenge the defeat of Datis and Artaphernes on the field of Marathon, he gathered together a mighty host of all nations under his dominion, and led them against Hellas. And at first he prospered and prevailed, crossed the Hellespont, and defeated the Spartans at Thermopylæ, and took the city of Athens, from which the greater part of its citizens had fled. But at last he and his armament met with utter overthrow at Salamis. Meanwhile Atossa, the mother of Xerxes, with her handmaids and the elders of the Persians, waited anxiously at Susa, where was the palace of the great king, for tidings of her son._

-----

Footnote 2:

_Note._—Within two years after the battle of Salamis, the feeling of natural exultation was met by Phrynichos in a tragedy bearing the title of _The Phœnikians_, and having for its subject the defeat of Xerxes. As he had come under the displeasure of the Athenian _demos_ for having brought on the stage the sufferings of their Ionian kinsmen in his _Capture of Miletos_, he was apparently anxious to regain his popularity by a “sensation” drama of another kind; and his success seems to have prompted Æschylos to a like attempt five years later, B.C. 473. The Tetralogy to which the play belonged, and which gained the first prize on its representation, included the two tragedies (unconnected in subject) of _Phineus_ and _Glaucos_, and the satyric drama of _Prometheus the Fire-stealer_.

The play has, therefore, the interest of being strictly a contemporary narrative of the battle of Salamis and its immediate consequences, by one who may himself have been present at it, and whose brother Ameinias (Herod, viii. 93) distinguished himself in it by a special act of heroism. As such, making all allowance for the influence of dramatic exigencies, and the tendency to colour history so as to meet the tastes of patriotic Athenians, it may claim, where it differs from the story told by Herodotos, to be a more trustworthy record. And it has, we must remember, the interest of being the only extant drama of its class, the only tragedy the subject of which is not taken from the cycle of heroic myths, but from the national history of the time. Far below the Oresteian Trilogy as it may seem to us as a work of art, having more the character of a spectacle than a poem, it was, we may well believe, unusually successful at the time, and it is said to have been chosen by Hiero for reproduction in Syracuse after Æschylos had settled there under his patronage.

The Persians

SCENE.—SUSA, _in front of the palace of_ XERXES, _the tomb of_ DAREIOS _occupying the position of the thymele_

_Enter Chorus of_ Persian Elders.

We the title bear of Faithful,[3] Friends of Persians gone to Hellas, Watchers left of treasure city,[4] Gold-abounding, whom, as oldest, Xerxes hath himself appointed, He, the offspring of Dareios, As the warders of his country. And about our king's returning, And our army's, gold-abounding, Over-much, and boding evil, 10 Does my mind within me shudder (For our whole force, Asia's offspring, Now is gone), and for our young chief Sorely frets: nor courier cometh, Nor any horseman, bringing tidings To the city of the Persians. From Ecbatana departing, Susa, or the Kissian fortress,[5] Forth they sped upon their journey, Some in ships, and some on horses, Some on foot, still onward marching, In their close array presenting Squadrons duly armed for battle: 20 Then Armistres, Artaphernes, Megabazes, and Astaspes, Mighty leaders of the Persians, Kings, and of the great King servants,[6] March, the chiefs of mighty army. Archers they and mounted horsemen. Dread to look on, fierce in battle, Artembares proud, on horseback, And Masistres, and Imæos, 30 Archer famed, and Pharandakes, And the charioteer Sosthanes. Neilos mighty and prolific Sent forth others, Susikanes, Pegastagon, Egypt's offspring, And the chief of sacred Memphis; Great Arsames, Ariomardos, Ruler of primeval Thebæ, And the marsh-men,[7] and the rowers, Dread, and in their number countless. 40 And there follow crowds of Lydians, Very delicate and stately,[8] Who the people of the mainland Rule throughout—whom Mitragathes And brave Arkteus, kingly chieftains, Led, from Sardis, gold-abounding, Riding on their many chariots, Three or four a-breast their horses, Sight to look upon all dreadful. And the men of sacred Tmôlos[9] Rush to place the yoke of bondage On the neck of conquered Hellas. 50 Mardon, Tharabis, spear-anvils,[10] And the Mysians, javelin-darting;[11] Babylôn too, gold-abounding, Sends a mingled cloud, swept onward, Both the troops who man the vessels, And the skilled and trustful bowmen; And the race the sword that beareth, Follows from each clime of Asia, At the great King's dread commandment. These, the bloom of Persia's greatness, Now are gone forth to the battle; 60 And for these, their mother country, Asia, mourns with mighty yearning; Wives and mothers faint with trembling Through the hours that slowly linger, Counting each day as it passes.

Strophe I

The king's great host, destroying cities mighty, Hath to the land beyond the sea passed over, Crossing the straits of Athamantid Helle,[12] 70 On raft by ropes secured, And thrown his path, compact of many a vessel, As yoke upon the neck of mighty ocean.

Antistrophe I

Of populous Asia thus the mighty ruler 'Gainst all the land his God-sent host directeth In two divisions, both by land and water, Trusting the chieftains stern, The men who drive the host to fight, relentless— He, sprung from gold-born race, a hero godlike.[13] 80

Strophe II

Glancing with darkling look, and eyes as of ravening dragon, With many a hand, and many a ship, and Syrian chariot driving,[14] He upon spearmen renowned brings battle of conquering arrows.[15]

Antistrophe II

Yea, there is none so tried as, withstanding the flood of the mighty,90 To keep within steadfast bounds that wave of ocean resistless; Hard to fight is the host of the Persians, the people stout-hearted.

Mesode

Yet ah! what mortal can ward the craft of the God all-deceiving? *Who, with a nimble foot, of one leap is easily sovereign? For Atè, fawning and kind, at first a mortal betraying, 100 Then in snares and meshes decoys him, Whence one who is but man in vain doth struggle to 'scape from.

Strophe III

For Fate of old, by the high Gods' decree, Prevailed, and on the Persians laid this task, Wars with the crash of towers, And set the surge of horsemen in array, And the fierce sack that lays a city low. 110

Antistrophe III

But now they learnt to look on ocean plains,[16] The wide sea hoary with the violent blast, Waxing o'er confident In cables formed of many a slender strand, And rare device of transport for the host.

Strophe IV

So now my soul is torn, As clad in mourning, in its sore affright, Ah me! ah me! for all the Persian host! 120 Lest soon our country learn That Susa's mighty fort is void of men.

Antistrophe IV

And through the Kissians' town Shall echo heavy thud of hands on breast. Woe! woe! when all the crowd of women speak This utterance of great grief, And byssine robes are rent in agony.

Strophe V

For all the horses strong, And host that march on foot, Like swarm of bees, have gone with him who led 130 The vanguard of the host. Crossing the sea-washed, bridge-built promontory That joins the shores of either continent.[17]

Antistrophe V

And beds with tears are wet In grief for husbands gone, And Persian wives are delicate in grief, Each yearning for her lord; And each who sent her warrior-spouse to battle 140 Now mourns at home in dreary solitude. But come, ye Persians now, And sitting in this ancient hall of ours, Let us take thought deep-counselling and wise, (Sore need is there of that,) How fareth now the great king Xerxes, he Who calls Dareios sire, Bearing the name our father bore of old? Is it the archers' bow that wins the day? Or does the strength prevail 150 Of iron point that heads the spear's strong shaft? But lo! in glory like the face of gods, The mother of my king, my queen, appears: Let us do reverent homage at her feet; Yea, it is meet that all Should speak to her with words of greeting kind.

_Enter_ ATOSSA _in a chariot of state_

_Chor._ O sovereign queen of Persian wives deep-zoned, Mother of Xerxes, reverend in thine age, Wife of Dareios! hail! 'Twas thine to join in wedlock with a spouse Whom Persians owned as God,[18] And of a God thou art the mother too, Unless its ancient Fortune fails our host. 160

_Atoss._ Yes, thus I come, our gold-decked palace leaving, The bridal bower Dareios with me slept in. Care gnaws my heart, but now I tell you plainly A tale, my friends, which may not leave me fearless, Lest boastful wealth should stumble at the threshold, And with his foot o'erturn the prosperous fortune That great Dareios raised with Heaven's high blessing. And twofold care untold my bosom haunteth: We may not honour wealth that has no warriors, Nor on the poor shines light to strength proportioned; Wealth without stint we have, yet for our eye we tremble; 170 For as the eye of home I deem a master's presence. Wherefore, ye Persians, aid me now in counsel; Trusty and old, in you lies hope of wisdom.

_Chor._ Queen of our land! be sure thou need'st not utter Or thing or word twice o'er, which power may point to; Thou bid'st us counsel give who fain would serve thee.

_Atoss._ Ever with many visions of the night[19] Am I encompassed, since my son went forth, Leading a mighty host, with aim to sack The land of the Ionians. But ne'er yet 180 Have I beheld a dream so manifest As in the night just past. And this I'll tell thee: There stood by me two women in fair robes; And this in Persian garments was arrayed, And that in Dorian came before mine eyes; In stature both of tallest, comeliest size; And both of faultless beauty, sisters twain Of the same stock.[20] And they twain had their homes, One in the Hellenic, one in alien land. And these two, as I dreamt I saw, were set 190 At variance with each other. And my son Learnt it, and checked and mollified their wrath, And yokes them to his chariot, and his collar He places on their necks. And one was proud Of that equipment,[21] and in harness gave Her mouth obedient; but the other kicked, And tears the chariot's trappings with her hands, And rushes off uncurbed, and breaks its yoke Asunder. And my son falls low, and then His father comes, Dareios, pitying him. And lo! when Xerxes sees him, he his clothes 200 Rends round his limbs. These things I say I saw In visions of the night; and when I rose, And dipped my hands in fountain flowing clear,[22] I at the altar stood with hand that bore Sweet incense, wishing holy chrism to pour To the averting Gods whom thus men worship. And I beheld an eagle in full flight To Phœbos' altar-hearth; and then, my friends, 210 I stood, struck dumb with fear; and next I saw A kite pursuing, in her wingèd course, And with his claws tearing the eagle's head, Which did nought else but crouch and yield itself. Such terrors it has been my lot to see, And yours to hear: For be ye sure, my son, If he succeed, will wonder-worthy prove; But if he fail, still irresponsible He to the people, and in either case, He, should he but return, is sovereign still.[23]

_Chor._ We neither wish, O Lady, thee to frighten O'ermuch with what we say, nor yet encourage: But thou, the Gods adoring with entreaties, If thou hast seen aught ill, bid them avert it, And that all good things may receive fulfilment For thee, thy children, and thy friends and country. 220 And next 'tis meet libations due to offer To Earth and to the dead. And ask thy husband, Dareios, whom thou say'st by night thou sawest, With kindly mood from 'neath the Earth to send thee Good things to light for thee and for thine offspring, While adverse things shall fade away in darkness. Such things do I, a self-taught seer, advise thee In kindly mood, and any way we reckon That good will come to thee from out these omens.

_Atoss._ Well, with kind heart, hast thou, as first expounder, Out of my dreams brought out a welcome meaning For me, and for my sons; and thy good wishes, May they receive fulfilment! And this also, As thou dost bid, we to the Gods will offer 230 And to our friends below, when we go homeward. But first, my friends, I wish to hear of Athens, Where in the world do men report it standeth?[24]

_Chor._ Far to the West, where sets our king the Sun-God.

_Atoss._ Was it this city my son wished to capture?

_Chor._ Aye, then would Hellas to our king be subject.

_Atoss._ And have they any multitude of soldiers?

_Chor._ A mighty host, that wrought the Medes much mischief.

_Atoss._ And what besides? Have they too wealth sufficing?

_Chor._ A fount of silver have they, their land's treasure.[25]240

_Atoss._ Have they a host in archers' skill excelling?

_Chor._ Not so, they wield the spear and shield and bucklers.[26]

_Atoss._ What shepherd rules and lords it o'er their people?

_Chor._ Of no man are they called the slaves or subjects.

_Atoss._ How then can they sustain a foe invading?

_Chor._ So that they spoiled Dareios' goodly army.

_Atoss._ Dread news is thine for sires of those who're marching.

_Chor._ Nay, but I think thou soon wilt know the whole truth; This running one may know is that of Persian:[27] For good or evil some clear news he bringeth. 250

_Enter_ Messenger

_Mess._ O cities of the whole wide land of Asia! O soil of Persia, haven of great wealth! How at one stroke is brought to nothingness Our great prosperity, and all the flower Of Persia's strength is fallen! Woe is me! 'Tis ill to be the first to bring ill news; Yet needs must I the whole woe tell, ye Persians: All our barbaric mighty host is lost.[28]

Strophe I

_Chor._ O piteous, piteous woe! 260 O strange and dread event! Weep, O ye Persians, hearing this great grief!

_Mess._ Yea, all things there are ruined utterly; And I myself beyond all hopes behold The light of day at home.

Antistrophe I

_Chor._ O'er-long doth life appear To me, bowed down with years, On hearing this unlooked-for misery.

_Mess._ And I, indeed, being present and not hearing The tales of others, can report, ye Persians, What ills were brought to pass.

Strophe II

_Chor._ Alas, alas! in vain The many-weaponed and commingled host 270 Went from the land of Asia to invade The soil divine of Hellas.

_Mess._ Full of the dead, slain foully, are the coasts Of Salamis, and all the neighbouring shore.

Antistrophe II

_Chor._ Alas, alas! sea-tossed The bodies of our friends, and much disstained: Thou say'st that they are drifted to and fro *In far out-floating garments.[29]

_Mess._ E'en so; our bows availed not, but the host Has perished, conquered by the clash of ships.

Strophe III

_Chor._ Wail, raise a bitter cry 280 And full of woe, for those who died in fight. How every way the Gods have wrought out ill, Ah me! ah me, our army all destroyed.

_Mess._ O name of Salamis that most I loathe! Ah, how I groan, remembering Athens too!

Antistrophe III

_Chor._ Yea, to her enemies Athens may well be hateful, and our minds Remember how full many a Persian wife 290 She, for no cause, made widows and bereaved.

_Atoss._ Long time I have been silent in my woe, Crushed down with grief; for this calamity Exceeds all power to tell the woe, or ask. Yet still we mortals needs must bear the griefs The Gods send on us. Clearly tell thy tale, Unfolding the whole mischief, even though Thou groan'st at evils, who there is not dead, And which of our chief captains we must mourn, And who, being set in office o'er the host, Left by their death their office desolate. 300

_Mess._ Xerxes still lives and sees the light of day.

_Atoss._ To my house, then, great light thy words have brought, Bright dawn of morning after murky night.

_Mess._ Artembares, the lord of myriad horse, On the hard flinty coasts of the Sileni Is now being dashed; and valiant Dadakes, Captain of thousands, smitten with the spear, Leapt wildly from his ship. And Tenagon, Best of the true old Bactrians, haunts the soil Of Aias' isle; Lilaios, Arsames, 310 And with them too Argestes, there defeated, Hard by the island where the doves abound,[30] Beat here and there upon the rocky shore. [And from the springs of Neilos, Ægypt's stream, Arkteus, Adeues, Pheresseues too, These with Pharnuchos in one ship were lost;] Matallos, Chrysa-born, the captain bold Of myriads, leader he of swarthy horse Some thrice ten thousand strong, has fallen low, His red beard, hanging all its shaggy length, Deep dyed with blood, and purpled all his skin. Arabian Magos, Bactrian Artames, 320 They perished, settlers in a land full rough. [Amistris and Amphistreus, guiding well The spear of many a conflict, and the noble Ariomardos, leaving bitter grief For Sardis; and the Mysian Seisames.] With twelve score ships and ten came Tharybis; Lyrnæan he in birth, once fair in form, He lies, poor wretch, a death inglorious dying: And, first in valour proved, Syennesis, Kilikian satrap, who, for one man, gave Most trouble to his foes, and nobly died. 330 Of leaders such as these I mention make, And out of many evils tell but few.

_Atoss._ Woe, woe! I hear the very worst of ills, Shame to the Persians, cause of bitter wail; But tell me, going o'er the ground again, How great the number of the Hellenes' navy, That they presumed with Persia's armament To wage their warfare in the clash of ships.

_Mess._ As far as numbers went, be sure the ships Of Persia had the better, for the Hellenes 340 Had, as their total, ships but fifteen score, And other ten selected as reserve.[31] And Xerxes (well I know it) had a thousand Which he commanded—those that most excelled[32] In speed were twice five score and seven in number; So stands the account. Deem'st thou our forces less In that encounter? Nay, some Power above Destroyed our host, and pressed the balance down With most unequal fortune, and the Gods Preserve the city of the Goddess Pallas.

_Atoss._ Is the Athenians' city then unsacked? 350

_Mess._ Their men are left, and that is bulwark strong.[33]

_Atoss._ Next tell me how the fight of ships began. Who led the attack? Were those Hellenes the first, Or was't my son, exulting in his strength?

_Mess._ The author of the mischief, O my mistress, Was some foul fiend or Power on evil bent; For lo! a Hellene from the Athenian host[34] Came to thy son, to Xerxes, and spake thus, That should the shadow of the dark night come, The Hellenes would not wait him, but would leap 360 Into their rowers' benches, here and there, And save their lives in secret, hasty flight. And he forthwith, this hearing, knowing not The Hellene's guile, nor yet the Gods' great wrath, Gives this command to all his admirals, Soon as the sun should cease to burn the earth With his bright rays, and darkness thick invade The firmament of heaven, to set their ships In threefold lines, to hinder all escape, And guard the billowy straits, and others place 370 In circuit round about the isle of Aias: For if the Hellenes 'scaped an evil doom, And found a way of secret, hasty flight, It was ordained that all should lose their heads.[35] Such things he spake from soul o'erwrought with pride, For he knew not what fate the Gods would send; And they, not mutinous, but prompt to serve, Then made their supper ready, and each sailor Fastened his oar around true-fitting thole; And when the sunlight vanished, and the night Had come, then each man, master of an oar, 380 Went to his ship, and all men bearing arms, And through the long ships rank cheered loud to rank; And so they sail, as 'twas appointed each, And all night long the captains of the fleet Kept their men working, rowing to and fro; Night then came on, and the Hellenic host In no wise sought to take to secret flight. And when day, bright to look on with white steeds, O'erspread the earth, then rose from the Hellenes 390 Loud chant of cry of battle, and forthwith Echo gave answer from each island rock; And terror then on all the Persians fell, Of fond hopes disappointed. Not in flight The Hellenes then their solemn pæans sang: But with brave spirit hasting on to battle. With martial sound the trumpet fired those ranks; And straight with sweep of oars that flew through foam, They smote the loud waves at the boatswain's call; And swiftly all were manifest to sight. 400 Then first their right wing moved in order meet;[36] Next the whole line its forward course began, And all at once we heard a mighty shout,— “O sons of Hellenes, forward, free your country; Free too your wives, your children, and the shrines Built to your fathers' Gods, and holy tombs Your ancestors now rest in. Now the fight Is for our all.” And on our side indeed Arose in answer din of Persian speech, And time to wait was over; ship on ship 410 Dashed its bronze-pointed beak, and first a barque Of Hellas did the encounter fierce begin,[37] And from Phœnikian vessel crashes off Her carved prow. And each against his neighbour Steers his own ship: and first the mighty flood Of Persian host held out. But when the ships Were crowded in the straits,[38] nor could they give Help to each other, they with mutual shocks, With beaks of bronze went crushing each the other, Shivering their rowers' benches. And the ships Of Hellas, with manœuvring not unskilful, Charged circling round them. And the hulls of ships 420 Floated capsized, nor could the sea be seen, Strown, as it was, with wrecks and carcases; And all the shores and rocks were full of corpses. And every ship was wildly rowed in fight, All that composed the Persian armament. And they, as men spear tunnies,[39] or a haul Of other fishes, with the shafts of oars, Or spars of wrecks went smiting, cleaving down; And bitter groans and wailings overspread The wide sea-waves, till eye of swarthy night 430 Bade it all cease: and for the mass of ills, Not, though my tale should run for ten full days, Could I in full recount them. Be assured That never yet so great a multitude Died in a single day as died in this.

_Atoss._ Ah, me! Great then the sea of ills that breaks On Persia and the whole barbaric host.

_Mess._ Be sure our evil fate is but half o'er: On this has supervened such bulk of woe, As more than twice to outweigh what I've told. 440

_Atoss._ And yet what fortune could be worse than this? Say, what is this disaster which thou tell'st, That turns the scale to greater evils still?

_Mess._ Those Persians that were in the bloom of life, Bravest in heart and noblest in their blood, And by the king himself deemed worthiest trust, Basely and by most shameful death have died.

_Atoss._ Ah! woe is me, my friends, for our ill fate! What was the death by which thou say'st they perished?

_Mess._ There is an isle that lies off Salamis,[40] Small, with bad anchorage for ships, where Pan, 450 Pan the dance-loving, haunts the sea-washed coast. There Xerxes sends these men, that when their foes, Being wrecked, should to the islands safely swim, They might with ease destroy th' Hellenic host, And save their friends from out the deep sea's paths; But ill the future guessing: for when God Gave the Hellenes the glory of the battle, In that same hour, with arms well wrought in bronze Shielding their bodies, from their ships they leapt, And the whole isle encircled, so that we 460 Were sore distressed,[41] and knew not where to turn; For here men's hands hurled many a stone at them; And there the arrows from the archer's bow Smote and destroyed them; and with one great rush, At last advancing, they upon them dash And smite, and hew the limbs of these poor wretches, Till they each foe had utterly destroyed. [And Xerxes when he saw how deep the ill,[42] Groaned out aloud, for he had ta'en his seat, With clear, wide view of all the army round, On a high cliff hard by the open sea; And tearing then his robes with bitter cry, 470 And giving orders to his troops on shore, He sends them off in foul retreat. This grief 'Tis thine to mourn besides the former ills.]

_Atoss._ O hateful Power, how thou of all their hopes Hast robbed the Persians! Bitter doom my son Devised for glorious Athens, nor did they, The invading host who fell at Marathon, Suffice; but my son, counting it his task To exact requital for it, brought on him So great a crowd of sorrows. But I pray, As to those ships that have this fate escaped, 480 Where did'st thou leave them? Can'st thou clearly tell?

_Mess._ The captains of the vessels that were left, With a fair wind, but not in meet array, Took flight: and all the remnant of the army Fell in Bœotia—some for stress of thirst About the fountain clear, and some of us, Panting for breath, cross to the Phokians' land, The soil of Doris, and the Melian gulf, Where fair Spercheios waters all the plains With kindly flood, and then the Achæan fields 490 And city of the Thessali received us, Famished for lack of food;[43] and many died Of thirst and hunger, for both ills we bore; And then to the Magnetian land we came, And that of Macedonians, to the stream Of Axios, and Bolbe's reed-grown marsh, And Mount Pangaios and the Edonian land. And on that night God sent a mighty frost, Unwonted at that season, sealing up The whole course of the Strymon's pure, clear flood;[44] And they who erst had deemed the Gods as nought, 500 Then prayed with hot entreaties, worshipping Both earth and heaven. And after that the host Ceased from its instant calling on the Gods, It crosses o'er the glassy, frozen stream; And whosoe'er set forth before the rays Of the bright God were shed abroad, was saved; For soon the glorious sun with burning blaze Reached the mid-stream and warmed it with its flame, And they, confused, each on the other fell. Blest then was he whose soul most speedily Breathed out its life. And those who yet survived And gained deliverance, crossing with great toil 510 And many a pang through Thrakè, now are come, Escaped from perils, no great number they, To this our sacred land, and so it groans, This city of the Persians, missing much Our country's dear-loved youth. Too true my tale, And many things I from my speech omit, Ills which the Persians suffer at God's hand.

_Chor._ O Power resistless, with what weight of woe On all the Persian race have thy feet leapt!

_Atoss._ Ah! woe is me for that our army lost! O vision of the night that cam'st in dreams, 520 Too clearly did'st thou show me of these ills! But ye (_to Chorus_) did judge them far too carelessly; Yet since your counsel pointed to that course, I to the Gods will first my prayer address. And then with gifts to Earth and to the Dead, Bringing the chrism from my store, I'll come. For our past ills, I know, 'tis all too late, But for the future, I may hope, will dawn A better fortune! But 'tis now your part In these our present ills, in counsel faithful To commune with the Faithful; and my son, 530 Should he come here before me, comfort him, And home escort him, lest he add fresh ill To all these evils that we suffer now. [_Exit_

_Chor._ Zeus our king, who now to nothing Bring'st the army of the Persians, Multitudinous, much boasting; And with gloomy woe hast shrouded Both Ecbatana and Susa; Many maidens now are tearing With their tender hands their mantles, 540 And with tear-floods wet their bosoms, In the common grief partaking; And the brides of Persian warriors, Dainty even in their wailing, Longing for their new-wed husbands, Reft of bridal couch luxurious, With its coverlet so dainty, Losing joy of wanton youth-time, Mourn in never-sated wailings. And I too in fullest measure Raise again meet cry of sorrow, Weeping for the loved and lost ones.

Strophe I

For now the land of Asia mourneth sore, 550 Left desolate of men, 'Twas Xerxes led them forth, woe! woe! 'Twas Xerxes lost them all, woe! woe! 'Twas Xerxes who with evil counsels sped Their course in sea-borne barques. Why was Dareios erst so free from harm, First bowman of the state, The leader whom the men of Susa loved,

Antistrophe I

While those who fought as soldiers or at sea, 560 These ships, dark-hulled, well-rowed, Their own ships bore them on, woe! woe! Their own ships lost them all, woe! woe! Their own ships, in the crash of ruin urged, And by Ionian hands?[45] The king himself, we hear, but hardly 'scapes, Through Thrakè's widespread steppes, And paths o'er which the tempests wildly sweep.

Strophe II

And they who perished first, ah me! 570 Perforce unburied left, alas! Are scattered round Kychreia's shore,[46] woe! woe! Lament, mourn sore, and raise a bitter cry, Grievous, the sky to pierce, woe! woe! And let thy mourning voice uplift its strain Of loud and full lament.

Antistrophe II

Torn by the whirling flood, ah me! Their carcases are gnawed, alas! By the dumb brood of stainless sea, woe! woe! 580 And each house mourneth for its vanished lord; And childless sires, woe! woe! Mourning in age o'er griefs the Gods have sent, Now hear their utter loss.

Strophe III

And throughout all Asia's borders None now own the sway of Persia, Nor bring any more their tribute, Owning sway of sovereign master. Low upon the Earth, laid prostrate, 590 Is the strength of our great monarch

Antistrophe III

No more need men keep in silence Tongues fast bound: for now the people May with freedom speak at pleasure; For the yoke of power is broken; And blood-stained in all its meadows Holds the sea-washed isle of Aias What was once the host of Persia.

_Re-enter_ ATOSSA

_Atoss._ Whoe'er, my friends, is vexed in troublous times, 600 Knows that when once a tide of woe sets in, A man is wont to fear in everything; But when Fate flows on smoothly, then to trust That the same Fate will ever send fair gales. So now all these disasters from the Gods Seem in mine eyes filled full of fear and dread, And in mine ears rings cry unpæanlike, So great a dread of all has seized my soul: And therefore now, without or chariot's state Or wonted pomp, have I thus issued forth 610 From out my palace, to my son's sire bringing Libations loving, gifts propitiatory, Meet for the dead; milk pure and white from cow Unblemished, and bright honey that distils From the flower-working bee, and water drawn From virgin fountain, and the draught unmarred From mother wild, bright child of ancient vine; And here too of the tree that evermore Keeps its fresh life in foliage, the pale olive, Is the sweet-smelling fruit, and twinèd wreaths Of flowers, the children of all-bearing earth.[47] 620 But ye, my friends, o'er these libations poured In honour of the dead, chant forth your hymns, And call upon Dareios as a God: While I will send unto the Gods below These votive offerings which the earth shall drink.

[_Goes to the tomb of_ DAREIOS _in the centre of the stage_

_Chor._ O royal lady, honoured of the Persians, Do thou libations pour To the dark chambers of the dead below; And we with hymns will pray The Powers that act as escorts of the dead To give us kindly help beneath the earth. But oh, ye holy Ones in darkness dwelling, 630 Hermes and Earth, and thou, the Lord of Hell, Send from beneath a soul Up to the light of earth; For should he know a cure for these our ills, He, he alone of men, their end may tell.

Strophe I

Doth he, the blest one hear, The king, like Gods in power, Hear me, as I send forth My cries in barbarous speech, Yet very clear to him,— Sad, varied, broken cries So as to tell aloud Our troubles terrible? 640 Ah, doth he hear below?

Antistrophe I

But thou, O Earth, and ye, The other Lords of those Beneath the grave that dwell; Grant that the godlike one May come from out your home, The Persians' mighty God, In Susa's palace born; Send him, I pray you, up, The like of whom the soil Of Persia never hid.

Strophe II

Dear was our chief, and dear to us his tomb, For dear the life it hides; 650 Aidoneus, O Aidoneus, send him forth, Thou who dost lead the dead to Earth again, *Yea, send Dareios.... What a king was he!

Antistrophe II

For never did he in war's bloody woe Lose all his warrior-host, But Heaven-taught Counsellor the Persians called him, And Heaven-taught Counsellor in truth he proved, Since he still ruled his hosts of subjects well.

Strophe III

Monarch, O ancient monarch, come, oh, come, Come to the summit of sepulchral mound, 660 Lifting thy foot encased In slipper saffron-dyed, And giving to our view Thy royal tiara's crest:[48] Speak, O Dareios, faultless father, speak.

Antistrophe III

Yea, come, that thou, O Lord, may'st hear the woes, Woes new and strange, our lord has now endured; For on us now has fallen A dark and Stygian mist, Since all the armed youth Has perished utterly; Speak, O Dareios, faultless father, speak.

Epode

O thou, whose death thy friends Bewail with many tears, 670 *Why thus, O Lord of lords, *In double error of wild frenzy born, Have all our triremes good Been lost to this our land, Ships that are ships no more, yea, ships no more?

_The_ Ghost _of_ DAREIOS _appears on the summit of the mound_

_Dar._ O faithful of the Faithful, ye who were Companions of my youth, ye Persian elders,

What troubles is't my country toils beneath? The whole plain groans, cut up and furrowed o'er,[49] And I, beholding now my queen beloved Standing hard by my sepulchre, feared much, 680 And her libations graciously received; But ye wail loud near this my sepulchre, And shouting shrill with cries that raise the dead, Ye call me with your plaints. No easy task Is it to come, for this cause above all, That the great Gods who reign below are apter To seize men than release: yet natheless I, Being great in power among them, now am come. Be quick then, that none blame me as too late;[50] What new dire evils on the Persians weigh?

_Chor._ I fear to look on thee, 690 Fear before thee to speak, With all the awe of thee I felt of old.

_Dar._ But since I came by thy complaints persuaded, From below rising, spin no lengthened tale; But shortly, clearly speak, and tell thy story, And leave awhile thine awe and fear of me.

_Chor._ I dread thy wish to grant, *I dread to say thee nay,[51] Saying things that it is hard for friends to speak.

_Dar._ Nay, then, since that old dread of thine prevents thee, Do thou [_to_ ATOSSA], the ancient partner of my bed,700 My noble queen, from these thy plaints and moanings Cease, and say something clearly. Human sorrows May well on mortals fall; for many evils, Some on the sea, and some on dry land also, Happen to men if life be far prolongèd.

_Atoss._ O thou, who in the fate of fair good fortune Excelled'st all men, who, while yet thou sawest The sun's bright rays, did'st lead a life all blessed, Admired, yea, worshipped as a God by Persians, Now, too, I count thee blest in that thou died'st Before thou saw'st the depth of these our evils. For now, Dareios, thou shalt hear a story Full, yet in briefest moment. Utter ruin, To sum up all, is come upon the Persians. 710

_Dar._ How so? Hath plague or discord seized my country?

_Atoss._ Not so, but all the host is lost near Athens.

_Dar._ What son of mine led that host hither, tell me?[52]

_Atoss._ Xerxes o'er-hasty, emptying all the mainland.

_Dar._ Made he this mad attempt by land or water?

_Atoss._ By both; two lines there were of two great armies.

_Dar._ How did so great a host effect its passage?

_Atoss._ He bridged the straits of Helle, and found transit.

_Dar._ Did he prevail to close the mighty Bosporos?

_Atoss._ So was it; yet some God, it may be, helped him. 720

_Dar._ Alas! some great God came and stole his wisdom.

_Atoss._ Yea, the end shows what evil he accomplished.

_Dar._ And how have they fared, that ye thus bewail them?

_Atoss._ The naval host, o'ercome, wrecked all the land-force.

_Dar._ What! Is the whole host by the spear laid prostrate?

_Atoss._ For this doth Susa's city mourn her losses.

_Dar._ Alas, for that brave force and mighty army!

_Atoss._ The Bactrians all are lost, not old men merely.

_Dar._ Poor fool! how he hath lost his host's fresh vigour!

_Atoss._ Xerxes, they say, alone, with but few others.... 730

_Dar._ What is his end, and where? Is there no safety?

_Atoss._ Was glad to gain the bridge that joins two mainlands.

_Dar._ And has he reached this mainland? Is that certain?

_Atoss._ Yea, the report holds good. Here is no discord.[53]

_Dar._ Ah me! Full swift the oracles' fulfilment! And on my son hath Zeus their end directed. I hoped the Gods would work them out more slowly; But when man hastens, God too with him worketh. And now for all my friends a fount of evils Seems to be found. And this my son, not knowing, 740 In youth's rash mood, hath wrought; for he did purpose To curb the sacred Hellespont with fetters, As though it were his slave, and sought to alter The stream of God, the Bosporos, full-flowing, And his well-hammered chains around it casting, Prevailed to make his mighty host a highway; And though a mortal, thought, with no good counsel, To master all the Gods, yea, e'en Poseidon. Nay, was not my poor son oppressed with madness? And much I fear lest all my heaped-up treasure Become the spoil and prey of the first comer.

_Atoss._ Such things the o'er-hasty Xerxes learns from others,750 By intercourse with men of evil counsel;[54] Who say that thou great wealth for thy son gained'st By thy spear's might, while he with coward spirit Does his spear-work indoors, and nothing addeth Unto his father's glory. Such reproaches Hearing full oft from men of evil counsel, He planned this expedition against Hellas.

_Dar._ Thus then a deed portentous hath been wrought, Ever to be remembered, such as ne'er Falling on Susa made it desolate, Since Zeus our king ordained this dignity, That one man should be lord of Asia's plains. Where feed her thousand flocks, and hold the rod 760 Of sovran guidance: for the Median first[55] Ruled o'er the host, and then his son in turn Finished the work, for reason steered his soul; And Kyros came as third, full richly blest, And ruled, and gained great peace for all his friends; And he won o'er the Lydians and the Phrygians, And conquered all the wide Ionian land;[56] For such his wisdom, he provoked not God. And Kyros' son came fourth, and ruled the host; And Mardos fifth held sway, his country's shame,[57] 770 Shame to the ancient throne; and him with guile Artaphrenes[58] the brave smote down, close leagued With men, his friends, to whom the work was given. [Sixth, Maraphis and seventh Artaphrenes,] And I obtained this post that I desired, And with a mighty host great victories won. Yet no such evil brought I on the state; But my son Xerxes, young, thinks like a youth, And all my solemn charge remembers not; For know this well, my old companions true, 780 That none of us who swayed the realm of old, Did e'er appear as working ills like these.

_Chor._ What then, O King Dareios? To what end Lead'st thou thy speech? And how, in this our plight, Could we, the Persian people, prosper best?

_Dar._ If ye no more attack the Hellenes' land, E'en though the Median host outnumbers theirs. To them the very land is true ally.

_Chor._ What meanest thou? How fights the land for them?

_Dar._ *It slays with famine those vast multitudes.790

_Chor._ We then a host, select, compact, will raise.

_Dar._ Nay, e'en the host which now in Hellas stays[59] Will ne'er return in peace and safety home.

_Chor._ How say'st thou? Does not all the barbarous host Cross from Europa o'er the straits of Hellè?

_Dar._ But few of many; if 'tis meet for one Who looks upon the things already done To trust the oracles of Gods; for they, Not these or those, but all, are brought to pass: If this be so, then, resting on vain hopes,[60] 800 He leaves a chosen portion of his host: And they abide where, watering all the plain, Asôpos pours his fertilising stream Dear to Bœotian land; and there of ills The topmost crown awaits them, penalty Of wanton outrage and of godless thoughts; For they to Hellas coming, held not back In awe from plundering sculptured forms of Gods[61] And burning down their temples; and laid low Are altars, and the shrines of Gods o'erthrown, E'en from their base. They therefore having wrought Deeds evil, now are suffering, and will suffer Evil not less, and not as yet is seen 810 *E'en the bare groundwork of the ills, but still They grow up to completeness. Such a stream Of blood and slaughter soon shall flow from them By Dorian spear upon Platæan ground,[62] And heaps of corpses shall to children's children, Though speechless, witness to the eyes of men That mortal man should not wax overproud; For wanton pride from blossom grows to fruit, The full corn in the ear, of utter woe, And reaps a tear-fraught harvest. Seeing then, Such recompense of these things, cherish well The memory of Athens and of Hellas; 820 Let no man in his scorn of present fortune, And thirst for other, mar his good estate; Zeus is the avenger of o'er-lofty thoughts, A terrible controller. Therefore now, Since voice of God bids him be wise of heart, Admonish him with counsel true and good To cease his daring sacrilegious pride; And thou, O Xerxes' mother, old and dear, Go to thy home, and taking what apparel Is fitting, go to meet thy son; for all 830 The costly robes around his limbs are torn To rags and shreds in grief's wild agony. But do thou gently soothe his soul with words; For he to thee alone will deign to hearken; But I must leave the earth for darkness deep: And ye, old men, farewell, although in woe, And give your soul its daily bread of joy; For to the dead no profit bringeth wealth.

[_Exit, disappearing in the earth._

_Chor._ I shudder as I hear the many woes Both past and present that on Persians fall. 840

_Atoss._ [O God, how many evils fall on me![63] And yet this one woe biteth more than all, Hearing my son's shame in the rags of robes That clothe his limbs. But I will go and take A fit adornment from my house, and try To meet my son. We will not in his troubles Basely abandon him whom most we love.]

Strophe I

_Chor._ Ah me! a glorious and a blessed life Had we as subjects once, When our old king, Dareios, ruled the land, 850 Meeting all wants, dispassionate, supreme, A monarch like a God.

Antistrophe I

For first we showed the world our noble hosts; And laws of tower-like strength Directed all things; and our backward march After our wars unhurt, unsuffering led Our prospering armies home.

Strophe II

How many towns he took, Not crossing Halys' stream[64] 860 Nor issuing from his home, There where in Strymon's sea, The Acheloian Isles[65] Lie near the coasts of Thrakian colonies.

Antistrophe II

And those that lie outside the Ægæan main, The cities girt with towers, They hearkened to our king; And those who boast their site By Hellè's full, wide stream, Propontis with its bays, and mouth of Pontos broad. 870

Strophe III

And all the isles that lie Facing the headland jutting in the sea,[66] Close bound to this our coast; Lesbos, and Samos with its olive groves; Chios and Paros too; Naxos and Myconos, and Andros too On Tenos bordering.

Antistrophe III

And so he ruled the isles That lie midway between the continents, Lemnos, and Icaros, Rhodes and Cnidos and the Kyprian towns, 880 Paphos and Soli famed, And with them Salamis, Whose parent city now our groans doth cause;[67]

Epode

And many a wealthy town and populous, Of Hellenes in the Ionian region dwelling, He by his counsel ruled; His was the unconquered strength of warrior host, Allies of mingled race. And now, beyond all doubt, In strife of war defeated utterly, We find this high estate Through wrath of God o'erturned, 890 And we are smitten low, By bitter loss at sea.

_Enter_ XERXES _in kingly apparel, but with his robes rent, with_ Attendants.

_Xer._ Oh, miserable me! Who this dark hateful doom That I expected least Have met with as my lot, With what stern mood and fierce Towards the Persian race Is God's hand laid on us! What woe will come on me? Gone is my strength of limb, As I these elders see. Ah, would to Heaven, O Zeus, That with the men who fell Death's doom had covered me! 900

_Chor._ Ah, woe, O King, woe! woe! For the army brave in fight, And our goodly Persian name, And the fair array of men, Whom God hath now cut off! And the land bewails its youth Who for our Xerxes fell, For him whose deeds have filled *Hades with Persian souls; For many heroes now *Are Hades-travellers, Our country's chosen flower, Mighty with darts and bow; *For lo! the myriad mass 910 Of men has perished quite. Woe, woe for our fair fame! And Asia's land, O King, Is terribly, most terribly, o'erthrown.

_Xer._ I then, oh misery! Have to my curse been proved Sore evil to my country and my race.

_Chor._ Yea, and on thy return I will lift up my voice in wailing loud, Cry of sore-troubled thought, As of a mourner born In Mariandynian land,[68] 920 Lament of many tears.

Antistrophe I

_Xer._ Yea, utter ye a wail Dreary and full of grief; For lo! the face of Fate Against me now is turned.

_Chor._ Yea, I will raise a cry Dreary and full of grief, Giving this tribute due To all the people's woes, And all our loss at sea, Troubles of this our State That mourneth for her sons; Yea, I will wail full sore, With flood of bitter tears.

Strophe II

_Xer._ For Ares, he whose might Was in our ships' array, Giving victory to our foes, Has in Ionians, yea, Ionians, found his match, And from the dark sea's plain, And that ill-omened shore, Has a fell harvest reaped.

_Chor._ Yea, wail, search out the whole; Where are our other friends? Where thy companions true, Such as Pharandakes, Susas, Pelagon, Psammis, Dotamas, Agdabatas, Susiskanes, From Ecbatana who started?

Antistrophe II

_Xer._ I left them low in death, Falling from Tyrian ship, On Salaminian shores, Beating now here, now there, On the hard rock-girt coast.

_Chor._ Ah, where Pharnuchos then, And Ariomardos brave? And where Sevalkes king, Lilæos proud of race, Memphis and Tharybis, Masistras, and Artembares, 950 Hystæchmas? This I ask.

Strophe III

_Xer._ Woe! woe is me! They have looked on at Athens' ancient towers, Her hated towers, ah me! All, as by one fell stroke, Unhappy in their fate Lie gasping on the shore.

_Chor._ And he, thy faithful Eye,[69] 960 Who told the Persian host, Myriads on myriads o'er,[70] Alpistos, son and heir Of Batanôchos old · · · · · And the son of brave Sesames, Son himself of Megabates? Parthos, and the great Œbares, Did'st thou leave them, did'st thou leave them? Ah, woe! ah, woe is me, For those unhappy ones! Thou to the Persians brave Tellest of ills on ills.

Antistrophe III

_Xer._ Ah, thou dost wake in me The memory of the spell of yearning love For comrades brave and true, Telling of cursed ills, Yea, cursed, hateful doom; 970 And lo, within my frame My heart cries out, cries out.

_Chor._ Yea, another too we long for, Xanthes, captain of ten thousand Mardian warriors, and Anchares Arian born, and great Arsakes And Diæxis, lords of horsemen, Kigdagatas and Lythimnas, Tolmos, longing for the battle: 980 *Much I marvel, much I marvel,[71] For they come not, as the rear-guard Of thy tent on chariot mounted.[72]

Strophe IV

_Xer._ Gone those rulers of the army.

_Chor._ Gone are they in death inglorious.

_Xer._ Ah woe! ah woe! Alas! alas!

_Chor._ Ah! the Gods have sent upon us Ill we never thought to look on, Eminent above all others; Ne'er hath Atè seen its equal.

Antistrophe IV

Smitten we by many sorrows, 990 Such as come on men but seldom.

_Chor._ Smitten we, 'tis all too certain....

_Xer._ Fresh woes! fresh woes! ah me!

_Chor._ Now with adverse turn of fortune, With Ionian seamen meeting, Fails in war the race of Persians.

Strophe V

_Xer._ Too true. Yea I and that vast host of mine Are smitten down.

_Chor._ Too true—the Persians' majesty and might Have perished utterly.

_Xer._ See'st thou this remnant of my armament?

_Chor._ I see it, yea, I see. 1000

_Xer._ (_pointing to his quiver._) Dost see thou that which arrows wont to hold?...

_Chor._ What speak'st thou of as saved?

_Xer._ This treasure-store for darts.

_Chor._ Few, few of many left!

_Xer._ Thus we all helpers lack.

_Chor._ Ionian soldiers flee not from the spear.

Antistrophe V

_Xer._ Yea, very brave are they, and I have seen Unlooked-for woe.

_Chor._ Wilt tell of squadron of our sea-borne ships Defeated utterly?

_Xer._ I tore my robes at this calamity.

_Chor._ Ah me, ah me, ah me. 1010

_Xer._ Ay, more than all 'ah me's'!

_Chor._ Twofold and threefold ills!

_Xer._ Grievous to us—but joy, Great joy, to all our foes!

_Chor._ Lopped off is all our strength.

_Xer._ Stripped bare of escort I!

_Chor._ Yea, by sore loss at sea Disastrous to thy friends.

Strophe VI

_Xer._ Weep for our sorrow, weep, Yea, go ye to the house.

_Chor._ Woe for our griefs, woe, woe!

_Xer._ Cry out an echoing cry.

_Chor._ Ill gift of ills on ills. 1020

_Xer._ Weep on in wailing chant.

_Chor._ Oh! ah! Oh! ah!

_Xer._ Grievous our bitter woes.

_Chor._ Ah me, I mourn them sore.

Antistrophe VI

_Xer._ Ply, ply your hands and groan; Yea, for my sake bewail.

_Chor._ I weep in bitter grief.

_Xer._ Cry out an echoing cry.

_Chor._ Yea, we may raise our voice, O Lord and King, in wail.

_Xer._ Raise now shrill cry of woe.

_Chor._ Ah me! Ah! Woe is me! 1030

_Xer._ Yea, with it mingle dark....

_Chor._ And bitter, grievous blows.

Strophe VII

_Xer._ Yea, beat thy breast, and cry After the Mysian type.

_Chor._ Oh, misery! oh, misery!

_Xer._ Yea, tear the white hair off thy flowing beard.

_Chor._ Yea; with clenched hands, with clenchèd hands, I say, In very piteous guise.

_Xer._ Cry out, cry out aloud.

_Chor._ That also will I do.

Antistrophe VII

_Xer._ And with thy fingers tear Thy bosom's folded robe.

_Chor._ Oh, misery! oh, misery! 1040

_Xer._ Yea, tear thy hair in wailing for our host.

_Chor._ Yea, with clenched hands, I say, with clenchèd hands, In very piteous guise.

_Xer._ Be thine eyes wet with tears.

_Chor._ Behold the tears stream down.

Epode

_Xer._ Raise a re-echoing cry.

_Chor._ Ah woe! ah woe!

_Xer._ Go to thy home with wailing loud and long.

_Chor._ O land of Persia, full of lamentations!

_Xer._ Through the town raise your cries.

_Chor._ We raise them, yea, we raise. 1050

_Xer._ Wail, wail, ye men that walked so daintily.

_Chor._ O land of Persia, full of lamentations! Woe; woe!

_Xer._ Alas for those who in the triremes perished!

_Chor._ With broken cries of woe will I escort thee.

[_Exeunt in procession, wailing, and rending their robes._

-----

Footnote 3:

“The Faithful,” or “trusty,” seems to have been a special title of honour given to the veteran councillors of the king (Xenoph. _Anab._ i. 15), just as that of the “Immortals” was chosen for his body-guard (Herod, vii. 83).

Footnote 4:

Susa was pre-eminently the treasury of the Persian kings (Herod, v. 49; Strabo, xv. p. 731), their favourite residence in spring, as Ecbatana in Media was in summer and Babylon in winter.

Footnote 5:

Kissia was properly the name of the district in which Susa stood; but here, and in v. 123, it is treated as if it belonged to a separate city. Throughout the play there is, indeed, a lavish use of Persian barbaric names of persons and places, without a very minute regard to historical accuracy.

Footnote 6:

Here, as in Herodotos and Greek writers generally, the title, “the King,” or “the great King,” was enough. It could be understood only of the Persian. The latter name had been borne by the kings of Assyria (2 Kings xviii. 28). A little later it passed into the fuller, more boastful form of “The King of kings.”

Footnote 7:

The inhabitants of the Delta of the Nile, especially those of the marshy districts near the Heracleotic mouth, were famed as supplying the best and bravest soldiers of any part of Egypt.—Comp. Thucyd. i. 110.

Footnote 8:

The epithet was applied probably by Æschylos to the Lydians properly so called, the barbaric race with whom the Hellenes had little or nothing in common. They, in dress, diet, mode of life, their distaste for the contests of the arena, seemed to the Greeks the very type of effeminacy. The Ionian Greeks, however, were brought under the same influence, and gradually acquired the same character. The suppression of the name of the Ionians in the list of the Persian forces may be noticed as characteristic. The Athenian poet would not bring before an Athenian audience the shame of their Asiatic kinsmen.

Footnote 9:

Tmôlos, sacred as being the mythical birth-place of Dionysos.

Footnote 10:

“Spear-anvils,” _sc._, meeting the spear of their foes as the anvils would meet it, turning its point, themselves steadfast and immovable.

Footnote 11:

So Herodotos (vii. 74) in his account of the army of Xerxes describes the Mysians as using for their weapons those darts or “javelins” made by hardening the ends in the fire.

Footnote 12:

Helle the daughter of Athamas, from whom the Hellespont took its name. For the description of the pontoons formed by boats, which were moored together with cables and finally covered with faggots, comp. Herod, vii. 36.

Footnote 13:

“Gold-born,” _sc._, descended from Perseus, the child of Danaë.

Footnote 14:

Syrian, either in the vague sense in which it became almost synonymous with Assyrian, or else showing that Syria, properly so called, retained the fame for chariots which it had had at a period as early as the time of the Hebrew Judges (Judg. v. 3). Herodotos (vii. 140) gives an Oracle of Delphi in which the same epithet appears.

Footnote 15:

The description, though put into the mouth of Persians, is meant to flatter Hellenic pride. The Persians and their army were for the most part light-armed troops only, barbarians equipped with javelins or bows. In the sculptures of Persepolis, as in those of Nineveh and Khorsabad, this mode of warfare is throughout the most conspicuous. They, the Hellenes, were the _hoplites_, warriors of the spear and the shield, the cuirass and the greaves.

Footnote 16:

A touch of Athenian exultation in their life as seamen. To them the sea was almost a home. They were familiar with it from childhood. To the Persians it was new and untried. They had a new lesson to learn, late in the history of the nation, late in the lives of individual soldiers.

Footnote 17:

The bridge of boats, with the embankment raised upon it, is thought of as a new headland putting out from the one shore and reaching to the other.

Footnote 18:

Stress is laid by the Hellenic poet, as in the _Agamemnon_ (v. 895), and in v. 707 of this play, on the tendency of the East to give to its kings the names and the signs of homage which were due only to the Gods. The Hellenes might deify a dead hero, but not a living sovereign. On different grounds the Jews shrank, as in the stories of Nebuchadnezzar and Dareios (Dan. iii. 6), from all such acts.

Footnote 19:

In the Greek, as in the translation, there is a change of metre, intended apparently to represent the transition from the tone of eager excitement to the ordinary level of discourse.

Footnote 20:

With reference either to the _mythos_ that Asia and Europa were both daughters of Okeanos, or to the historical fact that the Asiatic Ionians and the Dorians of Europe were both of the same Hellenic stock. The contrast between the long flowing robes of the Asiatic women, and the short, scanty kilt-like dress of those of Sparta must be borne in mind if we would see the picture in its completeness.

Footnote 21:

Athenian pride is flattered with the thought that they had resisted while the Ionian Greeks had submitted all too willingly to the yoke of the Barbarian.

Footnote 22:

Lustrations of this kind, besides their general significance in cleansing from defilement, had a special force as charms to turn aside dangers threatened by foreboding dreams. Comp. Aristoph. _Frogs_, v. 1264; Persius, _Sat._ ii. 16.

Footnote 23:

The political bearing of the passage as contrasting this characteristic of the despotism of Persia with the strict account to which all Athenian generals were subject, is, of course, unmistakable.

Footnote 24:

The question, which seems to have rankled in the minds of the Athenians, is recorded as an historical fact, and put into the mouth of Dareios by Herodotos (v. 101). He had asked it on hearing that Sardis had been attacked and burnt by them.

Footnote 25:

The words point to the silver mines of Laureion, which had been worked under Peisistratos, and of which this is the first mention in Greek literature.

Footnote 26:

Once more the contrast between the Greek _hoplite_ and the light-armed archers of the invaders is dwelt upon. The next answer of the Chorus dwells upon the deeper contrast, then prominent in the minds of all Athenians, between their democratic freedom and the despotism of Persia. Comp. Herod. v. 78.

Footnote 27:

The system of postal communications by means of couriers which Dareios had organised had made their speed in running proverbial (Herod. vii. 97).

Footnote 28:

With the characteristic contempt of a Greek for other races, Æschylos makes the Persians speak of themselves throughout as 'barbarians,' 'barbaric.'

Footnote 29:

Perhaps— “On planks that floated onward,” or— “On land and sea far spreading.”

Footnote 30:

Possibly Salamis itself, as famed for the doves which were reared there as sacred to Aphrodite, but possibly also one of the smaller islands in the Saronic gulf, which the epithet would be enough to designate for an Athenian audience. The “coasts of the Sileni” in v. 305 are identified by scholiasts with Salamis.

Footnote 31:

Perhaps—“And ten of these selected as reserve.”

Footnote 32:

As regards the number of the Persian ships, 1000 of average, and 207 of special swiftness. Æschylos agrees with Herodotos, who gives the total of 1207. The latter, however, reckons the Greek ships not at 310, but 378 (vii. 89, viii. 48).

Footnote 33:

The fact that Athens had actually been taken, and its chief buildings plundered and laid waste, was, of course, not a pleasant one for the poet to dwell on. It could hardly, however, be entirely passed over, and this is the one allusion to it. In the truest sense it was still “unsacked:” it had not lost its most effective defence, its most precious treasure.

Footnote 34:

As the story is told by Herodotos (vii. 75), this was Sikinnos, the slave of Themistocles, and the stratagem was the device of that commander to save the Greeks from the disgrace and ruin of a _sauve qui peut_ flight in all directions.

Footnote 35:

The Greeks never beheaded their criminals, and the punishment is mentioned as being specially characteristic of the barbaric Persians.

Footnote 36:

The Æginetans and Megarians, according to the account preserved by Diodoros (xi. 18), or the Lacedæmonians, according to Herodotos (viii. 65).

Footnote 37:

This may be meant to refer to the achievements of Ameinias of Pallene, who appears in the traditional life of Œschylos as his youngest brother.

Footnote 38:

_Sc._, in Herod. viii. 60, the strait between Salamis and the mainland.

Footnote 39:

Tunny-fishing has always been prominent in the occupations on the Mediterranean coasts, and the sailors who formed so large a part of every Athenian audience would be familiar with the process here described, of striking or harpooning them. Aristophanes (_Wasps_, 1087) coins (or uses) the word “to tunny” (θυννάζω) to express the act. Comp. Herod. i. 62.

Footnote 40:

_Sc._, Psyttaleia, lying between Salamis and the mainland. Pausanias (i. 36-82) describes it in his time as having no artistic shrine or statue, but full everywhere of roughly carved images of Pan, to whom the island was sacred. It lay just opposite the entrance to the Peiræos. The connexion of Pan with Salamis and its adjacent islands seems implied in Sophocles, _Aias_, 695.

Footnote 41:

The manœuvre was, we learn from Herodotos (viii. 95), the work of Aristeides, the personal friend of Æschylos, and the statesman with whose policy he had most sympathy.

Footnote 42:

The lines are noted as probably a spurious addition, by a weaker hand, to the text, as introducing surplusage, as inconsistent with Herodotos, and as faulty in their metrical structure.

Footnote 43:

So Herodotos (viii. 115) describes them as driven by hunger to eat even grass and leaves.

Footnote 44:

No trace of this passage over the frozen Strymon appears in Herodotos, who leaves the reader to imagine that it was crossed, as before, by a bridge. It is hardly, indeed, consistent with dramatic probability that the courier should have remained to watch the whole retreat of the defeated army; and on this and other grounds, the latter part of the speech has been rejected by some critics as a later addition.

Footnote 45:

The Ionians, not of the Asiatic Ionia, but of Attica.

Footnote 46:

Kychreia, the archaic name of Salamis.

Footnote 47:

The ritual described is Hellenic rather than Persian, and takes its place (Soph. _Electr._ 836; Eurip. _Iphig. Taur._ 583; Homer, _Il._ xxiii. 219) as showing what offerings were employed to soothe or call up the spirits of the dead. Comp. Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ xxx.

Footnote 48:

The description obviously gives the state dress of the Persian kings. They alone wore the tiara erect. Xen. _Kyrop._ viii. 3, 13.

Footnote 49:

Either that he has felt the measured tread of the mourners round his tomb, as they went wailing round and round, or that he has heard the rush of armies, and seen the plain tracked by chariot-wheels, and comes, not knowing all these things, to learn what it means.

Footnote 50:

The words point to the widespread belief that when the souls of the dead were permitted to return to the earth, it was with strict limitations as to the time of their leave of absence.

Footnote 51:

Perhaps—“I dread to speak the truth.”

Footnote 52:

According to Herodotos (vii. 225) two brothers of Xerxes fell at Thermopylæ.

Footnote 53:

As Herodotos (viii. 117) tells the story, the bridge had been broken by the tempest before Xerxes reached it.

Footnote 54:

Probably Mardonios and Onomacritos the Athenian soothsayer are referred to, who, according to Herodotos (vii. 6, viii. 99) were the chief instigators of the expedition.

Footnote 55:

Astyages, the father-in-law of Kyaxares and grandfather of Kyros. In this case Æschylos must be supposed to accept Xenophon's statement that Kyaxares succeeded to Astyages. Possibly, however, the Median may be Kyaxares I., the father of Astyages, and so the succession here would harmonise with that of Herodotos. The whole succession must be looked on as embodying the loose, floating notions of the Athenians as to the history of their great enemy, rather than as the result of inquiry.

Footnote 56:

Stress is laid on the violence to which the Asiatic Ionians had succumbed, and their resistance to which distinguished them from the Lydians or Phrygians, whose submission had been voluntary.

Footnote 57:

Mardos. Under this name we recognise the Pseudo-Smerdis of Herodotos (iii. 67), who, by restoring the dominion of the Median Magi, the caste to which he himself belonged, brought shame upon the Persians.

Footnote 58:

Possibly another form of Intaphernes, who appears in Herodotos (iii. 70) as one of the seven conspirators against the Magian Pseudo-Smerdis.

Footnote 59:

The force of 300,000 men left in Greece under Mardonios (Herod. viii. 113), afterwards defeated at Platæa.

Footnote 60:

Comp. the speech of Mardonios urging his plan on Xerxes (Herod. viii. 100).

Footnote 61:

This was of course a popular topic with the Athenians, whose own temples had been outraged. But other sanctuaries also, the temples at Delphi and Abæ, had shared the same fate, and these sins against the Gods of Hellas were naturally connected in the thoughts of the Greeks with the subsequent disasters of the Persians. In Egypt these outrages had an iconoclastic character. In Athens they were a retaliation for the destruction of the temple at Sardis (Herod. v. 102).

Footnote 62:

The reference to the prominent part taken by the Peloponnesian forces in the battle of Platæa is probably due to the political sympathies of the dramatist.

Footnote 63:

The speech of Atossa is rejected by Paley, on internal grounds, as spurious.

Footnote 64:

Apparently an allusion to the oracle given to Crœsos, that he, if he crossed the Halys, should destroy a great kingdom.

Footnote 65:

The name originally given to the Echinades, a group of islands at the mouth of the Acheloös, was applied generically to all islands lying near the mouth of all great rivers, and here, probably, includes Imbros, Thasos, and Samothrakè.

Footnote 66:

The geography is somewhat obscure, but the words seem to refer to the portion of the islands that are named as opposite (in a southerly direction) to the promontory of the Troad.

Footnote 67:

Salamis in Kypros had been colonised by Teukros, the son of Aias, and had received its name in remembrance of the island in the Saronic Gulf.

Footnote 68:

The Mariandynoi, a Paphlagonian tribe, conspicuous for their orgiastic worship of Adonis, had become proverbial for the wildness of their plaintive dirges.

Footnote 69:

The name seems to have been an official title for some Inspector-General of the Army. Comp. Aristoph. _Acharn._ v. 92.

Footnote 70:

As in the account which Herodotos gives (vii. 60) of the way in which the army of Xerxes was numbered, _sc._, by enclosing 10,000 men in a given space, and then filling it again and again till the whole army had passed through.

Footnote 71:

Another reading gives—

“They are buried, they are buried.”

Footnote 72:

Perhaps referring to the waggon-chariots in which the rider reclines at ease, either protected by a canopy, or, as in the Assyrian sculptures and perhaps in the East generally, overshadowed by a large umbrella which an eunuch holds over him.

The Seven Who Fought Against Thebes

Dramatis Personæ

ETEOCLES _Scout_ _Herald_ ISMENE ANTIGONE _Chorus of Theban Maidens_

ARGUMENT.—_When Œdipus king of Thebes discovered that he had unknowingly been the murderer of his father, and had lived in incest with his mother, he blinded himself. And his two sons, Eteocles and Polyneikes, wishing to banish the remembrance of these horrors from the eyes of men, at first kept him in confinement. And he, being wroth with them, prayed that they might divide their inheritance with the sword. And they, in fear lest the prayer should be accomplished, agreed to reign in turn, each for a year, and Eteocles, as the elder of the two, took the first turn. But when at the end of the year Polyneikes came to ask for the kingdom, Eteocles refused to give way, and sent him away empty. So Polyneikes went to Argos and married the daughter of Adrastos the king of that country, and gathered together a great army under six great captains, himself going as the seventh, and led it against Thebes. And so they compassed it about, and at each of the seven gates of the city was stationed one of the divisions of the army._

_Note._—_The Seven against Thebes_ appears to have been produced B.C. 472, the year after _The Persians_.

The Seven Against Thebes

SCENE.—THEBES _in front of the Acropolis_

_Enter_ ETEOCLES, _and crowd of_ Theban Citizens.

_Eteoc._ Ye citizens of Cadmos, it behoves That one who standeth at the stern of State Guiding the helm, with eyes unclosed in sleep, Should speak the things that meet occasion's need. For should we prosper, God gets all the praise: But if (which God forbid!) disaster falls, Eteocles, much blame on one head falling, Would find his name the by-word of the State,[73] Sung in the slanderous ballads of the town; Yes, and with groanings, which may Zeus the Averter, True to his name, from us Cadmeians turn! But now 'tis meet for all, both him who fails 10 Of full-grown age, and him advanced in years, Yet boasting still a stalwart strength of frame, And each in life's full prime, as it is fit, The State to succour and the altars here Of these our country's Gods, that never more Their votive honours cease,—to help our sons, And Earth, our dearest mother and kind nurse; For she, when young ye crept her kindly plain, Bearing the whole charge of your nourishment, Reared you as denizens that bear the shield, That ye should trusty prove in this her need. 20 And now thus far God turns the scale for us; For unto us, beleaguered these long days, War doth in most things with God's help speed well, But now, as saith the seer, the augur skilled,[74] Watching with ear and mind, apart from fire, The birds oracular with mind unerring, He, lord and master of these prophet-arts, Says that the great attack of the Achæans This very night is talked of, and their plots Devised against the town. But ye, haste all Unto the walls and gateways of the forts; 30 Rush ye full-armed, and fill the outer space, And stand upon the platforms of the towers, And at the entrance of the gates abiding Be of good cheer, nor fear ye overmuch The host of aliens. Well will God work all. And I have sent my scouts and watchers forth, And trust their errand is no fruitless one. I shall not, hearing them, be caught with guile.

[_Exeunt_ Citizens.

_Enter one of the_ Scouts.

_Mess._ King of Cadmeians, great Eteocles, I from the army come with tidings clear, 40 And am myself eye-witness of its acts; For seven brave warriors, leading armèd bands, Cutting a bull's throat o'er a black-rimmed shield, And dipping in the bull's blood with their hands, Swore before Ares, Enyo,[75] murderous Fear, That they would bring destruction on our town, And trample under foot the tower of Cadmos, Or dying, with their own blood stain our soil; And they memorials for their sires at home Placed with their hands upon Adrastos' car,[76] 50 Weeping, but no wail uttering with their lips, For courage iron-hearted breathed out fire In manliness unconquered, as when lions Flash battle from their eyeballs. And report Of these things does not linger on the way. I left them casting lots, that each might take, As the lot fell, his station at the gate. Wherefore do thou our city's chosen ones Array with speed at entrance of the gates; For near already is the Argive host, Marching through clouds of dust, and whitening foam 60 Spots all the plain with drops from horses' mouths. And thou, as prudent helmsman of the ship, Guard thou our fortress ere the blasts of Ares Swoop on it wildly; for there comes the roar Of the land-wave of armies. And do thou Seize for these things the swiftest tide and time; And I, in all that comes, will keep my eye As faithful sentry; so through speech full clear, Thou, knowing all things yonder, shalt be safe.

[_Exit._

_Eteoc._ O Zeus and Earth, and all ye guardian Gods! Thou Curse and strong Erinnys of my sire! 70 Destroy ye not my city root and branch, With sore destruction smitten, one whose voice Is that of Hellas, nor our hearths and homes;[77] Grant that they never hold in yoke of bondage Our country free, and town of Cadmos named; But be ye our defence. I deem I speak Of what concerns us both; for still 'tis true, A prosperous city honours well the Gods. [_Exit._

_Enter Chorus of_ Theban Maidens _in solemn procession as suppliants_

_Chor._ I in wild terror utter cries of woe; An army leaves its camp and is let loose: Hither the vanguard of the horsemen flows, 80 And the thick cloud of dust, That suddenly is seen, Dumb herald, yet full clear, Constrains me to believe; And smitten with the horses' hoofs, the plain Of this my country rings with noise of war; It floats and echoes round, Like voice of mountain torrent dashing down Resistless in its might. Ah Gods! Ah Goddesses! Ward off the coming woe. With battle-shout that rises o'er the walls, The host whose shields are white[78] 90 Marches in full array against our city. Who then, of all the Gods Or Goddesses, will come to help and save? Say, shall I fall before the shrines of Gods? O blessed Ones firm fixed! 'Tis time to clasp your sacred images. Why linger we in wailing overmuch? Hear ye, or hear ye not, the din of shields? When, if not now, shall we Engage in prayer with peplos and with boughs?[79] I hear a mighty sound; it is the din 100 Not of a single spear. O Ares! ancient guardian of our land! What wilt thou do? Wilt thou betray thy land? O God of golden casque, Look on our city, yea, with favour look, The city thou did'st love. And ye, ye Gods who o'er the city rule, Come all of you, come all. Behold the band of maidens suppliant, In fear of bondage foul; For now around the town The wave of warriors bearing slopèd crests, With blasts of Ares rushing, hoarsely sounds: 110 But thou, O Zeus! true father of us all, Ward off, ward off our capture by the foe.

Strophe I

For Argives now surround the town of Cadmos, And dread of Ares' weapons falls on us; And, bound to horses' mouths, The bits and curbs ring music as of death; And seven chief rulers of the mighty host, With warriors' arms, at each of seven tall gates, Spear-armed and harnessed all, Stand, having cast their lots. · · · · ·

Mesode

And thou, O Zeus-born power in war delighting, 120 O Pallas! be our city's saviour now; And Thou who curb'st the steed, Great King of Ocean's waves, Poseidon, with thy trident fish-spear armed,[80] Give respite from our troubles, respite give! And Thou, O Ares, guard the town that takes Its name from Cadmos old,[81] Watch o'er it visibly.

Antistrophe I

And thou, O Kypris, of our race the mother, Ward off these ills, for we are thine by blood: To thee in many a prayer, 130 With voice that calls upon the Gods we cry, And unto thee draw near as suppliants: And Thou, Lykeian king, Lykeian be,[82] Foe of our hated foes, For this our wailing cry; And Thou, O child of Leto, Artemis, Make ready now thy bow.

Strophe II

Ah! ah! I hear a din of chariot wheels Around the city walls; O Hera great and dread! The heavy axles of the chariots groan, 140 O Artemis beloved! And the air maddens with the clash of spears; What must our city bear? What now shall come on us? When will God give the end?

Antistrophe II

Ah! ah! a voice of stones is falling fast On battlements attacked;[83] O Lord, Apollo loved, A din of bronze-bound shields is in the gates; And oh! that Zeus may give 150 A faultless issue of this war we wage! And Thou, O blessed queen, As Guardian Onca known,[84] Save thy seven-gated seat.

Strophe III

And ye, all-working Gods, Of either sex divine, Protectors of our towers, Give not our city, captured by the spear, To host of alien speech.[85] Hear ye our maidens; hear, 160 As is most meet, our prayers with outstretched hands.

Antistrophe III

O all ye loving Powers, Compass our State to save; Show how that State ye love; Think on our public votive offerings, And as ye think, oh, help: Be mindful ye, I pray, Of all our city's rites of sacrifice.

_Re-enter_ ETEOCLES

_Eteoc._ (_to the Chorus_) I ask you, O ye brood intolerable, Is this course best and safest for our city? 170 Will it give heart to our beleaguered host, That ye before the forms of guardian Gods Should wail and howl, ye loathèd of the wise;[86] Ne'er be it mine, in ill estate or good, To dwell together with the race of women; For when they rule, their daring bars approach, And when they fear, alike to house and State Comes greater ill; and now with these your rushings Hither and thither, ye have troubled sore Our subjects with a coward want of heart; And do your best for those our foes without; 180 And we are harassed by ourselves within. This comes to one who dwells with womankind. And if there be that will not own my sway, Or man or woman in their prime, or those Who can be classed with neither, they shall take Their trial for their life, nor shall they 'scape The fate of stoning. Things outdoors are still The man's to look to: let not woman counsel. Stay thou within, and do no mischief more. Hear'st thou, or no? or speak I to the deaf?

Strophe I

_Chor._ Dear son of Œdipus, 190 I shuddered as I heard the din, the din Of many a chariot's noise, When on the axles creaked the whirling wheels, *And when I heard the sound *Of fire-wrought curbs within the horses' mouths.

_Eteoc._ What then? Did ever yet the sailor flee From stern to stem, and find deliverance so, While his ship laboured in the ocean's wave?[87]

Antistrophe I

_Chor._ Nay, to the ancient forms Of mighty Powers I rushed, as trusting Gods; And when behind the gates Was heard the crash of fierce and pelting storm, 200 Then was it, in my fear, I prayed the Blessed Ones to guard our city.

_Eteoc._ Pray that our towns hold out 'gainst spear of foes.[88]

_Chor._ Do not the Gods grant these things?

_Eteoc._ Nay the Gods, So say they, leave the captured city's walls.[89]

Strophe II

_Chor._ Ah! never in my life May all this goodly company of Gods Depart; nor may I see This city scene of rushings to and fro, 210 *And hostile army burning it with fire!

_Eteoc._ Nay, call not on the Gods with counsel base; Obedience is the mother of success, Child strong to save. 'Tis thus the saying runs.

Antistrophe II

_Chor._ True is it; but the Gods Have yet a mightier power, and oftentimes, In pressure of sore ill, It raises one perplexed from direst woe, When dark clouds gather thickly o'er his eyes.

_Eteoc._ 'Tis work of men to offer sacrifice And victims to the Gods, when foes press hard; 220 Thine to be dumb and keep within the house.

Strophe III

_Chor._ 'Tis through the Gods we live In city unsubdued, and that our towers Ward off the multitude of jealous foes. What Power will grudge us this?

_Eteoc._ I grudge not your devotion to the Gods; But lest you make my citizens faint-hearted Be tranquil, nor to fear's excess give way.

Antistrophe III

_Chor._ Hearing but now a din Strange, wildly mingled, I with shrinking fear Here to our city's high Acropolis, Time-hallowed spot, have come. 230

_Eteoc._ Nay, if ye hear of wounded men or dying, Bear them not swiftly off with wailing loud; *For blood of men is Ares' chosen food.[90]

_Chor._ Hark! now I hear the panting of the steeds.

_Eteoc._ Clear though thou hear, yet hear not overmuch.

_Chor._ Lo! from its depths the fortress groans, beleaguered.

_Eteoc._ It is enough that I provide for this.

_Chor._ I fear: the din increases at the gates.

_Eteoc._ Be still, say nought of these things in the city.

_Chor._ O holy Band![91] desert ye not our towers. 240

_Eteoc._ A curse fall on thee! wilt thou not be still?

_Chor._ Gods of my city, from the slave's lot save me!

_Eteoc._ 'Tis thou enslav'st thyself and all thy city.

_Chor._ Oh, turn thy darts, great Zeus, against our foes!

_Eteoc._ Oh, Zeus, what race of women thou hast given us!

_Chor._ A sorry race, like men whose city falls.

_Eteoc._ What? Cling to these statues, yet speak words of ill?

_Chor._ Fear hurries on my tongue in want of courage.

_Eteoc._ Could'st thou but grant one small boon at my prayer!250

_Chor._ Speak it out quickly, and I soon shall know.

_Eteoc._ Be still, poor fool, and frighten not thy friends.

_Chor._ Still am I, and with others bear our fate.

_Eteoc._ These words of thine I much prefer to those: And further, though no longer at the shrines, Pray thou for victory, that the Gods fight with us. And when my prayers thou hearest, then do thou Raise a loud, welcome, holy pæan-shout, The Hellenes' wonted cry at sacrifice; So cheer thy friends, and check their fear of foes; And I unto our country's guardian Gods, 260 Who hold the plain or watch the agora, The springs of Dirkè, and Ismenos' stream;— If things go well, and this our city's saved,— I vow that staining with the blood of sheep The altar-hearths of Gods, or slaying bulls, We'll fix our trophies, and our foemen's robes On the spear's point on consecrated walls, Before the shrines I'll hang.[92] Pray thou this prayer, Not weakly wailing, nor with vain wild sobs, For no whit more thou'lt 'scape thy destined lot: 270 And I six warriors, with myself as seventh, Against our foes in full state like their own, Will station at the seven gates' entrances, Ere hurrying heralds and swift-rushing words Come and inflame them in the stress of need. [_Exit_

Strophe I

_Chor._ My heart is full of care and knows not sleep, By panic fear o'ercome; And troubles throng my soul, And set a-glow my dread Of the great host encamped around our walls, As when a trembling dove Fears, for her callow brood, 280 The snakes that come, ill mates for her soft nest; For some upon our towers March in full strength of mingled multitude; And what will me befall? And others on our men on either hand Hurl rugged blocks of stone. In every way, ye Zeus-born Gods, defend 290 The city and the host That Cadmos claim as sire.

Antistrophe I

What better land will ye receive for this, If ye to foes resign This rich and fertile clime, And that Dirkæan stream, Goodliest of founts by great Poseidon sent, Who circleth earth, or those Who Tethys parent call?[93] 300 And therefore, O ye Gods that guard our city, Sending on those without Our towers a woe that robs men of their life, And makes them lose their shield, Gain glory for these countrymen of mine; And take your standing-ground, As saviours of the city, firm and true, In answer to our cry Of wailing and of prayer.

Strophe II

For sad it were to hurl to Hades dark A city of old fame, 310 The spoil and prey of war, With foulest shame in dust and ashes laid, By an Achæan foe at God's decree; And that our women, old and young alike, Be dragged away, ah me! Like horses, by their hair Their robes torn off from them. And lo, the city wails, made desolate, While with confusèd cry 320 The wretched prisoners meet doom worse than death. Ah, at this grievous fate I shudder ere it comes.

Antistrophe II

And piteous 'tis for those whose youth is fresh Before the rites that cull Their fair and first-ripe fruit, To take a hateful journey from their homes. Nay, but I say the dead far better fare Than these, for when a city is subdued It bears full many an ill. This man takes prisoner that, 330 Or slays, or burns with fire; And all the city is defiled with smoke, And Ares fans the flame In wildest rage, and laying many low, Tramples with foot unclean On all men sacred hold.

Strophe III

And hollow din is heard throughout the town, Hemmed in by net of towers; And man by man is slaughtered with the spear, And cries of bleeding babes, Of children at the breast, 340 Are heard in piteous wail, And rapine, sister of the plunderer's rush, Spoiler with spoiler meets, And empty-handed empty-handed calls, Wishing for share of gain, Both eager for a portion no whit less, For more than equal lot With what they deem the others' hands have found.

Antistrophe III

And all earth's fruits cast wildly on the ground, 350 Meeting the cheerless eye Of frugal housewives, give them pain of heart; And many a gift of earth In formless heaps is whirled In waves of nothingness; And the young maidens know a sorrow new; For now the foe prevails, And gains rich prize of wretched captive's bed; 360 And now their only hope Is that the night of death will come at last, Their truest, best ally, To rescue them from sorrow fraught with tears.

_Enter_ ETEOCLES, _followed by his_ Chief Captains, _and by the_ Scout

_Semi-Chor. A._ The army scout, so deem I, brings to us, Dear friends, some tidings new, with quickest speed Plying the nimble axles of his feet.

_Semi-Chor. B._ Yea, the king's self, the son of Œdipus, Is nigh to hear the scout's exact report; And haste denies him too an even step.

_Mess._ I knowing well, will our foes' state report, 370 How each his lot hath stationed at the gates. At those of Prœtos, Tydeus thunders loud, And him the prophet suffers not to cross Ismenos' fords, the victims boding ill.[94] And Tydeus, raging eager for the fight, Shouts like a serpent in its noontide scream, And on the prophet, Œcleus' son, heaps shame, That he, in coward fear, doth crouch and fawn Before the doom and peril of the fight. And with such speech he shakes his triple crest, O'ershadowing all his helm, and 'neath his shield 380 Bells wrought in bronze ring out their chimes of fear; And on his shield he bears this proud device,— A firmament enchased, all bright with stars;[95] And in the midst the full moon's glittering orb, Sovran of stars and eye of Night, shines forth. And thus exulting in o'er boastful arms, By the stream's bank he shouts in lust of war, [E'en as a war-horse panting in his strength Against the curb that galls him, who at sound Of trumpet's clang chafes hotly.] Whom wilt thou Set against him? Who is there strong enough When the bolts yield, to guard the Prœtan gates? 390

_Eteoc._ No fear have I of any man's array; Devices have no power to pierce or wound, And crest and bells bite not without a spear; And for this picture of the heavens at night, Of which thou tellest, glittering on his shield, *Perchance his madness may a prophet prove; For if night fall upon his dying eyes, Then for the man who bears that boastful sign It may right well be all too truly named, 400 And his own pride shall prophet be of ill. And against Tydeus, to defend the gates, I'll set this valiant son of Astacos; Noble is he, and honouring well the throne Of Reverence, and hating vaunting speech, Slow to all baseness, unattuned to ill: And of the dragon-race that Ares spared[96] He as a scion grows, a native true, E'en Melanippos; Ares soon will test His valour in the hazard of the die: And kindred Justice sends him forth to war, For her that bore him foeman's spear to check. 410

Strophe I

_Chor._ May the Gods grant my champion good success! For justly he goes forth For this our State to fight; But yet I quake with fear To see the deaths of those who die for friends.

_Mess._ Yea, may the Gods give good success to him! The Electran gates have fallen to Capaneus, A second giant, taller far than he Just named, with boast above a mortal's bounds; And dread his threats against our towers (O Fortune, 420 Turn them aside!)—for whether God doth will, Or willeth not, he says that he will sack[97] The city, nor shall e'en the wrath of Zeus, On the plain swooping, turn him from his will; And the dread lightnings and hot thunderbolts He likens to the heat of noon-day sun. And his device, the naked form of one Who bears a torch; and bright the blaze shines forth And in gold characters he speaks the words, “THE CITY I WILL BURN.” Against this man Send forth ... but who will meet him in the fight? 430 Who, without fear, await this warrior proud?

_Eteoc._ Herein, too, profit upon profit comes; And 'gainst the vain and boastful thoughts of men, Their tongue itself is found accuser true. Threatening, equipped for work is Capaneus, Scorning the Gods: and giving speech full play, And in wild joy, though mortal, vents at Zeus, High in the heavens, loud-spoken foaming words. And well I trust on him shall rightly come Fire-bearing thunder, nothing likened then To heat of noon-day sun. And so 'gainst him, 440 Though very bold of speech, a man is set Of fiery temper, Polyphontes strong, A trusty bulwark, by the loving grace Of guardian Artemis[98] and other Gods. Describe another, placed at other gates.

Antistrophe I

_Chor._ A curse on him who 'gainst our city boasts! May thunder smite him down 450 Before he force his way Into my home, and drive Me from my maiden bower with haughty spear?

_Mess._ And now I'll tell of him who by the gates Stands next; for to Eteocles, as third, To march his cohort to Neïstian gates, Leaped the third lot from upturned brazen helm: And he his mares, in head-gear snorting, whirls, Full eager at the gates to fall and die; Their whistling nozzles of barbaric mode, Are filled with loud blast of the panting nostrils.[99] In no poor fashion is his shield devised; 460 A full-armed warrior climbs a ladder's rungs, And mounts his foeman's towers as bent to sack; And he too cries, in words of written speech, That “NOT E'EN ARES FROM THE TOWERS SHALL DRIVE HIM.” Send thou against him some defender true, To ward the yoke of bondage from our State.

_Eteoc._ Such would I send now; by good luck indeed He has been sent, his vaunting in his deeds, Megareus, Creon's son, who claims descent From those as Sparti known, and not by noise Of neighings loud of warlike steeds dismayed, 470 Will he the gates abandon, but in death Will pay our land his nurture's debt in full,[100] Or taking two men, and a town to boot, (That on the shield,) will deck his father's house With those his trophies. Of another tell The bragging tale, nor grudge thy words to me.

Strophe II

_Chor._ Him I wish good success, O guardian of my home, and for his foes All ill success I pray; And since against our land their haughty words With maddened soul they speak, May Zeus, the sovran judge, With fiery, hot displeasure look on them! 480

_Mess._ Another stands as fourth at gates hard by, Onca-Athenà's, with a shout of war, Hippomedon's great form and massive limbs; And as he whirled his orb, his vast shield's disk, I shuddered; yea, no idle words I speak. No cheap and common draughtsman sure was he Who wrought this cunning ensign on his shield: Typhon emitting from his lips hot blast Of darkling smoke, the flickering twin of fire: And round the belly of the hollow shield A rim was made with wreaths of twisted snakes. 490 And he too shouts his war-cry, and in frenzy, As man possessed by Ares, hastes to battle, Like Thyiad, darting terror from his eyes.[101] 'Gainst such a hero's might we well may guard; Already at the gates men brag of rout.

_Eteoc._ First, the great Onca-Pallas, dwelling nigh Our city's gates, and hating man's bold pride, Shall ward him from her nestlings like a snake Of venom dread; and next Hyperbios, The stalwart son of Œnops, has been chosen, 500 A hero 'gainst this hero, willing found To try his destiny at Fortune's hest. No fault has he in form, or heart, or arms; And Hermes with good reason pairs them off; For man with man will fight as enemy, And on their shields they'll bring opposing Gods; For this man beareth Typhon, breathing fire, And on Hyperbios' shield sits father Zeus, Full firm, with burning thunderbolt in hand; And never yet has man seen Zeus, I trow, O'ercome. Such then the favour of the Gods, 510 We with the winners, they with losers are:[102] Good reason then the rivals so should fare, If Zeus than Typhon stronger be in fight, And to Hyperbios Zeus will saviour prove, As that device upon his shield presents him.

Antistrophe II

_Chor._ Now do I trust that he Who bears upon his shield the hated form Of Power whom Earth doth shroud, Antagonist to Zeus, unloved by men And by the ageless Gods, Before those gates of ours To his own hurt may dash his haughty head. 520

_Mess._ So may it be! And now the fifth I tell, Who the fifth gates, the Northern, occupies, Hard by Amphion's tomb, the son of Zeus; And by his spear he swears, (which he is bold To honour more than God or his own eyes,) That he will sack the fort of the Cadmeians With that spear's might. So speaks the offspring fair Of mother mountain-bred, a stripling hero; And the soft down is creeping o'er his cheeks, 530 Youth's growth, and hair that floweth full and thick; And he with soul, not maiden's like his name,[103] But stern, with flashing eye, is standing there. Nor stands he at the gate without a vaunt; For on his brass-wrought buckler, strong defence, Full-orbed, his body guarding, he the shame Of this our city bears, the ravenous Sphinx, With rivets fixed, all burnished and embossed;[104] And under her she holdeth a Cadmeian, That so on him most arrows might be shot. No chance that he will fight a peddling fight, 540 Nor shame the long, long journey he hath come, Parthenopæos, in Arcadia born: This man did Argos welcome as a guest, And now he pays her for her goodly rearing, And threatens these our towers with ... God avert it!

_Eteoc._ Should the Gods give them what they plan 'gainst us, Then they, with those their godless boastings high, Would perish shamefully and utterly. And for this man of Arcady thou tell'st of, We have a man who boasts not, but his hand Sees the right thing to do;—Actôr, of him 550 I named but now the brother,—who no tongue Divorced from deeds will ever let within Our gates, to spread and multiply our ills, Nor him who bears upon his foeman's shield The image of the hateful venomed beast; But she without shall blame him as he tries To take her in, when she beneath our walls Gets sorely bruised and battered.[105] And herein, If the Gods will, I prophet true shall prove.

Strophe III

_Chor._ Thy words thrill through my breast; My hair stands all on end, To hear the boastings great Of those who speak great things 560 Unholy. May the Gods Destroy them in our land!

_Mess._ A sixth I tell of, one of noblest mood, Amphiaraos, seer and warrior famed; He, stationed at the Homolôian gates, Reproves the mighty Tydeus with sharp words As 'murderer,' and 'troubler of the State,'[106] 'To Argos teacher of all direst ills, Erinnys' sumpnour,'[107] 'murder's minister,' 570 Whose counsels led Adrastos to these ills. *And at thy brother Polyneikes glancing With eyes uplifted for his father's fate, And ending, twice he syllabled his name,[108] And called him, and thus speaketh with his lips:— “A goodly deed, and pleasant to the Gods, Noble for after age to hear and tell, Thy father's city and thy country's Gods To waste through might of mercenary host! And how shall Justice stay thy mother's tears?[109] 580 And how, when conquered, shall thy fatherland, Laid waste, become a true ally to thee? As for myself, I shall that land make rich,[110] A prophet buried in a foeman's soil: To arms! I look for no inglorious death.” So spake the prophet, bearing full-orbed shield Wrought all of bronze, no ensign on that orb. He wishes to be just, and not to seem,[111] Reaping full harvest from his soul's deep furrows, Whence ever new and noble counsels spring. 590 I bid thee send defenders wise and brave Against him. Dread is he who fears the Gods.

_Eteoc._ Fie on the chance that brings the righteous man Close-mated with the ungodly! In all deeds Nought is there worse than evil fellowship, A crop men should not reap. Death still is found The harvest of the field of frenzied pride; For either hath the godly man embarked With sailors hot in insolence and guile,[112] And perished with the race the Gods did loathe; 600 Or just himself, with citizens who wrong The stranger and are heedless of the Gods, Falling most justly in the self-same snare, By God's scourge smitten, shares the common doom. And thus this seer I speak of, Œcleus' son, Righteous, and wise, and good, and reverent, A mighty prophet, mingling with the godless *And men full bold of speech in reason's spite, Who take long march to reach a far-off city,[113] If Zeus so will, shall be hurled down with them. 610 And he, I trow, shall not draw nigh the gates, Not through faint-heart or any vice of mood, But well he knows this war shall bring his death, If any fruit is found in Loxias' words; And He or holds his speech or speaks in season. Yet against him the hero Lasthenes, A foe of strangers, at the gates we'll set; Old in his mind, his body in its prime, His eye swift-footed, and his hand not slow To grasp the spear from 'neath the shield laid bare:[114] 620 Yet 'tis by God's gift men must win success.

Antistrophe III

_Chor._ Hear, O ye Gods! our prayers, Our just entreaties grant, That so our State be blest. Turn ye the toils of war Upon the invading host. Outside the walls may Zeus With thunder smite them low!

_Mess._ The seventh chief then who at the seventh gate stands, Thine own, own brother, I will speak of now, What curses on our State he pours, and prays 630 That he the towers ascending, and proclaimed By herald's voice to all the territory, And shouting out the captor's pæan-cry, May so fight with thee, slay, and with thee die; Or driving thee alive, who did'st him wrong, May on thee a vengeance wreak like in kind. So clamours he, and bids his father's Gods, His country's guardians, look upon his prayers, [And grant them all. So Polyneikes prays.] And he a new and well-wrought shield doth bear, And twofold sign upon it riveted; 640 For there a woman with a stately tread Leads one who seems a warrior wrought in gold: Justice she calls herself, and thus she speaks: “I WILL BRING BACK THIS MAN, AND HE SHALL HAVE THE CITY AND HIS FATHER'S DWELLING-PLACE.” Such are the signs and mottoes of those men; And thou, know well whom thou dost mean to send: So thou shalt never blame my heraldings; And thou thyself know how to steer the State.

_Eteoc._ O frenzy-stricken, hated sore of Gods! 650 O woe-fraught race (my race!) of Œdipus! Ah me! my father's curse is now fulfilled; But neither is it meet to weep or wail, Lest cry more grievous on the issue come. Of Polyneikes, name and omen true, We soon shall know what way his badge shall end, Whether his gold-wrought letters shall restore him, His shield's great swelling words with frenzied soul. An if great Justice, Zeus's virgin child, Ruled o'er his words and acts, this might have been; 660 But neither when he left his mother's womb, Nor in his youth, nor yet in ripening age, Nor when his beard was gathered on his chin, Did Justice count him meet for fellowship; Nor do I think that she befriends him now In this great outrage on his father's land. Yea, justly Justice would as falsely named Be known, if she with one all-daring joined. In this I trust, and I myself will face him: Who else could claim a greater right than I? 670 Brother with brother fighting, king with king, And foe with foe, I'll stand. Come, quickly fetch My greaves that guard against the spear and stones.

_Chor._ Nay, dearest friend, thou son of Œdipus, Be ye not like to him with that ill name. It is enough Cadmeian men should fight Against the Argives. That blood may be cleansed; But death so murderous of two brothers born, This is pollution that will ne'er wax old.

_Eteoc._ If a man must bear evil, let him still 680 Be without shame—sole profit that in death. [No glory comes of base and evil deeds].

_Chor._ What dost thou crave, my son? Let no ill fate, Frenzied and hot for war, Carry thee headlong on; Check the first onset of an evil lust.

_Eteoc._ Since God so hotly urges on the matter, Let all of Laios' race whom Phœbos hates, Drift with the breeze upon Cokytos' wave.

_Chor._ An over-fierce and passionate desire Stirs thee and pricks thee on To work an evil deed Of guilt of blood thy hand should never shed. 690

_Eteoc._ Nay, my dear father's curse, in full-grown hate, Dwells on dry eyes that cannot shed a tear, And speaks of gain before the after-doom.

_Chor._ But be not thou urged on. The coward's name Shall not be thine, for thou Hast ordered well thy life. Dark-robed Erinnys enters not the house, When at men's hands the Gods Accept their sacrifice.

_Eteoc._ As for the Gods, they scorned us long ago, And smile but on the offering of our deaths; 700 What boots it then on death's doom still to fawn?

_Chor._ Nay do it now, while yet 'tis in thy power;[115] Perchance may fortune shift With tardy change of mood, And come with spirit less implacable: At present fierce and hot She waxeth in her rage.

_Eteoc._ Yea, fierce and hot the Curse of Œdipus; And all too true the visions of the night, My father's treasured store distributing.

_Chor._ Yield to us women, though thou lov'st us not.

_Eteoc._ Speak then what may be done, and be not long. 710

_Chor._ Tread not the path that to the seventh gate leads.

_Eteoc._ Thou shall not blunt my sharpened edge with words.

_Chor._ And yet God loves the victory that submits.[116]

_Eteoc._ That word a warrior must not tolerate.

_Chor._ Dost thou then haste thy brother's blood to shed?

_Eteoc._ If the Gods grant it, he shall not 'scape harm.

[_Exeunt_ ETEOCLES, Scout, _and_ Captains

Strophe I

_Chor._ I fear her might who doth this whole house wreck, The Goddess unlike Gods, The prophetess of evil all too true, The Erinnys of thy father's imprecations, 720 Lest she fulfil the curse, O'er-wrathful, frenzy-fraught, The curse of Œdipus, Laying his children low. This Strife doth urge them on.

Antistrophe I

And now a stranger doth divide the lots, The Chalyb,[117] from the Skythians emigrant, The stern distributor of heaped-up wealth, The iron that hath assigned them just so much Of land as theirs, no more, As may suffice for them As grave when they shall fall, Without or part or lot In the broad-spreading plains. 730

Strophe II

And when the hands of each The other's blood have shed, And the earth's dust shall drink The black and clotted gore, Who then can purify? Who cleanse thee from the guilt? Ah me! O sorrows new, That mingle with the old woes of our house!

Antistrophe II

I tell the ancient tale Of sin that brought swift doom; 740 Till the third age it waits, Since Laios, heeding not Apollo's oracle, (Though spoken thrice to him In Pythia's central shrine,) That dying childless, he should save the State.

Strophe III

But he by those he loved full rashly swayed, Doom for himself begat, His murderer Œdipus, 750 Who dared to sow in field Unholy, whence he sprang, A root of blood-flecked woe. Madness together brought Bridegroom and bride accursed.

Antistrophe III

And now the sea of evil pours its flood: This falling, others rise, As with a triple crest, Which round the State's stern roars: And but a bulwark slight, A tower's poor breadth, defends: 760 And lest the city fall With its two kings I fear.

Strophe IV

*And that atonement of the ancient curse Receives fulfilment now;[118] *And when they come, the evils pass not by. E'en so the wealth of sea-adventurers, When heaped up in excess, Leads but to cargo from the stern thrown out.[119]

Antistrophe IV

For whom of mortals did the Gods so praise, And fellow-worshippers, 770 *And race of those who feed their flocks and herds[120] As much as then they honoured Œdipus, Who from our country's bounds Had driven the monster, murderess of men?

Strophe V

And when too late he knew, Ah, miserable man! his wedlock dire, Vexed sore with that dread shame, With heart to madness driven, He wrought a twofold ill, And with the hand that smote his father's life 780 *Blinded the eyes that might his sons have seen.

Antistrophe V

And with a mind provoked By nurture scant, he at his sons did hurl[121] His curses dire and dark, (Ah, bitter curses those!) That they with spear in hand Should one day share their father's wealth; and I Fear now lest swift Erinnys should fulfil them.

_Enter_ Messenger

_Mess._ Be of good cheer, ye maidens, mother-reared; Our city has escaped the yoke of bondage, 790 The boasts of mighty men are fallen low, And this our city in calm waters floats, And, though by waves lashed, springs not any leak. Our fortress still holds out, and we did guard The gates with champions who redeemed their pledge. In the six gateways almost all goes well; But the seventh gate did King Apollo choose,[122] Seventh mighty chief, avenging Laios' want Of counsel on the sons of Œdipus.

_Chor._ What new disaster happens to our city?[123] 800

_Mess._ The city's saved, but both the royal brothers,...

_Chor._ Who? and what of them? I'm distraught with fear.

_Mess._ Be calm, and hear: the sons of Œdipus,...

_Chor._ Oh wretched me! a prophet I of ill!

_Mess._ Slain by each other, earth has drunk their blood.

_Chor._ Came they to that? 'Tis dire; yet tell it me.

_Mess._ Too true, by brother's hand our chiefs are slain.

_Chor._ What, did the brother's hands the brother lay?

_Mess._ No doubt is there that they are laid in dust.

_Chor._ Thus was there then a common fate for both?

_Mess._ *Yea, it lays low the whole ill-fated race.

_Chor._ These things give cause for gladness and for tears, 810 Seeing that our city prospers, and our lords, The generals twain, with well-wrought Skythian steel, Have shared between them all their store of goods, And now shall have their portion in a grave, Borne on, as spake their father's grievous curse.[124]

_Mess._ [The city's saved, but of the brother-kings The earth has drunk the blood, each slain by each.]

_Chor._ Great Zeus! and ye, O Gods! Guardians of this our town, Who save in very deed The towers of Cadmos old, 820 Shall I rejoice and shout Over the happy chance That frees our State from harm; Or weep that ill-starred pair, The war-chiefs, childless and most miserable, Who, true to that ill name Of Polyneikes, died in impious mood, Contending overmuch?

Strophe

Oh dark, and all too true That curse of Œdipus and all his race,[125] An evil chill is falling on my heart, 830 And, like a Thyiad wild, Over his grave I sing a dirge of grief, Hearing the dead have died by evil fate, Each in foul bloodshed steeped; Ah me! Ill-omened is the spear's accord.[126]

Antistrophe

It hath wrought out its end, And hath not failed, that prayer the father poured; And Laios' reckless counsels work till now: I fear me for the State; The oracles have not yet lost their edge; 840 O men of many sorrows, ye have wrought This deed incredible; Not now in word come woes most lamentable.

[_As the Chorus are speaking, the bodies of_ ETEOCLES _and_ POLYNEIKES _are brought in solemn procession by_ Theban Citizens

Epode

Yea, it is all too clear, The herald's tale of woe comes full in sight; Twofold our cares, twin evils born of pride, Murderous, with double doom, Wrought unto full completeness all these ills. What shall I say? What else Are they than woes that make this house their home? But oh! my friends, ply, ply with swift, strong gale, That even stroke of hands upon your head,[127] 850 In funeral order, such as evermore O'er Acheron sends on *That bark of State, dark-rigged, accursed its voyage, Which nor Apollo visits nor the sun,[128] On to the shore unseen, The resting-place of all.

[ISMENE _and_ ANTIGONE _are seen approaching in mourning garments, followed by a procession of women wailing and lamenting_

For see, they come to bitter deed called forth, Ismene and the maid Antigone, To wail their brothers' fall; With little doubt I deem, That they will pour from fond, deep-bosomed breasts A worthy strain of grief: But it is meet that we, Before we hear their cry, 860 Should utter the harsh hymn Erinnys loves, And sing to Hades dark The Pæan of distress. O ye, most evil-fated in your kin, Of all who guard their robes with maiden's band, I weep and wail, and feigning know I none, That I should fail to speak My sorrow from my heart.

Strophe I

_Semi-Chor. A._ Alas! alas! Men of stern mood, who would not list to friends, Unwearied in all ills, 870 Seizing your father's house, O wretched ones With the spear's murderous point.

_Semi-Chor. B._ Yea, wretched they who found a wretched doom, With havoc of the house.

Antistrophe I

_Semi-Chor. A._ Alas! alas! Ye who laid low the ancient walls of home, On sovereignty, ill won, Your eyes have looked, and ye at last are brought To concord by the sword.

_Semi-Chor. B._ Yea, of a truth, the curse of Œdipus 880 Erinnys dread fulfils.

Strophe II

_Semi-Chor. A._ Yea, smitten through the heart, Smitten through sides where flowed the blood of brothers. Ah me! ye doomed of God! Ah me! the curses dire Of deaths ye met with each at other's hands!

_Semi-Chor. B._ Thou tell'st of men death-smitten through and through, Both in their homes and lives, With wrath beyond all speech, 890 And doom of discord fell, That sprang from out the curse their father spake.

Antistrophe II

_Semi-Chor. A._ Yea, through the city runs A wailing cry. The high towers wail aloud; Wails all the plain that loves her heroes well; And to their children's sons The wealth will go for which The strife of those ill-starred ones brought forth death.

_Semi-Chor. B._ Quick to resent, they shared their fortune so, That each like portion won; *Nor can their friends regard Their umpire without blame; 900 Nor is our voice in thanks to Ares raised.

Strophe III

_Semi-Chor. A._ By the sword smitten low, Thus are they now; By the sword smitten low, There wait them ... Nay, Doth one perchance ask what? Shares in their old ancestral sepulchres.

_Semi-Chor. B._ *The sorrow of the house is borne to them By my heart-rending wail. Mine own the cries I pour; Mine own the woes I weep, Bitter and joyless, shedding truest tears 910 From heart that faileth, even as they fall, For these two kingly chiefs.

Antistrophe III

_Semi-Chor. A._ Yes; one may say of them, That wretched pair, That they much ill have wrought To their own host; Yea, and to alien ranks Of many nations fallen in the fray.

_Semi-Chor._ B. Ah! miserable she who bare those twain, 'Bove all of women born Who boast a mother's name! 920 Taking her son, her own, As spouse, she bare these children, and they both, By mutual slaughter and by brothers' hands, Have found their end in death.

Strophe IV

_Semi-Chor. A._ Yes; of the same womb born, and doomèd both, *Not as friends part, they fell, In strife to madness pushed In this their quarrel's end.

_Semi-Chor. B._ The quarrel now is hushed, And in the ensanguined earth their lives are blent; 930 Full near in blood are they. Stern umpire of their strifes Has been the stranger from beyond the sea,[129] Fresh from the furnace, keen and sharpened steel. Stern, too, is Ares found, Distributing their goods, Making their father's curses all too true.

Antistrophe IV

_Semi-Chor. A._ At last they have their share, ah, wretched ones! Of burdens sent from God. 940 And now beneath them lies A boundless wealth of——earth.

_Semi-Chor. B._ O ye who your own race Have made to burgeon out with many woes! Over the end at last The brood of Curses raise Their shrill, sharp cry of lamentation loud, The race being put to flight of utmost rout, And Atè's trophy stands, Where in the gates they fell; And Fate, now both are conquered, rests at last. 950

_Enter_ ANTIGONE _and_ ISMENE, _followed by mourning maidens_[130]

_Ant._ Thou wast smitten, and thou smotest.

_Ism._ Thou did'st slaughter, and wast slaughtered.

_Ant._ Thou with spear to death did'st smite him.

_Ism._ Thou with spear to death wast smitten.

_Ant._ Oh, the woe of all your labours!

_Ism._ Oh, the woe of all ye suffered!

_Ant._ Pour the cry of lamentation.

_Ism._ Pour the tears of bitter weeping.

_Ant._ There in death thou liest prostrate.

_Ism._ Having wrought a great destruction.

Strophe

_Ant._ Ah! my mind is crazed with wailing. 960

_Ism._ Yea, my heart within me groaneth.

_Ant._ Thou for whom the city weepeth!

_Ism._ Thou too, doomed to all ill-fortune!

_Ant._ By a loved hand thou hast perished.

_Ism._ And a loved form thou hast slaughtered.

_Ant._ Double woes are ours to tell of.

_Ism._ Double woes too ours to look on.

_Ant._ *Twofold sorrows from near kindred.

_Ism._ *Sisters we by brothers standing.

_Ant._ Terrible are they to tell of. 970

_Ism._ Terrible are they to look on.

_Chor._ Ah me, thou Destiny, Giver of evil gifts, and working woe, And thou dread spectral form of Œdipus, And swarth Erinnys too, A mighty one art thou.

Antistrophe

_Ant._ Ah me! ah me! woes dread to look on....

_Ism._ Ye showed to me, returned from exile.

_Ant._ Not, when he had slain, returned he.

_Ism._ Nay, he, saved from exile, perished. 980

_Ant._ Yea, I trow too well, he perished.

_Ism._ And his brother, too, he murdered.

_Ant._ Woeful, piteous, are those brothers!

_Ism._ Woeful, piteous, all they suffered!

_Ant._ Woes of kindred wrath enkindling!

_Ism._ Saturate with threefold horrors!

_Ant._ Terrible are they to tell of.

_Ism._ Terrible are they to look on.

_Chor._ Ah me, thou Destiny, Giver of evil gifts, and stern of soul, And thou dread spectral form of Œdipus, 990 And swarth Erinnys too, A mighty one art thou.

Epode

_Ant._ Thou, then, by full trial knowest....

_Ism._ Thou, too, no whit later learning....

_Ant._ When thou cam'st back to this city[131]....

_Ism._ Rival to our chief in warfare.

_Ant._ Woe, alas! for all our troubles!

_Ism._ Woe, alas! for all our evils!

_Ant._ Evils fallen on our houses!

_Ism._ Evils fallen on our country!

_Ant._ And on me before all others....

_Ism._ And to me the future waiting.... 1000

_Ant._ Woe for those two brothers luckless!

_Ism._ King Eteocles, our leader!

_Ant._ Oh, before all others wretched!

_Ism._ . . . . .

_Ant._ Ah, by Atè frenzy-stricken!

_Ism._ Ah, where now shall they be buried?

_Ant._ There where grave is highest honour.

_Ism._ Ah, the woe my father wedded!

_Enter a_ Herald

_Her._ 'Tis mine the judgment and decrees to publish Of this Cadmeian city's counsellors: It is decreed Eteocles to honour, For his good-will towards this land of ours, 1010 With seemly burial, such as friend may claim; For warding off our foes he courted death; Pure as regards his country's holy things, Blameless he died where death the young beseems; This then I'm ordered to proclaim of him. But for his brother's, Polyneikes' corpse, To cast it out unburied, prey for dogs, As working havoc on Cadmeian land, Unless some God had hindered by the spear Of this our prince;[132] and he, though, dead, shall gain 1020 The curse of all his father's Gods, whom he

[_Pointing to_ POLYNEIKES

With alien host dishonouring, sought to take Our city. Him by ravenous birds interred Ingloriously, they sentence to receive His full deserts; and none may take in hand To heap up there a tomb, nor honour him With shrill-voiced wailings; but he still must lie, Without the meed of burial by his friends. So do the high Cadmeian powers decree.

_Ant._ And I those rulers of Cadmeians tell,[133] 1030 That if no other care to bury him, I will inter him, facing all the risk, Burying my brother: nor am I ashamed To thwart the State in rank disloyalty; Strange power there is in ties of blood, that we, Born of woe-laden mother, sire ill-starred, Are bound by: therefore of thy full free-will, Share thou, my soul, in woes he did not will, Thou living, he being dead, with sister's heart. And this I say, no wolves with ravening maw, Shall tear his flesh—No! no! let none think that! For tomb and burial I will scheme for him, 1040 Though I be but weak woman, bringing earth Within my byssine raiment's fold, and so Myself will bury him; let no man think (I say't again) aught else. Take heart, my soul! There shall not fail the means effectual.

_Her._ I bid thee not defy the State in this.

_Ant._ I bid thee not proclaim vain words to me.

_Her._ Stern is the people now, with victory flushed.

_Ant._ Stern let them be, he shall not tombless lie.

_Her._ And wilt thou honour whom the State doth loathe?

_Ant._ *Yea, from the Gods he gets an honour due.[134]1050

_Her._ It was not so till he this land attacked.

_Ant._ He, suffering evil, evil would repay.

_Her._ Not against one his arms were turned, but all.

_Ant._ Strife is the last of Gods to end disputes: Him I will bury; talk no more of it.

_Her._ Choose for thyself then, I forbid the deed.

_Chor._ Alas! alas! alas! Ye haughty boasters, race-destroying, Now Fates and now Erinnyes, smiting The sons of Œdipus, ye slew them, With a root-and-branch destruction. 1060 What shall I then do, what suffer? What shall I devise in counsel? How should I dare nor to weep thee, Nor escort thee to the burial? But I tremble and I shrink from All the terrors which they threatened, They who are my fellow-townsmen. Many mourners thou (_looking to the bier of_ ETEOCLES) shalt meet with; But he, lost one, unlamented, With his sister's wailing only Passeth. Who with this complieth?

_Semi-Chor. A_. Let the city doom or not doom Those who weep for Polyneikes; We will go, and we will bury, 1070 Maidens we in sad procession; For the woe to all is common, And our State with voice uncertain, Of the claims of Right and Justice; Hither, thither, shifts its praises.

_Semi-Chor. B._ We will thus, our chief attending, Speak, as speaks the State, our praises: Of the claims of Right and Justice;[135] For next those the Blessed Rulers, And the strength of Zeus, he chiefly Saved the city of Cadmeians From the doom of fell destruction, From the doom of whelming utter, In the flood of alien warriors.

[_Exeunt_ ANTIGONE _and Semi-Chorus A., following the corpse of_ POLYNEIKES; ISMENE _and Semi-Chorus B. that of_ ETEOCLES.

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Footnote 73:

Probably directed against the tendency of the Athenians, as shown in their treatment of Miltiades, and later in that of Thukydides, to punish their unsuccessful generals, “_pour encourager les autres_.”

Footnote 74:

Teiresias, as in Sophocles (_Antig._ v. 1005), sitting, though blind, and listening, as the birds flit by him, and the flames burn steadily or fitfully; a various reading gives “apart from sight.”

Footnote 75:

Enyo, the goddess of war, and companion of Ares.

Footnote 76:

Amphiaraos the seer had prophesied that Adrastos alone should return home in safety. On his car, therefore, the other chieftains hung the clasps, or locks of hair, or other memorials which in the event of their death were to be taken to their parents.

Footnote 77:

The Hellenic feeling, such as the Platæans appealed to in the Peloponnesian war (Thuc. iii. 58, 59), that it was noble and right for Hellenes to destroy a city of the barbarians, but that they should spare one belonging to a people of their own stock.

Footnote 78:

The characteristic feature of the Argive soldiers was, that they bore a shield painted white (comp. Sophocles, _Antig._ v. 114). The leaders alone appear to have embellished this with devices and mottoes.

Footnote 79:

In solemn supplications, the litanies of the ancient world, especially in those to Pallas, the suppliants carried with them in procession the shawl or _peplos_ of the Goddess, and with it enwrapt her statue. To carry boughs of trees in the hands was one of the uniform, probably indispensable, accompaniments of such processions.

Footnote 80:

The words recall our thoughts to the original use of the trident, which became afterwards a symbol of Poseidon, as employed by the sailors of Hellas to spear or harpoon the larger fish of the Archipelago. Comp. _Pers._ v. 426, where the slaughter of a defeated army is compared to tunny-fishing.

Footnote 81:

Cadmos, probably “the man from the East,” the Phœnikian who had founded Thebes, and sown the dragon's seed, and taught men a Semitic alphabet for the non-Semitic speech of Hellas.

Footnote 82:

Worthy of his name as the Wolf-destroyer, mighty to destroy his foes.

Footnote 83:

Possibly “_from_ battlements attacked.” In the primitive sieges of Greek warfare stones were used as missiles alike by besieged and besiegers.

Footnote 84:

The name of Onca belonged especially to the Theban worship of Pallas, and was said to have been of Phœnikian origin, introduced by Cadmos. There seems, however, to have been a town Onkæ in Bœotia, with which the name was doubtless connected.

Footnote 85:

“Alien,” on account of the difference of dialect between the speech of Argos and that of Bœotia, though both were Hellenic.

Footnote 86:

The vehemence with which Eteocles reproves the wild frenzied wailing of the Chorus may be taken as an element of the higher culture showing itself in Athenian life, which led Solon to restrain such lamentations by special laws (Plutarch, _Solon_, c. 20). Here, too, we note in Æschylos an echo of the teaching of Epimenides.

Footnote 87:

As now the sailor of the Mediterranean turns to the image of his patron saint, so of old he ran in his distress to the figure of his God upon the prow of his ship (often, as in Acts xxviii. II, that of the _Dioscuri_), and called to it for deliverance (comp. Jonah i. 8).

Footnote 88:

Eteocles seems to wish for a short, plain prayer for deliverance, instead of the cries and supplications and vain repetitions of the Chorus.

Footnote 89:

The thought thus expressed was, that the Gods, yielding to the mightier law of destiny, or in their wrath at the guilt of men, left the city before its capture. The feeling was all but universal. Its two representative instances are found in Virgil, _Æn._ 351—

“Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis Di quibus imperium hoc steterat;”

and the narrative given alike by Tacitus (_Hist._ v. 13), and Josephus (_Bell. Jud._ vi. 5, 3), that the cry “Let us depart hence,” was heard at midnight through the courts of the Temple, before the destruction of Jerusalem.

Footnote 90:

_Sc._ Blood must be shed in war. Ares would not be Ares without it. It is better to take it as it comes.

Footnote 91:

_Sc._, the company of Gods, Pallas, Hera and the others whom the Chorus had invoked.

Footnote 92:

Reference to this custom, which has passed from Pagan temples into Christian churches, is found in the _Agamemnon_, v. 562. It was connected, of course, with the general practice of offering as _ex votos_ any personal ornaments or clothing as a token of thanksgiving for special mercies.

Footnote 93:

Rivers and streams as the children of Tethys and Okeanos.

Footnote 94:

Here, as in v. 571, Tydeus appears as the real leader of the expedition, who had persuaded Adrastos and the other chiefs to join in it, and Amphiaraos, the prophet, the son of Œcleus, as having all along foreseen its disastrous issue. The account of the expedition in the _Œdipus at Colonos_ (1300-1330) may be compared with this.

Footnote 95:

The legend of the Medusa's head on the shield of Athena shows the practice of thus decorating shields to have been of remote date. In Homer it does not appear as common, and the account given of the shield of Achilles lays stress upon the work of the artist (Hephæstos) who wrought the shield in relief, not, as here, upon painted insignia. They were obviously common in the time of Æschylos.

Footnote 96:

The older families of Thebes boasted that they sprang from the survivors of the Sparti, who, sprung from the Dragon's teeth, waged deadly war against each other, till all but five were slain. The later settlers, who were said to have come with Cadmos, stood to these as the “greater” to the “lesser _gentes_” at Rome.

Footnote 97:

So in the _Antigone_ of Sophocles (v. 134), Capaneus appears as the special representative of boastful, reckless impiety.

Footnote 98:

Artemis, as one of the special Deities to whom Thebes was consecrated.

Footnote 99:

Apparently an Asiatic invention, to increase the terror of an attack of war-chariots.

Footnote 100:

The phrase and thought were almost proverbial in Athens. Men, as citizens, were thought of as fed at a common table, bound to contribute their gifts to the common stock. When they offered up their lives in battle, they were giving, as Pericles says (Thucyd. ii. 43), their noblest “contribution,” paying in full their subscription to the society of which they were members.

Footnote 101:

Thyiad, another name for the Mænads, the frenzied attendants on Dionysos.

Footnote 102:

_Sc._, in the legends of Typhon, not he, but Zeus, had proved the conqueror. The warrior, therefore, who chose Typhon for his badge was identifying himself with the losing, not the winning side.

Footnote 103:

The name, as we are told in v. 542, is Parthenopæos, the maiden-faced.

Footnote 104:

The Sphinx, besides its general character as an emblem of terror, had, of course, a special meaning as directed to the Thebans. The warrior who bore it threatened to renew the old days when the monster whom Œdipus had overcome had laid waste their city.

Footnote 105:

_Sc._, the Sphinx on his shield will not be allowed to enter the city. It will only serve as a mark, attracting men to attack both it and the warrior who bears it.

Footnote 106:

The quarrel between Tydeus and the seer Amphiaraos had been already touched upon.

Footnote 107:

I have used the old English word to express a term of like technical use in Athenian law processes. As the “sumpnour” called witnesses or parties to a suit into court, so Tydeus had summoned the Erinnys to do her work of destruction.

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