Persians

Aeschylus

Aeschylus, Volume 1. Smyth, Herbert Weir, translator. London; New York: William Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.

  1. The life which has been given to us elders is too long, for we have now heard
  2. of this unexpected misery.
Messenger
  1. Since I myself was present and did not merely hear what happened from the report of others, I can tell you exactly what kind of disaster was wrought.
Chorus
  1. Alas, alas! In vain did our vast and variously armed host
  2. go forth from the land of Asia against the hostile soil of Hellas.
Messenger
  1. Full of the bodies of men who perished by a miserable fate are the shores of Salamis and all the neighboring coasts.
Chorus
  1. Alas, alas! You say that the bodies of our loved ones,
  2. battered by the brine and drenched, are tossing, washed back and forth among the reefs.
Messenger
  1. Our bows were of no use, and the whole host has perished, overwhelmed when ship charged on ship.
Chorus
  1. Raise a doleful and mournful wail for the Persians, the wretched Persians, since they have met with complete and utter ruin. Alas for the destruction of our host!
Messenger
  1. O name of Salamis most odious to my ears!
  2. Alas, how I groan when I recall the memory of Athens!
Chorus
  1. Ah, hateful indeed is Athens to her foes. Now must we remember how many Persian women she has deprived of sons and husbands, lost all in vain.
Atossa
  1. Long have I kept silent in my misery, struck with dismay at our disaster; for this calamity is so great that it is not possible to say or even to ask about its extent. Nevertheless mortals must endure affliction when it is heaven-sent.
  2. Compose yourself, and even though you groan at our loss, relate the sum of our disaster and speak out! Who is there that is not dead? Whom of our leaders must we bewail? Who, appointed to wield command, by death left his post empty, without its chief?
Messenger
  1. Xerxes himself lives and beholds the light.
Atossa
  1. The words you utter bring a great light of joy into my house, and bright day after night wrapped in gloom.
Messenger
  1. But Artembares, commander of ten thousand cavalrymen, is being battered now against Silenia’s cruel shore. And Dadaces, leader of a thousand men, leapt, struck by a spear,
  2. with a nimble bound from his ship. Tenagon, the true-born Bactrians’ chieftain, is ranging now around the surf-beaten isle of Ajax. Lilaeus and Arsames, and, third, Argestes,
  3. kept buffeting against its rugged shore, whirled around about the island,[*](According to the scholiast, Salamis is meant; according to Hermann, one of the small islands adjacent to Salamis.)the breeding-place of doves. Arcteus, too, who lived by the waters of the Egyptian Nile, Adeues, and Pharnuchus of the mighty shield—all these were hurled out of one ship. Matallus of Chrysa, commander of ten thousand,