Persians

Aeschylus

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

  1. And all too lightly did you in turn interpret it. However, since your explanation determined thus, first of all I wish to offer prayers to the gods, and then I will return after I have brought from the palace a sacrificial cake as a gift to Earth and the dead.
  2. I know indeed that it is for what cannot be undone, yet I do this in the hope that something more auspicious may come to pass in the future. But you should confer faithfully with the faithful counsellors in view of what has befallen. And as for my son, if he should come here before I return,
  3. comfort him and escort him to the palace, so that he will not inflict on himself some further ill to crown those already ours. Exit
Chorus
  1. O sovereign Zeus, by destroying the army of the haughty and multitudinous Persians,
  2. you have shrouded in the gloom of grief the city of Susa and of Agbatana! Many a woman, who has a share in this sorrow, tears her veil with tender hands
  3. and moistens with drenching tears the robe covering her bosom. And the Persian wives, indulging in soft wailing through longing to behold their lords and abandoning the daintily wrought coverlets of their couches, the delight of their youth,
  4. mourn with complainings that know no end. So I too sustain the truly woeful fate of those who are gone.
Chorus
  1. For now in truth the whole land of Asia, decimated, moans:
  2. Xerxes led forth (woe!), Xerxes laid low (woe!), Xerxes disposed all things imprudently with his sea-going vessels. Why then was Darius
  3. in his time so unscathed by disaster, he who was ruler of archers, to the men of Susa a beloved leader?
Chorus
  1. For infantry and seamen both, the ships, dark-eyed[*](The great eye that was often painted on each bow made a Greek ship seem a thing of life. Cp. Aesch. Supp. 716.)and linen-winged,
  2. led forth (woe!), the ships laid them low (woe!), the ships, under the deadly impact of the foe and by the hands of Ionians.
  3. The King himself, as we learn, has barely made his escape over the wintry paths which traverse the plains of Thrace.
Chorus
  1. And they who were first to meet their doom (alas!), left behind by dire necessity (alas!),
  2. are swept along the Cychrean strand (woe!). Groan and gnash your teeth; in grievous strain shout forth our woes till they reach the heavens (alas!), raise high
  3. your wailing clamor in cries of misery.
Chorus
  1. Lacerated by the swirling waters (alas!) they are gnawed (alas!) by the voiceless children of the undefiled sea (alas!). The home, bereaved of his presence, laments its head;
  2. and parents, bereft of their children, in their old age bewail their heaven- sent woes (alas!), now that they learn the full measure of their afflictions.
Chorus
  1. Not now for long will those who dwell throughout the length and breadth of Asia