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O would that in vapour of smoke I might rise to the clouds of the sky, That as dust which flits up without wings I might pass and evanish and die! I dare not, I dare not abide: my heart yearns, eager to fly; And dark is the cast of my thought; I shudder and tremble for fear. My father looked forth and beheld: I die of ... |
Alack, alack! the ravisher— He leaps from boat to beach, he draweth near! Away, thou plunderer accurst! Death seize thee first, Or e’er thou touch me—off! God, hear our cry, Our maiden agony! Ah, ah, the touch, the prelude of my shame. Alas, my maiden fame! O sister, sister, to the altar cling, For he that seizeth me, ... |
Enter the HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Hence to my barge—step swiftly, tarry not. CHORUS. Alack, he rends—he rends my hair! O wound on wound! Help! my lopped head will fall, my blood gush o’er the ground! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Aboard, ye cursèd—with a new curse, go! CHORUS. Would God that on the wand’ring brine Thou and this braggart tongue of thine Had sunk beneath the main— Thy mast and planks, made fast in vain! Thee would I drive aboard once more, A slayer and a dastard, from the shore! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Be still, thou vain demented soul; My force thy craving shall control. Away, aboard! What, clingest to the shrine? Away! this city’s gods I hold not for divine. |
CHORUS. Aid me, ye gods, that never, never I may again behold The mighty, the life-giving river, Nilus, the quickener of field and fold! Alack, O sire, unto the shrine I cling— Shrine of this land from which mine ancient line did spring! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Shrines, shrines, forsooth!—the ship, the ship be shrine! Aboard, perforce and will-ye nill-ye, go! Or e’er from hands of mine Ye suffer torments worse and blow on blow. |
CHORUS. Alack, God grant those hands may strive in vain With the salt-streaming wave, When ’gainst the wide-blown blasts thy bark shall strain To round Sarpedon’s cape, the sandbank’s treach’rous grave. |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Shrill ye and shriek unto what gods ye may, Ye shall not leap from out Aegyptus’ bark, How bitterly soe’er ye wail your woe. |
CHORUS. Alack, alack my wrong! Stern is thy voice, thy vaunting loud and strong. Thy sire, the mighty Nilus, drive thee hence Turning to death and doom thy greedy violence! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Swift to the vessel of the double prow, Go quickly! let none linger, else this hand Ruthless will hale you by your tresses hence. |
CHORUS. Alack, O father! from the shrine Not aid but agony is mine. As a spider he creeps and he clutches his prey, And he hales me away. A spectre of darkness, of darkness. Alas and alas! well-a-day! O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her child! Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and t... |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Peace! I fear not this country’s deities. They fostered not my childhood nor mine age. CHORUS. Like a snake that is human he comes, he shudders and crawls to my side; As an adder that biteth the foot, his clutch on my flesh doth abide. O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her ch... |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Swift each unto the ship; repine no more, Or my hand shall not spare to rend your robe. CHORUS. O chiefs, O leaders, aid me, or I yield! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Peace! if ye have not ears to hear my words, Lo, by these tresses must I hale you hence. CHORUS. Undone we are, O king! all hope is gone. |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Ay, kings enow ye shall behold anon, Aegyptus’ sons—Ye shall not want for kings. Enter the KING OF ARGOS. THE KING OF ARGOS. Sirrah, what dost thou? in what arrogance Darest thou thus insult Pelasgia’s realm? Deemest thou this a woman-hearted town? Thou art too full of thy barbarian scorn For us of ... |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Say thou wherein my deeds transgress my right. THE KING OF ARGOS. First, that thou play’st a stranger’s part amiss. |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Wherein? I do but search and claim mine own. THE KING OF ARGOS. To whom of our guest-champions hast appealed? |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. To Hermes, herald’s champion, lord of search. THE KING OF ARGOS. Yea, to a god—yet dost thou wrong the gods! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. The gods that rule by Nilus I revere. THE KING OF ARGOS. Hear I aright? our Argive gods are nought? HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. The prey is mine, unless force rend it from me. |
THE KING OF ARGOS. At thine own peril touch them—’ware, and soon! HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. I hear thy speech, no hospitable word. THE KING OF ARGOS. I am no host for sacrilegious hands. |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. I will go tell this to Aegyptus’ sons. THE KING OF ARGOS. Tell it! my pride will ponder not thy word. HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Yet, that I have my message clear to say (For it behooves that heralds’ words be clear, Be they or ill or good), how art thou named? By whom despoilèd of this sister-band Of maid... |
THE KING OF ARGOS. What skills it that I tell my name to thee? Thou and thy mates shall learn it ere the end. Know that if words unstained by violence Can change these maidens’ choice, then mayest thou, With full consent of theirs, conduct them hence. But thus the city with one voice ordained— |
_No force shall bear away the maiden band_. Firmly this word upon the temple wall Is by a rivet clenched, and shall abide: Not upon wax inscribed and delible, Nor upon parchment sealed and stored away.— Lo, thou hast heard our free mouths speak their will: Out from our presence—tarry not, but go! |
HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Methinks we stand on some new edge of war: Be strength and triumph on the young men’s side! THE KING OF ARGOS. Nay but here also shall ye find young men, Unsodden with the juices oozed from grain.[6] |
[_Exit HERALD OF AEGYPTUS._] But ye, O maids, with your attendants true, Pass hence with trust into the fencèd town, Ringed with a wide confine of guarding towers. Therein are many dwellings for such guests As the State honours; there myself am housed Within a palace neither scant nor strait. There dwell ye, if ye will... |
CHORUS. O godlike chief, God grant my prayer: _Fair blessings on thy proffers fair, Lord of Pelasgia’s race!_ Yet, of thy grace, unto our side Send thou the man of courage tried, Of counsel deep and prudent thought,— Be Danaus to his children brought; For his it is to guide us well And warn where it behoves to dwell— W... |
THE KING OF ARGOS. A stainless fame, a welcome kind From all this people shall ye find: Dwell therefore, damsels, loved of us, Within our walls, as Danaus Allots to each, in order due, Her dower of attendants true. |
Re-enter DANAUS. DANAUS High thanks, my children, unto Argos con, And to this folk, as to Olympian gods, Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine; For saviours are they in good sooth to you. From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath, How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong, And how of us were thwarted: th... |
CHORUS. The gods above grant that all else be well. But fear not thou, O sire, lest aught befall Of ill unto our ripened maidenhood. So long as Heaven have no new ill devised, From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Pass and adore ye the Blessed, the gods of the city who dwell Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial tide. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of Pelasgia swell; Hymn we no longer the shores where Nilus to ocean doth glide. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush through the city; Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of the plain. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace and with pity— Save us from forced embraces: such love hath no crown but a pain. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of Aphrodite; She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and control. Holy the deeds of her rite, her craft is secret and mighty, And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her sway of the soul. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his mother he goeth— Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny or repel: Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that lovers love well. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Ah, but I tremble and quake lest again they should sail to reclaim! Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war. Ah, by whose will was it done that o’er the wide ocean they came, Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and by oar? |
SEMI-CHORUS. Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not tarry but come; Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or withstood: Only I pray that whate’er, in the end, of this wedlock he doom, We as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill to the good.[7] |
SEMI-CHORUS. Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me— Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard! SEMI-CHORUS. Come what come may, ’tis Fate’s decree. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Soft is thy word—the doom is hard. SEMI-CHORUS. Thou know’st not what the Fates provide. SEMI-CHORUS. How should I scan Zeus’ mighty will, The depth of counsel undescried? |
SEMI-CHORUS. Pray thou no word of omen ill. SEMI-CHORUS. What timely warning wouldst thou teach? SEMI-CHORUS. Beware, nor slight the gods in speech. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the bridegroom abhorred! It was thou, it was thou didst release Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it was that restored, The touch of thine hand gave her peace. |
SEMI-CHORUS. Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills, the lesser I pray— The exile that leaveth me pure. May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers to thy mercy find way! For the hands of thy saving are sure. |
[_Exeunt omnes._] [1] “ἀερίας ἀπὸ γᾶς.” This epithet may appear strange to modern readers accustomed to think of Egypt as a land of cloudless skies and pellucid atmosphere. Nevertheless both Pindar (_Pyth_ iv 93) and Apollonius Rhodius (iv 267) speak of it in the same way as Aeschylus. It has been conjectured that they... |
[2] The whole of this dialogue in alternate verses is disarranged in the MSS. The re-arrangement which has approved itself to Paley has been here followed. It involves, however, a hiatus, instead of the line to which this note is appended. The substance of the lost line being easily deducible from the context, it has b... |
[3] Poseidon. [4] Here one verse at least has been lost. The conjecture of Bothe seems to be verified, as far as substance is concerned, by the next line, and has consequently been adopted. |
[5] Cyprus. [6] For this curious taunt, strongly illustrative of what Browning calls “nationality in drinks,” see Herodotus, ii. 77. A similar feeling may perhaps be traced in Tacitus’ description of the national beverage of the Germans: “Potui humor ex hordeo aut frumento, _in quandam similitudinem vini corruptus_” (_... |
[7] The ambiguity of these two lines is reproduced from the original. The Semi-Chorus appear to pray, in one aspiration, that the threatened wedlock may never take place, and, _if_ it does take place, may be for weal, not woe. |
THE PERSIANS ARGUMENT Xerxes, son of Darius and of his wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, went forth against Hellas, to take vengeance upon those who had defeated his father at Marathon. But ill fortune befell the king and his army both by land and sea; neither did it avail him that he cast a bridge over the Hellespont an... |
_The Scene is laid at the Palace of Susa_. CHORUS. Away unto the Grecian land Hath passed the Persian armament: We, by the monarch’s high command, We are the warders true who stand, Chosen, for honour and descent, To watch the wealth of him who went— Guards of the gold, and faithful styled By Xerxes, great Darius’ chil... |
But the king went nor comes again— And for that host, we saw depart Arrayed in gold, my boding heart Aches with a pulse of anxious pain, Presageful for its youthful king! No scout, no steed, no battle-car Comes speeding hitherward, to bring News to our city from afar! Erewhile they went, away, away, From Susa, from Ecb... |
Gone are they, gone—ah, welladay! The flower and pride of our array; And all the Eastland, from whose breast Came forth her bravest and her best, Craves longingly with boding dread— Parents for sons, and brides new-wed For absent lords, and, day by day, Shudder with dread at their delay! |
Ere now they have passed o’er the sea, the manifold host of the king— They have gone forth to sack and to burn; ashore on the Westland they spring! With cordage and rope they have bridged the sea-way of Helle, to pass O’er the strait that is named by thy name, O daughter of Athamas! They have anchored their ships in th... |
Therefore my gloom-wrapped heart is rent with sorrow For what may hap to-morrow! Alack, for all the Persian armament— Alack, lest there be sent Dread news of desolation, Susa’s land Bereft, forlorn, unmanned— Lest the grey Kissian fortress echo back The wail, _Alack, Alack!_ The sound of women’s shriek, who wail and mo... |
_Alas my gallant bridegroom, lost and gone, And I am left alone!_ But now, ye warders of the state, Here, in this hall of old renown, Behoves that we deliberate In counsel deep and wise debate, For need is surely shown! How fareth he, Darius’ child, The Persian king, from Perseus styled? |
Comes triumph to the eastern bow, Or hath the lance-point conquered now? Enter ATOSSA. See, yonder comes the mother-queen, Light of our eyes, in godlike sheen, The royal mother of the king!— Fall we before her! well it were That, all as one, we sue to her, And round her footsteps cling! |
Queen, among deep-girded Persian dames thou highest and most royal, Hoary mother, thou, of Xerxes, and Darius’ wife of old! To godlike sire, and godlike son, we bow us and are loyal— Unless, on us, an adverse tide of destiny has rolled! |
ATOSSA. Therefore come I forth to you, from chambers decked and golden, Where long ago Darius laid his head, with me beside, And my heart is torn with anguish, and with terror am I holden, And I plead unto your friendship and I bid you to my side. |
Darius, in the old time, by aid of some Immortal, Raised up the stately fabric, our wealth of long-ago: But I tremble lest it totter down, and ruin porch and portal, And the whirling dust of downfall rise above its overthrow! |
Therefore a dread unspeakable within me never slumbers, Saying, _Honour not the gauds of wealth if men have ceased to grow, Nor deem that men, apart from wealth, can find their strength in numbers_— We shudder for our light and king, though we have gold enow! |
_No light there is, in any house, save presence of the master_— So runs the saw, ye aged men! and truth it says indeed— On you I call, the wise and true, to ward us from disaster, For all my hope is fixed on you, to prop us in our need! |
CHORUS. Queen-Mother of the Persian land, to thy commandment bowing, Whate’er thou wilt, in word or deed, we follow to fulfil— Not twice we need thine high behest, our faith and duty knowing, In council and in act alike, thy loyal servants still! |
ATOSSA. Long while by various visions of the night Am I beset, since to Ionian lands With marshalled host my son went forth to war. Yet never saw I presage so distinct As in the night now passed.—Attend my tale!— A dream I had: two women nobly clad Came to my sight, one robed in Persian dress, The other vested in the D... |
Such was my vision of the night now past; But when, arising, I had dipped my hand In the fair lustral stream, I drew towards The altar, in the act of sacrifice, Having in mind to offer, as their due, The sacred meal-cake to the averting powers, Lords of the rite that banisheth ill dreams. When lo! I saw an eagle fleein... |
CHORUS. Queen, it stands not with my purpose to abet these fears of thine, Nor to speak with glazing comfort! nay, betake thee to the shrine! If thy dream foretold disaster, sue to gods to bar its way, And, for thyself, son, state, and friends, to bring fair fate to-day. Next, unto Earth and to the Dead be due libation... |
ATOSSA. Loyal thou that first hast read this dream, this vision of the night, With loyalty to me, the queen—be then thy presage right! And therefore, as thy bidding is, what time I pass within To dedicate these offerings, new prayers I will begin, Alike to gods and the great dead who loved our lineage well. Yet one mor... |
CHORUS. Far hence, even where, in evening land, goes down our Lord the Sun. ATOSSA. Say, had my son so keen desire, that region to o’errun? |
CHORUS. Yea—if she fell, the rest of Greece were subject to our sway! ATOSSA. Hath she so great predominance, such legions in array? |
CHORUS. Ay—such a host as smote us sore upon an earlier day. ATOSSA. And what hath she, besides her men? enow of wealth in store? |
CHORUS. A mine of treasure in the earth, a fount of silver ore! ATOSSA. Is it in skill of bow and shaft that Athens’ men excel? CHORUS. Nay, they bear bucklers in the fight, and thrust the spear-point well. |
ATOSSA. And who is shepherd of their host and holds them in command? CHORUS. To no man do they bow as slaves, nor own a master’s hand. |
ATOSSA. How should they bide our brunt of war, the East upon the West? CHORUS. That could Darius’ valiant horde in days of yore attest! |
ATOSSA. A boding word, to us who bore the men now far away! CHORUS. Nay—as I deem, the very truth will dawn on us to-day. A Persian by his garb and speed, a courier draws anear— He bringeth news, of good or ill, for Persia’s land to hear. |
Enter a MESSENGER. MESSENGER. O walls and towers of all the Asian realm, O Persian land, O treasure-house of gold! How, by one stroke, down to destruction, down, Hath sunk our pride, and all the flower of war That once was Persia’s, lieth in the dust! Woe on the man who first announceth woe— Yet must I all the tale of ... |
CHORUS. O ruin manifold, and woe, and fear! Let the wild tears run down, for the great doom is here! MESSENGER. This blow hath fallen, to the utterance, And I, past hope, behold my safe return! |
CHORUS. Too long, alack, too long this life of mine, That in mine age I see this sudden woe condign! MESSENGER. As one who saw, by no loose rumour led, Lords, I would tell what doom was dealt to us. |
CHORUS. Alack, how vainly have they striven! Our myriad hordes with shaft and bow Went from the Eastland, to lay low Hellas, beloved of Heaven! |
MESSENGER. Piled with men dead, yea, miserably slain, Is every beach, each reef of Salamis! CHORUS. Thou sayest sooth—ah well-a-day! Battered amid the waves, and torn, On surges hither, thither, borne, Dead bodies, bloodstained and forlorn, In their long cloaks they toss and stray! |
MESSENGER. Their bows availed not! all have perished, all, By charging galleys crushed and whelmed in death. CHORUS. Shriek out your sorrow’s wistful wail! To their untimely doom they went; Ill strove they, and to no avail, And minished is their armament! |
MESSENGER. Out on thee, hateful name of Salamis, Out upon Athens, mournful memory! CHORUS. Woe upon this day’s evil fame! Thou, Athens, art our murderess; Alack, full many a Persian dame Is left forlorn and husbandless! |
ATOSSA. Mute have I been awhile, and overwrought At this great sorrow, for it passeth speech, And passeth all desire to ask of it. Yet if the gods send evils, men must bear. (_To the_ MESSENGER) Unroll the record! stand composed and tell, Although thy heart be groaning inwardly, Who hath escaped, and, of our leaders, w... |
MESSENGER. Xerxes himself survives and sees the day. ATOSSA. Then to my line thy word renews the dawn And golden dayspring after gloom of night! |
MESSENGER. But the brave marshal of ten thousand horse, Artembares, is tossed and flung in death Along the rugged rocks Silenian. And Dadaces no longer leads his troop, But, smitten by the spear, from off the prow Hath lightly leaped to death; and Tenagon, In true descent a Bactrian nobly born, Drifts by the sea-lashed... |
ATOSSA. Ah well-a-day! these crowning woes I hear, The shame of Persia and her shrieks of dole! But yet renew the tale, repeat thy words, Tell o’er the count of those Hellenic ships, And how they ventured with their beakèd prows To charge upon the Persian armament. |
MESSENGER. Know, if mere count of ships could win the day, The Persians had prevailed. The Greeks, in sooth, Had but three hundred galleys at the most, And other ten, select and separate. But—I am witness—Xerxes held command Of full a thousand keels, and, those apart, Two hundred more, and seven, for speed renowned!— S... |
ATOSSA. Nay, we were worsted by an unseen power Who swayed the balance downward to our doom! MESSENGER. In ward of heaven doth Pallas’ city stand. |
ATOSSA. How then? is Athens yet inviolate? MESSENGER. While her men live, her bulwark standeth firm! ATOSSA. Say, how began the struggle of the ships? Who first joined issue? did the Greeks attack, Or Xerxes, in his numbers confident? |
MESSENGER. O queen, our whole disaster thus befell, Through intervention of some fiend or fate— I know not what—that had ill will to us. From the Athenian host some Greek came o’er, To thy son Xerxes whispering this tale— _Once let the gloom of night have gathered in, The Greeks will tarry not, but swiftly spring Each ... |
the Greeks rang out Their holy, resolute, exulting chant, Like men come forth to dare and do and die Their trumpets pealed, and fire was in that sound, And with the dash of simultaneous oars Replying to the war-chant, on they came, Smiting the swirling brine, and in a trice They flashed upon the vision of the foe! The ... |
ATOSSA. Woe on us, woe! disaster’s mighty sea Hath burst on us and all the Persian realm! MESSENGER. Be well assured, the tale is but begun— The further agony that on us fell Doth twice outweigh the sufferings I have told! |
ATOSSA. Nay, what disaster could be worse than this? Say on! what woe upon the army came, Swaying the scale to a yet further fall? |
MESSENGER. The very flower and crown of Persia’s race, Gallant of soul and glorious in descent, And highest held in trust before the king, Lies shamefully and miserably slain. |
ATOSSA. Alas for me and for this ruin, friends! Dead, sayest thou? by what fate overthrown? MESSENGER. An islet is there, fronting Salamis— Strait, and with evil anchorage: thereon Pan treads the measure of the dance he loves Along the sea-beach. Thither the king sent His noblest, that, whene’er the Grecian foe Should ... |
ATOSSA. Out on thee, Fortune! thou hast foiled the hope And power of Persia: to this bitter end My son went forth to wreak his great revenge On famous Athens! all too few they seemed, Our men who died upon the Fennel-field! Vengeance for them my son had mind to take, And drew on his own head these whelming woes. But th... |
MESSENGER. The captains of the ships that still survived Fled in disorder, scudding down the wind, The while our land-force on Boeotian soil Fell into ruin, some beside the springs Dropping before they drank, and some outworn, Pursued, and panting all their life away. The rest of us our way to Phocis won, And thence to... |
CHORUS. Spirit of Fate, too heavy were thy feet, Those ill to match! that sprang on Persia’s realm. ATOSSA. Woe for the host, to wrack and ruin hurled! O warning of the night, prophetic dream! Thou didst foreshadow clearly all the doom, While ye, old men, made light of woman’s fears! Ah well—yet, as your divination rul... |
[_Exit ATOSSA._] CHORUS. Zeus, lord and king! to death and nought Our countless host by thee is brought. Deep in the gloom of death, to-day, Lie Susa and Ecbatana: How many a maid in sorrow stands And rends her tire with tender hands! How tears run down, in common pain And woeful mourning for the slain! O delicate in d... |
Land of the East, thou mournest for the host, Bereft of all thy sons, alas the day! For them whom Xerxes led hath Xerxes lost— Xerxes who wrecked the fleet, and flung our hopes away! |
How came it that Darius once controlled, And without scathe, the army of the bow, Loved by the folk of Susa, wise and bold? Now is the land-force lost, the shipmen sunk below! |
Ah for the ships that bore them, woe is me! Bore them to death and doom! the crashing prows Of fierce Ionian oarsmen swept the sea, And death was in their wake, and shipwreck murderous! |
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