tearing then his robes with bitter cry,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,
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
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,
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
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,
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,
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,
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.
For now the land of Asia mourneth sore,
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,
While those who fought as soldiers or at sea,
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.
And they who perished first, ah me!
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
So Herodotos (viii. 115) describes them as driven by hunger to eat even grass and leaves.
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.
The Ionians, not of the Asiatic Ionia, but of Attica.
Kychreia, the archaic name of Salamis.
