Classic Poem

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.

Strophe I

Chor. O piteous, woe!
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.

A NTISTROPHE 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
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.

A NTISTROPHE 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.
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
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!

A NTISTROPHE III

Chor. Yea, to her enemies
Athens may well be hateful, and our minds
Remember how full many a Persian wife
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.
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,
And with them too Argestes, there defeated,
Hard by the island where the doves abound,
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,
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;
Lyrnaean 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.
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
Had, as their total, ships but fifteen score,
And other ten selected as reserve.
And Xerxes (well I know it) had a thousand
Which he commanded — those that most excelled
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?
Mess. Their men are left, and that is bulwark strong.
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
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
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 three-fold lines, to hinder all escape,
And guard the billowy straits, and others place
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.
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,
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
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 paeans 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.
Then first their right wing moved in order meet;
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
Dashed its bronze-pointed beak, and first a barque
Of Hellas did the encounter fierce begin,
And from Phaenikian 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, 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 manaeuvring not unskilful,
Charged circling round them. And the hulls of ships
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, 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
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.
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,
Small, with bad anchorage for ships, where Pan,
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
Were sore distressed, 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,
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,
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 Baeotia — 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 Achaean fields
And city of the Thessali received us,
Famished for lack of food; 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;
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 Thrake, 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 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.