The Complete Aeschylus Collection

SCENE: Before the Council-Hall of the Persian Kings at Susa. The tomb of Darius the Great is visible. The time is 480 B.C., shortly after the battle of Salamis.

(The play opens with the CHORUS OF PERSIAN ELDERS singing its first choral lyric.)

Chorus

While o’er the fields of Greece the embattled troops

Of Persia march with delegated sway,

We o’er their rich and gold-abounding seats

Hold faithful our firm guard; to this high charge

Xerxes, our royal lord, the imperial son

Of great Darius, chose our honour’d age.

But for the king’s return, and his arm’d host

Blazing with gold, my soul presaging ill

Swells in my tortured breast: for all her force

Hath Asia sent, and for her youth I sigh.

Nor messenger arrives, nor horseman spurs

With tidings to this seat of Persia’s kings.

The gates of Susa and Ecbatana

Pour’d forth their martial trains; and Cissia sees

Her ancient towers forsaken, while her youth,

Some on the bounding steed, the tall bark some

Ascending, some with painful march on foot,

Haste on, to arrange the deep’ning files of war.

Amistres, Artaphernes, and the might

Of great Astaspes, Megabazes bold,

Chieftains of Persia, kings, that, to the power

Of the great king obedient, march with these

Leading their martial thousands; their proud steeds

Prance under them; steel bows and shafts their arms,

Dreadful to see, and terrible in fight,

Deliberate valour breathing in their souls.

Artembares, that in his fiery horse

Delights; Masistress; and Imaeus bold,

Bending with manly strength his stubborn bow;

Pharandaces, and Sosthanes, that drives

With military pomp his rapid steeds.

Others the vast prolific Nile hath sent;

Pegastagon, that from Aegyptus draws

His high birth; Susiscanes; and the chief

That reigns o’er sacred Memphis, great Arsames;

And Ariomardus, that o’er ancient Thebes

Bears the supreme dominion; and with these,

Drawn from their watery marshes, numbers train’d

To the stout oar. Next these the Lycian troops,

Soft sons of luxury; and those that dwell

Amid the inland forests, from the sea

Far distant; these Metragathes commands,

And virtuous Arceus, royal chiefs, that shine

In burnish’d gold, and many a whirling car

Drawn by six generous steeds from Sardis lead,

A glorious and a dreadful spectacle.

And from the foot of Tmolus, sacred mount,

Eager to bind on Greece the servile yoke,

Mardon and Tharybis the massy spear

Grasp with unwearied vigour; the light lance

The Mysians shake. A mingled multitude

Swept from her wide dominions skill’d to draw

The unerring bow, in ships Euphrates sends

From golden Babylon. With falchions arm’d

From all the extent of Asia move the hosts

Obedient to their monarch’s stern command.

Thus march’d the flower of Persia, whose loved youth

The world of Asia nourish’d, and with sighs

Laments their absence; many an anxious look

Their wives, their parents send, count the slow days,

And tremble at the long-protracted time.

Already o’er the adverse strand

In arms the monarch’s martial squadrons spread;

The threat’ning ruin shakes the land,

And each tall city bows its tower’d head.

Bark bound to bark, their wondrous way

They bridge across the indignant sea;

The narrow Hellespont’s vex’d waves disdain,

His proud neck taught to wear the chain.

Now has the peopled Asia’s warlike lord,

By land, by sea, with foot, with horse,

Resistless in his rapid course,

O’er all their realms his warring thousands pour’d;

Now his intrepid chiefs surveys,

And glitt’ring like a god his radiant state displays.

Fierce as the dragon scaled in gold

Through the deep files he darts his glowing eye;

And pleased their order to behold,

His gorgeous standard blazing to the sky,

Rolls onward his Assyrian car,

Directs the thunder of the war,

Bids the wing’d arrows’ iron storm advance

Against the slow and cumbrous lance.

What shall withstand the torrent of his sway

When dreadful o’er the yielding shores

The impetuous tide of battle roars,

And sweeps the weak opposing mounds away?

So Persia, with resistless might,

Rolls her unnumber’d hosts of heroes to the fight.

For when misfortune’s fraudful hand

Prepares to pour the vengeance of the sky,

What mortal shall her force withstand?

What rapid speed the impending fury fly?

Gentle at first with flatt’ring smiles

She spreads her soft enchanting wiles,

So to her toils allures her destined prey,

Whence man ne’er breaks unhurt away.

For thus from ancient times the Fates ordain

That Persia’s sons should greatly dare,

Unequall’d in the works of war;

Shake with their thund’ring steeds the ensanguined plain,

Dreadful the hostile walls surround,

And lay their rampired towers in ruins on the ground.

Taught to behold with fearless eyes

The whitening billows foam beneath the gale,

They bid the naval forests rise,

Mount the slight bark, unfurl the flying sail,

And o’er the angry ocean bear

To distant realms the storm of war.

For this with many a sad and gloomy thought

My tortured breast is fraught:

Ah me! for Persia’s absent sons I sigh;

For while in foreign fields they fight,

Our towns exposed to wild affright

An easy prey to the invader lie:

Where, mighty Susa, where thy powers,

To wield the warrior’s arms, and guard thy regal towers?

Crush’d beneath the assailing foe

Her golden head must Cissia bend;

While her pale virgins, frantic with despair,

Through all her streets awake the voice of wo;

And flying with their bosoms bare,

Their purfled stoles in anguish rend:

For all her youth in martial pride,

Like bees that, clust’ring round their king,

Their dark imbodied squadrons bring,

Attend their sceptred monarch’s side,

And stretch across the watery way

From shore to shore their long array.

The Persian dames, with many a tender fear,

In grief’s sad vigils keep the midnight hour;

Shed on the widow’d couch the streaming tear,

And the long absence of their loves deplore.

Each lonely matron feels her pensive breast

Throb with desire, with aching fondness glow,

Since in bright arms her daring warrior dress’d

Left her to languish in her love-lorn wo.

Now, ye grave Persians, that your honour’d seats

Hold in this ancient house, with prudent care

And deep deliberation, so the state

Requires, consult we, pond’ring the event

Of this great war, which our imperial lord,

The mighty Xerxes from Darius sprung,

The stream of whose rich blood flows in our veins,

Leads against Greece; whether his arrowy shower

Shot from the strong-braced bow, or the huge spear

High brandish’d, in the deathful field prevails.

But see, the monarch’s mother: like the gods

Her lustre blazes on our eyes: my queen,

Prostrate I fall before her: all advance

With reverence, and in duteous phrase address her,

(ATOSSA enters with her retinue. The Elders do their obeisance to her.)

Leader of the chorus

Hail, queen, of Persia’s high-zoned dames supreme,

Age-honour’d mother of the potent Xerxes,

Imperial consort of Darius, hail!

The wife, the mother of the Persians’ god,

If yet our former glories fade not from us.

Atossa

And therefore am I come, leaving my house

That shines with gorgeous ornaments and gold,

Where in past days Darius held with me

His royal residence. With anxious care

My heart is tortured: I will tell you, friends,

My thoughts, not otherwise devoid of fear,

Lest mighty wealth with haughty foot o’erturn

And trample in the dust that happiness,

Which, not unbless’d by Heaven, Darius raised.

For this with double force unquiet thoughts

Past utterance fill my soul; that neither wealth

With all its golden stores, where men are wanting,

Claims reverence; nor the light, that beams from power,

Shines on the man whom wealth disdains to grace.

The golden stores of wealth indeed are...