Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Read Online Free PDF

Such as the Asian mourners sing,A sorry and ill-omened taleOf tears and shrieks and Eastern wail!
    XERXES Ay, launch the woeful sorrow’s cry,The harsh, discordant melody,For lo, the power, we held for sure,Hath turned to my discomfiture!
    CHORUS Yea, dirges, dirges manifoldWill I send forth, for warriors bold,For the sea-sorrow of our host!The city mourns, and I must wailWith plashing tears our sorrow’s tale,Lamenting for the loved and lost!
    XERXES Alas, the god of war, who swaysThe scales of fight in diverse ways,Gives glory to Ionia!Ionian ships, in fenced array,Have reaped their harvest in the bay,A darkling harvest-field of Fate,A sea, a shore, of doom and hate!
    CHORUS Cry out, and learn the tale of woe!Where are thy comrades?   where the
bandWho stood beside thee, hand in hand,   A little while ago?Where now hath Pharandákes gone,Where Psammis, and where Pelagon?Where now is brave Agdabatas,And Susas too, and Datamas?Hath Susiscanes past away,The chieftain of Ecbatana?
    XERXES I left them, mangled castaways,   Flung from their Tyrian deck, and
tossedOn Salaminian water-ways,   From surging tides to rocky coast!
    CHORUS Alack, and is Pharnuchus slain,And Ariomardus, brave in vain?Where is Seualces’ heart of fire?Lilaeus, child of noble sire?Are Tharubis and Memphis
sped?Hystaechmas, Artembáres dead?And where is brave Masistes, where?Sum up death’s count, that I may hear!
    XERXES Alas, alas, they came, their eyes surveyedAncestral Athens on that fatal day.Then with a rending struggle were they laidUpon the land, and gasped their life away!
    CHORUS And Batanochus’ child, Alpistus great,   Surnamed the Eye of State —Saw you and left you him who once of oldTen thousand thousand fighting-men enrolled?His sire was child of Sesamas, and heFrom Megabates sprang.   Ah, woe is
me,   Thou king of evil fate!Hast thou lost Parthus, lost Oebares great?   Alas, the sorrow!   blow succeedeth blowOn Persia’s
pride; thou tellest woe on woe!
    XERXES Bitter indeed the pang for comrades slain,   The brave and bold! thou strikest
to my soulPain, pain beyond forgetting, hateful pain.   My inner spirit sobs and sighs with
dole!
    CHORUS Another yet we yearn to see,And see not! ah, thy chivalry,Xanthis, thou chief of Mardian menCountless! and thou, Anchares bright,And ye, whose cars controlled the fight,Arsaces and Diaixis wight,Kegdadatas, Lythimnas dear,And Tolmus, greedy of the spear!I stand bereft! not in thy trainCome they, as erst! ah, ne’er againShall they return unto our eyes,Car-borne, ‘neath silken canopies!
    XERXES Yea, gone are they who mustered once the host!
    CHORUS Yea, yea, forgotten, lost!
    XERXES Alas, the woe and cost!
    CHORUS Alas, ye heavenly powers!Ye wrought a sorrow past belief,   A woe, of woes the chief!With aspect stern, upon us Ate looms!
    XERXES Smitten are we — time tells no heavier blow!
    CHORUS Smitten! the doom is plain!
    XERXES Curse upon curse and pang on pang we know!
    CHORUS With the Ionian powerWe clashed, in evil hour!Woe falls on Persia’s
race, yea, woe again, again!
    XERXES Yea, smitten am I, and my host is all to ruin hurled!
    CHORUS Yea verily — in mighty wreck hath sunk the Persian world!
    XERXES ( holding up a torn robe and
a quiver )See you this tattered rag of pride?
    CHORUS I see it, welladay!
    XERXES See you this quiver?
    CHORUS Say, hath aught survived and ‘scaped the fray?
    XERXES A store for darts it was, erewhile!
    CHORUS Remain but two or three!
    XERXES No aid is left!
    CHORUS Ionian folk such darts, unfearing, see!
    XERXES Right resolute they are! I saw disaster unforeseen.
    CHORUS Ah, speakest thou of wreck, of flight, of carnage that hath been?
    XERXES Yea, and my royal robe I rent, in terror at their fall!
    CHORUS Alas, alas!
    XERXES Yea, thrice alas!
    CHORUS For all have perished, all!
    XERXES Ah woe to us, ah joy to them who stood against our pride!
    CHORUS And all our strength is minished and sundered from our side!
    XERXES No escort have