The Persians

For the ones who get it done.

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 nay they bear bucklers in the fight and thrust a 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 hoard 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 death unroll hark to me persians persia's host lies low chorus o ruin manifold in 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 blood-stained 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 whom have we to weep what chieftains in the van stood sank and died and left us leaderless messenger xerxes himself survives and sees the day atossa then to my line thy word renews the dawn and golden day-spring after gloom of night messenger but the brave marshal of ten thousand horse artembares is tossed and flung in death along the rugged rock silenian and dadaques 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 reefs of salamis the isle of ajax gone lyleus too gone are arsames and argestes all around the islet where the sea-doves breed dash their defeated heads on iron rocks arcteus who dwelt beside the founts of nile fell with his swarthy and abundant beard incarnadined to red a crimson stain outrivalling the purple of the sea their magian erebus and artemis of bactra perished taking up alike in yonder stony land their long sojourn a mistress too and he whose strenuous spear was foremost in the fight amphistrius fell and gallant ariomardus by whose death broods sorrow upon sardis mysia mourns for seismes and tharubis lies low commander he of five times fifty ships born in lyrnessus his heroic form is low in death ungraced with sepulchre dead too is he the lord of courage high cilicia's marshal brave cionessus than whom none dealt more carnage on the foe nor perished by a more heroic end so fell the brave so speak i of their doom summing in brief the fate of myriads 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 beaked prows to charge upon the persian armament messenger no 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 so stands the reckoning and who shall dare to say we persians had the lesser host atosa 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 atosa 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 part two of the persians by a translated by edmund moore's head eighteen forty nine to nineteen twelve this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by expatriate in bangor maine part two 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 to his galley bench in furtive flight softly contriving safety for their life thy son believed the word and missed the craft of that greek foeman and the spite of heaven and strait to all his captains gave this charge as soon as sunlight warms the ground no more and gloom enwraps the sanctuary of sky range we our fleet in triple serried lines to bar the passage from the seething strait this way and that let other ships surround the isle of ajax with this warning word that if the greeks their jeopardy should scape by wary craft and when their ships erode each persian captain shall his failure pay by forfeit of his head so spake the king inspired at heart with over-confidence unwitting of the god's predestined will thereon our crews with no disordered haste did service to his bidding and purveyed the meal of afternoon each rower then over the fitted row-lock looped his oar then when the splendour of the sun had set and night drew on each master of the oar and each armed warrior straightway went aboard forward the long ships moved rank cheering rank each forward set upon its ordered course and all night long the captains of the fleet kept their crews moving up and down the strait so the night waned and not one grecian ship made effort to elude and slip away but as dawn came and with her coursers white shone in fair radiance over all the earth first from the grecian fleet rang out a cry a song of onset and the island crags re-echoed to the shrill exulting sound then on us eastern men amazement fell and fear in place of hope for what we heard was not a call to flight 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 right wing first in orderly advance came on a steady column following then the rest of their array moved out and on and to our ears there came a burst of sound a clamour manifold on sons of greece on for your country's freedom strike to save wives children temples of ancestral gods graves of your fathers now is all at stake then from our side swelled up the mingled din of persian tongues and time brooked no delay ship into ship drave hard its brazen beak with speed of thought a shattering blow and first one grecian bark plunged straight and sheared away bowsprit and stem of a phoenician ship and then each galley on some other's prow came crashing in awhile our stream of ships held onward till within the narrowing creek our jostling vessels were together driven and none could aid another each on each drave hard their brazen beaks or break away the ore banks of each other stem to stern while the greek galleys with no lack of skill hemmed them and battered in their sides and soon the hulls rolled over and the sea was hid crowded with wrecks and butchery of men no beach nor reef but was with corpses strewn and every keel of our barbarian host hurried to flee in utter disarray thereon the foe closed in upon the wrecks and hacked and hewed with oars and splintered planks as fishermen hack tunnies or a cast of netted dolphins and the briny sea rang with the screams and shrieks of dying men until the night's dark aspect hid the scene had i a ten days time to sum that count of carnage twere too little know this well one day ne'er saw such myriad forms of death 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 straight 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 scape with shattered ships unto the isle we might make easy prey of fugitives and slay them there and from the washing tides rescue our friends it fell out otherwise than he'd divine for when by aid of heaven the hellenes held the victory on the sea their sailors then and there begirt themselves with brazen mail and bounded from their ships and then enringed the islet point by point so that our persians in bewilderment knew not which way to turn on every side battered with stones they fell while arrows flew from many a string and smote them to the death then at the last with simultaneous rush the foe came bursting on us hacked and hewed to fragments all that miserable band till not a soul of them was left alive then xerxes saw disaster's depth and shriek from where he sat on high surveying all a lofty eminence beside the brine whence all his armament lay clear in view his robe he rent with loud and bitter wail and to his land-force swiftly gave command and fled with shame beside him now lament that second woe upon the first imposed 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 are men who died upon the fennel field vengeance for them my son had mine to take and drew on his own head these whelming woes but thou say on the ships that scaped from wreck where didst thou leave them make thy story clear 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 doris and the melian gulf where with soft stream sperceus laves the soil thence to the northward did theodos plain and some thessalian forests lend us aid for famine pinched we were and many died of drought and hunger's twofold present scourge thence to magnesia came we and the land where macedonians dwell and crossed the ford of axius and bulbi's reedy fen and mount pangeus in edonian land there in the very night we came the god brought winter ere its time from bank to bank freezing the holy strymon's tide each man who heretofore held lightly of the gods now crouched and proffered prayer to earth and heaven then after many orisons performed the army ventured on the frozen ford yet only those who crossed before the sun shed its warm rays one to the farther side for soon the fervour of the glowing orb did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream and men sank through and thrust each other down best was his lot whose breath was stifled first but all who struggled through and gained the bank toilfully wending through the land of thrace have made their way a sorry scanted few unto this homeland let the city now lament and yearn for all the loved and lost my tale is truth yet much untold remains of ills that heaven hath hurled upon our land 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 rack and ruin hurled o warning of the night prophetic dream thou didst foreshadow clearly all the doom while ye old men made light of women's fears ah well yet as your divination ruled the meaning of the sign i held it good first that i put up prayers unto the gods and after that forth from my palace bring the sacrificial cake the offering due to earth and to the spirits of the dead too well i know it is a timeless rite over a finished thing that cannot change but yet i know not there may come of it alleviation for the after time you it beseems in view of what hath hapt t advise with loyal hearts our loyal guards and to my son if ere my coming forth he should draw hitherward give comfort meet escort him to the palace in all state lest to these woes he add another woe 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 ekbatana how many a maiden sorrow stands and rends her tyre with tender hands how tears run down in common pain and woeful mourning for the slain o delicate and dole and grief ye persian women past relief is now your sorrow to the war your loved ones went and come no more gone from you is your joy and pride severed the bridegroom from the bride the wedded couch luxurious is widowed now and all the house pines ever with insatiate sighs and we stand here and bid arise for those who forth an ardour went and come not back the loud lament 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 late late and hardly of true tales they tell did xerxes flee along the wintry way and snows of thrace but ah the first who fell lie by the rocks or float upon kikria's bay mourn each and all waft heavenward your cry stung to the soul bereaved disconsolate wail out your anguish till it pierce the sky in shrieks of deep despair ill-omened desperate the dead are drifting yea are gnawed upon by voiceless children of the stainless sea or battered by the surge we mourn and groan for husbands gone to death for childless agony alas the aged men who mourn to-day the ruinous sorrows that the gods ordain o'er the wide asian land the persian sway can force no tribute now and can no rule sustain yea men will crouch no more to fallen power and kingship overthrown the whole land o'er men speak the thing they will and from this hour the folk whom xerxes ruled obey his word no more the yoke of force is broken from the neck the isle of ajax and the encircling wave reek with the bloody crop of death and wreck of persians fallen power that none can lift nor save re-enter atossa in mourning robes atossa friends whosoe'er is versed in human ills knoweth right well that when a wave of woe comes on a man he sees in all things fear while in flood-tide of fortune tis his mood to take that fortune as unchangeable wafting him ever forward mark me now the god's thwart purpose doth confront mine eyes and all is terror to me in mine ears there sounds a cry but not of triumph now so am i scared at heart by woe so great therefore i wend forth from the house anew born in no car of state nor robed in pride as heretofore but bringing for the sire who did beget my son libations meet for holy rites that shall appease the dead the sweet white milk drawn from a spotless cow the oozing drop of golden honey culled by the flower haunting bee and therewithal pure draughts of water from a virgin spring and lo besides the stainless effluence born of the wild vine's bosom shining store treasured to age this bright and luscious wine and eke the fragrant fruit upon the bough of the grey olive-tree which lives its life in sprouting leafage and the twining flowers bright children of the earth's fertility but you o friends above these offerings poured to reconcile the dead wring out your dirge to summon up darius from the shades himself a shade and i will pour these draughts which earth shall drink unto the gods of hell queen by the persian land adored by thee be this libation poured passing to those who hold command of dead men in the spirit land and we will sue in solemn chant that gods who do escort the dead in nether realms our prayer may grant back to us be darius led o earth and hermes and the king of hades our darius bring for if beyond the prayers we prayed he knoweth aught of help or aid he he alone in realms below can speak the limit of our woe doth he hear me the king we adored who is god among gods of the dead doth he hear me send out in my sorrow the pitiful manifold cry the sobbing lament and appeal is the voice of my sufferings sped to the realm of the shades doth he hear me and pity my sorrowful sigh o earth and ye lords of the dead release ye that spirit of might who in susa the palace was born let him rise up once more to the light there is none like him none of all that e'er were laid in persian sepulchres borne forth he was to honoured burial a royal heart and followed by our tears god of the dead o give him back to us darius ruler glorious he never wasted us with reckless war god counsellor and king beneath a happy star ancient of days and king awake and come rise o'er the mounded tomb rise plant thy foot with saffron sandal shod father to us and god rise with thy diadem o sire benign upon thy brow list to the strange new sorrows of thy line sire of a woeful son a mist of fate and hell is round us now and all the city's flower to death is done alas we wept thee once and weep again o lord of lords by recklessness twofold the land is wasted of its men and down to death are rolled wreckage of sail and oar ships that are ships no more and bodies of the slain the ghost of darius rises ghost of darius ye aged persians truest of the true co evils of the youth that once was mine what troubleth now our city hearken how it moans and beats the breast and rends the plain and i beholding how my consort stood beside my tomb was moved with awe and took the gift of her libation graciously but ye are weeping by my sepulchre and shrilling forth a sad evoking cry summon me mournfully arise arise no light thing is it to come back from death for in good sooth the gods of nether gloom are quick to seize but late and loth to free yet among them i dwell as one in power and lo i come now speak and speed your words lest i be blamed for tarrying overlong what new disaster broods o'er persia's realm chorus with awe on thee i gaze and standing face to face i tremble as i did in olden days ghost of darius nay but as i rose to earth again obedient to your call tarry not in parley be one word enough for all speak and gaze on me unshrinking neither let my face appall chorus i tremble to reveal yet tremble to conceal things hard for friends to feel ghost of darius nay but if the old-time terror on your spirit keeps its hold speak thou o royal lady who didst couch with me of old stay thy weeping and lamenting and to me reveal the truth speak for man is born to sorrow yea the proverb saith sooth tis the doom of mortal beings if they live to see old age to suffer bale by land and sea through war and tempest's rage End of Part 2 Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine Part 3 of The Persians by Aeschylus Translated by Edmund Moorshead 1849-1912 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine Part 3 Atossa o thou whose blissful fate on earth all mortal weal excelled who while the sunlight touched thine eyes the lord of all wert held a god to persian men thou wert in bliss and pride and fame i hold thee blest too in thy death or ere the ruin came alas darius one brief word must tell thee all the tale the persian power is in the dust gone down in blood and bale ghost of darius speak by what chance did man rebel or pestilence descend atossa neither by athens fatal shores our army met its end ghost of darius which of my children let our host to athens speak and say atossa the froward xerxes leaving all our realm to disarray ghost of darius was it with army or with fleet on folly's quest he went atossa with both alike a twofold front of double armament ghost of darius and how then did so large a host on foot pass o'er the sea atossa he bridged the fort of hellas strait by artful carpentry ghost of darius how could his craft avail to span the torrent of that tide atossa tis sooth i say some unknown power did fatal help provide ghost of darius alas that power in malice came to his bewilderment atossa alas we see the end of all the ruin on us sent ghost of darius speak tell me how they fared therein that thus ye mourn and weep atossa disaster to the army came through ruin on the deep ghost of darius is all undone hath all the folk gone down before the foe atossa yea hork to susa's mourning cry for warriors laid low ghost of darius alas for all our gallant aids our persia's help and pride atossa aye old with young the bactrian force hath perished at our side ghost of darius alas my son what gallant youths hath he sent down to death atossa alone or with a scanty guard for so the rumour saith ghost of darius he came but how and to what end doth aught of hope remain atossa with joy he reached the bridge that spanned the hellespontine main ghost of darius how is he safe in persian land speak soothly yea or nay atossa clear and more clear the rumour comes for no man to gainsay ghost of darius woe for the oracle fulfilled the presage of the war launched on my son by will of zeus i deemed our doom a foreign lap of time but if a king push forward to his fate the god himself allures to death that man infatuate so now the very fount of woe streams out on those i loved and mine own son unwisely bold the truth hereof hath proved he sought to shackle and control the hellespontine wave that rushes from the bosphorus with fetters of a slave to curb and bridge with welded links the streaming waterway and guide across the passage broad his manifold array ah folly void of counsel he deemed that mortal wight could thwart the will of heaven itself and curb poseidon's might was it not madness much i fear lest all my wealth and store pass from my treasure-house to be the snatcher's prize once more atossa such is the lesson ah too late to eager xerxes taught trusting random councillors and hare-brained men of nought who said darius mighty wealth and fame to us did bring but thou art nought a blunted spear a palace keeping king unto those sorry councillors a ready ear he lent and led away to hellish shore his fated armament ghost of darius therefore through them hath come calamity most huge and past forgetting nor of old did ever such extermination fall upon the city susa long ago zeus in his power this privilege bestowed that with a guiding sceptre one sole man should rule this asian land of flock and herd over the folk a mede astyages did grasp the power then cyaxares ruled in his sire's place and held the sway aright steering his state with watchful wariness third in succession cyrus blest of heaven held rule and stablished peace for all his clan lydian and phrygian won he to his sway and wide ionia to his yoke constrained for the god favoured his discretion's sage fourth in the dynasty was cyrus son and fifth was mardus scandal of his land and ancient lineage him artefranes hardy of heart within his palace slew aided by loyal plotters set for this and i too gained the lot for which i craved and oftentimes led out a goodly host yet never brought disaster such as this upon the city but my son is young and reckless in his youth and heedeth not the warnings of my mouth mark this my friends born with my birth coeval with mine age not all we kings who held successive rule have wrought combined such ruin as my son chorus how then o king darius whitherward dost thou direct thy warning from this plight how can we persians fare towards hope again ghost of darius by never more assailing grecian lands even though our median force be double theirs for the land's self protects its denizens chorus how meanest thou by what defensive power ghost of darius she wastes by famine a too countless foe chorus but we will bring a host more skilled than huge ghost of darius why e'en that army camped in hella still shall never win again to home in weal chorus how say'st thou will not all the asian host pass back from europe over hella's ford ghost of darius nay scarce a tithe of all those myriads if man may trust the oracles of heaven when he beholds a thing's already wrought not false with true but true with no word false if what i trow be truth my son hath left a chosen rearguard of our host in whom he trusts now with a random confidence they tarry where aesopus laves the ground with rills that softly bless boeotia's plain there is it fated for them to endure the very crown of misery and doom requital for their god forgetting pride for why they rated hellas had the heart to wrong the images of holy gods and give the shrines and temples to the flame defaced and dashed from sight the altars fell and each god's image from its pedestal thrust and flung down in dim confusion lies therefore for outrage vile a doom as dark they suffer and yet more shall undergo they touch no bottom in the swamp of doom but round them rises bubbling up the ooze so deep shall lie the gory clotted mass of corpses by the dorian spear transfixed upon plataea's field yea piles of slain to the third generation shall attest by silent eloquence to those that see let not a mortal vaunt him overmuch for pride grows rankly and to ripeness brings the curse of fate and reaps for harvest tears therefore when ye behold for deeds like these such stern requital paid remember then athens and hellas let no mortal wight holding too lightly of his present weal and passionate for more cast down and spill the mighty cup of his prosperity Doubt not that overproud and haughty souls Zeus lowers in wrath, exacting the account.

therefore with wary warnings school my son though he be lessened by the gods already to curb the vaunting that affronts high heaven and thou o venerable mother queen beloved of xerxes to the palace pass and take therefrom such raiment as befits thy son and go to meet him for his garb in this extremity of grief hangs rent around his body woefully unstitched mere tattered fragments of once royal robes go thou to him speak soft and soothing words thee and none other will he bear to hear as well i know but i must pass away from earth above unto the nether gloom therefore old men take my farewell and clasp even amid the ruin of this time unto your souls the pleasure of the day for dead men have no profit of their gold the ghost of darius sinks chorus alas i thrill with pain for persia's woes many fulfilled and others hard at hand atossa o spirit of the race what sorrows crowd upon me and this anguish stings me worst that round my royal son's dishonoured form hang rags and tatters degradation deep i will away and bringing from within a seemly royal robe will straightway strive to meet and greet my son foul scorn it were to leave our dearest in his hour of shame exit chorus ah glorious and goodly they were the life and the lot that we gained the cities we held in our hand when the monarch invincible reigned the king that was good to his realm sufficing fulfilled of his sway a lord that was peer of the gods the pride of the bygone day then could we show to the skies great hosts and a glorious name and laws that were stable in might as towers they guarded our fame there without woe or disaster we came from the foe in the fight in triumph enriched with the spoil to the land and the city's delight what towns ere the halys he passed what towns ere he came to the west to the main and the isles of the strymon and the thracian region possessed and those that stand back from the main and ring by their fortified wall gave o'er to darius the king the sceptre and sway over all those too by the channel of helle where southward it broadens and glides by the inlet propontis of vee and the strait of the pontic tides and the isles that lie fronting our seaboard and the eastland looks on each one lesbo and chios and paros and samos with olive-trees grown and noxos and mykonos rock and tenos with andros hard by and isles that in midmost gean aloof from the continent lie and lemnos and icarus hold all these to his sceptre were bowed and canidas and neighbouring rhodes and soli and paphos the proud and cyprian salamis name-child of her who hath wrought us this wrong yea and all the ionian tract where the greek-born inhabitants throng and the cities are teeming with gold darius was lord of them all and great by his wisdom he ruled and ever there came to his call in stalwart array and unfailing the warrior chiefs of our land and mingled allies from the tribes who bowed to his conquering hand but now there are none to gainsay that the gods are against us we lie subdued in the havoc of wreck and whelmed by the wrath of the sky enter xerxes in disarray xerxes alas the day that i should fall into this grimmest fate of all this ruin doubly unforeseen on persia's land what power of fate descends what lowering gloom of hate how shall i bear my teen my limbs are loosened where they stand when i behold this aged band o god i would that i too i among the men who went to die were whelmed in earth by fate's command chorus ah well-a-day my king ah woe for all our heroes overthrow for all the gallant hosts array for persia's honour passed away for glory and heroic sway mown down by fortune's hand to-day hark how the kingdom makes its moan for youthful valour lost and gone by xerxes shattered and undone he he hath crammed the maw of hell with bowmen brave who nobly fell their country's mighty armament ten thousand heroes deathward sent alas for all the valiant band o king and lord thine asian land down down upon its knee is bent xerxes alas a lamentable sound a cry of ruth for i am found accursed to land in lineage with none my sorrow to assuage chorus alas a death-song desolate i send forth for thy home-coming a scream a dirge for woe and fate such as the asian mourners sing a sorry and ill-omened tale of tears and shrieks and eastern wail xerxes i launch the woful sorrow's cry the harsh discordant melody for lo the power we held for sure hath turned to my discomfiture chorus yea dirges dirges manifold will i send forth for warriors bold for the sea sorrow of our host the city mourns and i must wail with plashing tears our sorrow's tale lamenting for the loved and lost xerxes alas the god of war who sways the scales of fight in divers 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 cry out and learn the tale of woe where are thy comrades where the band who stood beside thee hand in hand a little while ago where now hath farindakis gone where samis and where pelagon where now is brave agdabatas and susas too and datamas has susiskanis passed away the chieftain of ekbatana xerxes i left them mangled castaways flung from their tyrian deck and tossed on salaminian waterways from surging tides to rocky coast chorus alack and is pharnucus slain and ariamardus brave in vain where is sualkes heart of fire lyleus child of noble sire are tharibus and memphis sped hystacmus artembaris dead and where is brave masistes where sum up death's count that i may hear xerxes alas alas they came their eyes surveyed ancestral athens on that fatal day then with a rending struggle were they laid upon the land and gasped their life away chorus and botonicus child alpistus great surnamed the eye of state saw you and left you him who once of old ten thousand thousand fighting men enrolled his sire was child of sesamus and he from megabati sprang ah woe is me thou king of evil fate hast thou lost parthus lost ibarus great alas the sorrow blow succeedeth blow on persia's pride thou tellest woe on woe xerxes bitter indeed the pang for comrades slain the brave and bold thou strikest to my soul pain 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 xanthus thou chief of mardian men countless and thou on caries bright and ye whose cars controlled the fight arsaces and deaxius white cegdadatus lithymnus dear and ptolemus greedy of the spear i stand bereft not in thy train come they as erst ah ne'er again shall 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 power we 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 well-a-day 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 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 i chorus nay thy friends are whelmed beneath the tide xerxes wail wail the miserable doom and to the palace high chorus alas alas and woe again xerxes shriek smite the breast as i chorus an evil gift a sad exchange of tears poured out in vain xerxes shrill out your simultaneous wail chorus alas the woe and pain xerxes oh bitter is this adverse fate chorus i voice the moan with thee xerxes smite smite thy bosom groan aloud for my calamity chorus i mourn and am dissolved in tears xerxes cry beat thy breast amain chorus o king my heart is in thy woe xerxes shriek wail and shriek again chorus o agony xerxes a blackening blow chorus a grievous stripe shall fall xerxes yea beat anew thy breast ring out the doleful mysian call chorus an agony an agony xerxes pluck out thy whitening beard chorus by handfuls ay by handfuls with dismal tear-drops smeared xerxes sob out thine aching sorrow chorus i will thine best obey xerxes with thine hands rend thy mantle's fold chorus alas woe worth the day xerxes with thine own fingers tear thy locks bewail the armies weird chorus by handfuls yea by handfuls with tears of dole besmeared xerxes now let thine eyes find overflow chorus i wend in wail and pain xerxes cry out for me an answering moan chorus alas alas again xerxes shriek with a cry of agony and lead the doleful train chorus alas alas the persian land is woeful now to tread xerxes cry out and mourn the city now doth wail above the dead chorus i sob and moan xerxes i bid ye now be delicate in grief chorus alas the persian land is sad and knoweth not relief xerxes alas the triple banks of oars and those who died thereby chorus pass i will lead you bring you home with many a broken sigh End of Part 3, recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.

End of The Persians by Aeschylus, translated by Edmund Morshead, 1849-1912.

Such is the legend, and this is Herodotus' version of it.

The Persians say that some Phoenicians once brought a cargo of merchandise to Argos.

The women of town, among them Io, came down to the seashore to bargain.

The Phoenicians seized the women and carried them off to Egypt.

Now, to carry off women by violence the Persians think is the act of a wicked man.

To trouble avenging them is the act of a fool.

To pay no regard to them when carried off is the part of a wise man.

Chapter 6.

The power of destiny, the seeming injustice of the gods, both in legend and in providence, the inheritance of doom, and the suffering of the innocent.

In the Persae, the great patriotic drama of Greece, the defeat of Xerxes is indeed easily explained as the punishment of impiety and presumption.

but what of prometheus the benefactor of mankind tormented by zeus for his generous acts what of orestes who in obedience to apollo's bidding to avenge his father's death has slain his mother and the furies are out for his blood Aeschylus answers thus, Necessity rules.

Zeus is supreme because he wills what necessity directs.

The power of destiny, the seeming injustice of the gods, both in legend and in providence, the inheritance of doom, and the suffering of the innocent.

In the Persae, the great patriotic drama of Greece, the defeat of Xerxes is indeed easily explained as the punishment of impiety and presumption.

but what of prometheus the benefactor of mankind tormented by zeus for his generous acts what of orestes who in obedience to apollo's bidding to avenge his father's death has slain his mother and the furies are out for his blood

Oh, I have had no luck lately.

So Danielle, what is our entry for tragedy season today?

Today's entry in tragedy season is The Persians by Askless.

It's another play that John's maybe never heard of or never like read.

More of the former than the latter.

Thank you, thank

you.

So part of the reason why I wanted to pick the Persians...

So I've been thinking about this play a little bit over the course of this entire season because one of the things that you end up getting in tragedy is you get representations of non-Athenian populations happening in these tragic texts.

Unfortunately, the best surviving source for him remains Herodotus, the Greek historian from Halicarnassus who wrote the history of the Persian Wars from the Greek perspective.

xerxes is therefore the villain of the story full of hubris because of his eventual defeat and reduced almost to a caricature of a bad ruler other contemporary near contemporary and later greek writers such as the dramatist aeschylus in his play The Persians and the philosopher Plato add to this picture, yet Xerxes continued to reign for fifteen years after his defeat in Greece, and his rule was uninterrupted.

His defeat in Greece, therefore, while momentous for the Greeks, was, while unfortunate, relatively unimportant in the context of the enormous Persian empire.

Xerxes still ruled over a vast empire which stretched from India in the east to Europe in the west, from Egypt in the south to Azerbaijan in the north.

Many other communities hid in Thebes' shadow and allowed her to continue to take the blame well into the next century the greeks mounted a defence at the pass of thermopylae and at the same time a naval delaying action at artemisium despite the account of herodotus and popular culture was a defeat for the Greeks and an unnecessary one.

There was no need for the Spartan king Leonidas and his inadequately small force to remain at Thermopylae once he knew his position was compromised.

Likewise, it is highly unlikely the Greeks inflicted 6,400 casualties on the Persians at the expense of a few hundred of their own.

But that is the story our sources tell us, and as so often the Persian version of events does not exist or does not survive.

Such is the legend, and this is Herodotus' version of it.

The Persians say that some Phoenicians once brought a cargo of merchandise to Argos.

The women of town, among them Io, came down to the seashore to bargain.

the phoenicians seized the women and carried them off to egypt now to carry off women by violence the persians think is the act of a wicked man to trouble avenging them is the act of a fool to pay no regard to them when carried off is the part of a wise man

for it is clear that and after long wanderings

if they had not wished it themselves they would not be ravished such is the persian account but as regards isle the phoenicians do not agree they say that they used no violence in taking her to egypt but that she had an intrigue with their captain when he was at argos when she discovered that she was likely to become a mother she was afraid of her parents and to hide her secret came of her own accord with them to egypt all the poetry and romance of the story have disappeared realism has triumphed io is a woman on the best interpretation of her conduct she is vain and imprudent she shows herself to strange men and is carried off by them although as the story is at pains though not very logically to add it must have been with her own consent on the worst interpretation she is a mere wanton she allows a sea captain to seduce her and then deserts her home her parents and her native land listen now to a shoelace in the beautiful version by mr e r bevan the chambers where i housed a virgin hidden strange faces i in the night would visit with sooth suggestion oh most huge in fortune most happiest of all maidens wherefore maiden oh wherefore so long maiden when there waits thee wedlock the highest he the lord of heaven is waxen hot pierced with desire of thee yea and with thee would tread the passages of love's delight now therefore foot not from thee o child the bed of the highest but do this go forth to where the meadow is deep the field of lerna stations of the household flock home is thy father's herds go even thither that so the eye of zeus may ease desire with such like dreams the kingly dark for me was ever fraught me miserable till ridden i gat me heart to open to my father the visions and the dreams of night and he to pletho yeah and even to dodona sent him bossage on bossage inquiring what thing he had need to do or what words speak to pleasure them that rule us and they came bringing still back britannous wavering lips sentences blind dark syllables at last a word cleared visaged came to machias enjoying plainly and saying he should thrust me forth of the house forth of the land to wander at large a separate thing even to the last confines of earth the story is the same but the treatment is different the two passages illustrate the difference between romantic idealism and realistic depreciation but io in the prometheus is only one of the gallery of heroines for in his art women take the foremost place the dramatist is at variance with his age and his fervent patriotism is almost the sole bond of union between him and his fellows aceles is a mystic who believed in the delphinic inspiration and took an interest in religious speculation his contemporaries were materialists suspected the politics of delphi and regarded religion simply as a ceremony a schylus was a conservative in politics though a liberal in thought athens was already becoming an extreme democracy finally a schylus bases his theatre on women and makes them the chief agents of the drama while the ordinary woman of his time was shut out altogether from the active business of life but he is an unconscious feminist and the definite purpose which we find in euripides is quite absent from his plays it shows however a strange lack of appreciation to reproach him as some critics have done with neglecting the feminine interest of the seven tragedies that the byzantine tradition has preserved for us if their subject was handled by a modern dramatist, would be called feminist problem plays, and in the other three the female characters supply most of the dramatic interest, even though the first idea of the plot might seem to put them in the second plan of action.

Chapter 6.

Aeschylus and Sophocles.