Four Plays of Aeschylus Part 8

O G.o.dlike chief, G.o.d grant my prayer: Fair blessings on thy proffers fair, Lord of Pelasgia's race!

Yet, of thy grace, unto our side Send thou the man of courage tried, Of counsel deep and prudent thought,- Be Danaus to his children brought; For his it is to guide us well And warn where it behoves to dwell- What place shall guard and shelter us From malice and tongues slanderous: Swift always are the lips of blame A stranger-maiden to defame- But Fortune give us grace!

THE KING OF ARGOS

A stainless fame, a welcome kind From all this people shall ye find: Dwell therefore, damsels, loved of us, Within our walls, as Danaus Allots to each, in order due, Her dower of attendants true.

[Re-enter DANAUS. DANAUS High thanks, my children, unto Argos con, And to this folk, as to Olympian G.o.ds, Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine; For saviours are they in good sooth to you.

From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath, How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong, And how of us were thwarted: then to me This company of spearmen did they grant, That honoured I might walk, nor unaware Die by some secret thrust and on this land Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not.

Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay A deeper reverence from a soul sincere.

Ye, to the many words of wariness Spoken by me your father, add this word, That, tried by time, our unknown company Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues To slander strangers, over-light is speech To bring pollution on a stranger's name.

Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me Now when man's eye beholds your maiden prime.

Lovely is beauty's ripening harvest-field, But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot, And birds and creeping things make prey of it.

And when the fruit is ripe for love, the voice Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad, The while she guards the yet unripened growth.

On the fair richness of a maiden's bloom Each pa.s.ser looks, o'ercome with strong desire, With eyes that waft the wistful dart of love.

Then be not such our hap, whose livelong toil Did make our pinnace plough the mighty main: Nor bring we shame upon ourselves, and joy Unto my foes. Behold, a twofold home- One of the king's and one the people's gift- Unbought, 'tis yours to hold,-a gracious boon.

Go-but remember ye your sire's behest, And hold your life less dear than chast.i.ty.

CHORUS

The G.o.ds above grant that all else be well.

But fear not thou, O sire, lest aught befall Of ill unto our ripened maidenhood.

So long as Heaven have no new ill devised, From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve.

SEMI-CHORUS

Pa.s.s and adore ye the Blessed, the G.o.ds of the city who dwell Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial tide.

SEMI-CHORUS

Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of Pelasgia swell; Hymn we no longer the sh.o.r.es where Nilus to ocean doth glide.

SEMI-CHORUS

Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush through the city; Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of the plain.

SEMI-CHORUS

Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace and with pity- Save us from forced embraces: such love hath no crown but a pain.

SEMI-CHORUS

Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of Aphrodite; She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and control.

Holy the deeds of her rite, her craft is secret and mighty, And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her sway of the soul.

SEMI-CHORUS

Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his mother he goeth- Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny or repel: Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that lovers love well.

SEMI-CHORUS

Ah, but I tremble and quake lest again they should sail to reclaim!

Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war.

Ah, by whose will was it done that o'er the wide ocean they came, Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and by oar?

SEMI-CHORUS

Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not tarry but come; Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or withstood: Only I Pray that whate'er, in the end, of this wedlock he doom, We as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill to the good.[7]

[Footnote: 7: The ambiguity of these two lines is reproduced from the original. The Semi-Chorus appear to pray, in one aspiration, that the threatened wedlock may never take place, and, if it does take place, may be for weal, not woe.]

SEMI-CHORUS

Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me- Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard!

SEMI-CHORUS

Come what come may, 'tis Fate's decree.

SEMI-CHORUS

Soft is thy word-the doom is hard.

SEMI-CHORUS

Thou know'st not what the Fates provide.

SEMI-CHORUS

How should I scan Zeus' mighty will, The depth of counsel undescried?

SEMI-CHORUS

Pray thou no word of omen ill.

SEMI-CHORUS

What timely warning wouldst thou teach?

SEMI-CHORUS

Beware, nor slight the G.o.ds in speech.

SEMI-CHORUS

Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the bridegroom abhorred!

It was thou, it was thou didst release Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it was that restored, The touch of thine hand gave her peace.

SEMI-CHORUS

Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills, the lesser I pray- The exile that leaveth me pure.

May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers to thy mercy find way!

For the hands of thy saving are sure.

[Exeunt omnes.

THE PERSIANS

ARGUMENT

Xerxes, son of Darius and of his wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, went forth against h.e.l.las, to take vengeance upon those who had defeated his father at Marathon. But ill fortune befell the king and his army both by land and sea; neither did it avail him that he cast a bridge over the h.e.l.lespont and made a ca.n.a.l across the promontory of Mount Athos, and brought myriads of men, by land and sea, to subdue the Greeks. For in the strait between Athens and the island of Salamis the Persian s.h.i.+ps were shattered and sunk or put to flight by those of Athens and Lacedaemon and Aegina and Corinth, and Xerxes went homewards on the way by which he had come, leaving his general Mardonius with three hundred thousand men to strive with the Greeks by land: but in the next year they were destroyed near Plataea in Boeotia, by the Lacedaemonians and Athenians and Tegeans. Such was the end of the army which Xerxes left behind him. But the king himself had reached the bridge over the h.e.l.lespont, and late and hardly and in sorry plight and with few companions came home unto the Palace of Susa.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

CHORUS OF PERSIAN ELDERS. ATOSSA, WIDOW OF DARIUS AND MOTHER OF XERXES. A MESSENGER. THE GHOST OF DARIUS. XERXES.

The Scene is laid at the Palace of Susa.