The Greek Plays
Page 7
sweeping clear the gloomy plain and the hard-fated shore.
CHORUS: Oioioi, chant, and learn the whole truth.
Where have they gone, your cohort of allies?
Where are those who stood beside you—
those like Pharandaces,
Susas, Pelagon, Datamas,
960
Psammis, and Sousicanes
who left Ecbatana behind?
antistrophe
XERXES: I left them perishing,
tumbling from a Tyrian*82 ship, on the bluffs
of Salamis, dashed against those cruel bluffs.
CHORUS: Oioioi, where is Pharnouchus, where?
Or noble Ariomardus?
Where is lord Seualces
970
or high-born Lilaeus,
Memphis, Tharubis, Masistras,
Artembares, and Hystaechmas?
We ask you again to tell us.
strophe
XERXES: iō iō moi.
They got a glimpse of Athens,
that ancient, hateful city; then with one oar-sweep*83
they all were gasping for life on the beach.
CHORUS: Then you left, left behind
even the flower of the Persians,
your all-trusted man, your Eye,*84
980
who numbers his army in thousands,
Alpistus, Batanochus’ son?
[…]*85
You left Sesames, son of Megabates?
and Parthus, and Oebarus the great?
Oh, woe, for our troubles. You tell of
evils surpassing evils for noble Persians.
antistrophe
XERXES: You stir up a longing in me
for those brave comrades I lost
990
when you tell of these hateful, unending woes.
My heart cries out, cries out from inside my body.
CHORUS: Yes, and there’s others we yearn for,
the marshal of ten thousand Mardians,
Xanthes, and Anchares of Aria,
Diaxis, and also Arsaces,
the masters of horses,
and Kegdadatas, and Lythimnas,
and Tolmus, insatiable spearman.
1000
I’m amazed—amazed—that they follow not
behind the tented royal cart.
strophe
XERXES: They’re gone, those who were the army’s chiefs.
CHORUS: Gone, and nameless now.
XERXES: iē iē, iō iō.
CHORUS: iō iō, you gods,
how you’ve beset us with evil,
unlooked for, yet plain to see—the gaze of Atē.*86
antistrophe
XERXES: We are battered […]*87
CHORUS: Yes, we are battered, that’s clear—
1010
XERXES: —by a fresh pain, a fresh pain.
CHORUS: Not lucky was their encounter
with seafarers of the Greeks.
Hard is the fate of the Persian race in war.
strophe
XERXES: That’s so. I’ve been struck a blow in my vast army.
CHORUS: What’s left unruined of Persian might, deluded man?
XERXES: (showing his torn clothes) You see this sad remainder of my finery?
CHORUS: I see, I see.
1020
XERXES: And this, the arrow-holding—
CHORUS: What’s this? You say something was saved?
XERXES: —storehouse of darts?*88
CHORUS: Little enough, out of much.
XERXES: We had too few aids to fall back on.
CHORUS: The Greek race is not frightened by the spear.
antistrophe
XERXES: Yes, too brave. I’ve seen a grief unlooked-for.
CHORUS: You mean the rout of our host hedged round by ships.
1030
XERXES: I tore my robe at the woe that came upon us.
CHORUS: papai papai.
XERXES: Yes, and more than just that papai.
CHORUS: Twice and three times as much.
XERXES: Pains, but our enemies’ joys.
CHORUS: Our might has been brought down—
XERXES: I’m stripped of my royal train.
CHORUS: —by the sea-borne ruin of your allies.
XERXES: Let tears flow over the pain; set out for the palace.
(The Chorus have by now formed up into a procession, with Xerxes at the head. In what follows, the whole line marches funereally across the stage, chanting in anapestic meter and beating their breasts.)
strophe
CHORUS: aiai aiai, the pain the pain.
1040
XERXES: Shout, and beat in response to me.
CHORUS: An evil gift of evils, returned for evils.
XERXES: Wail the song along with me.
CHORUS: ototototoi.
Weighty comes this disaster.
oi, this, too, I much grieve for.*89
antistrophe
XERXES: Ply your grief like oars; your groans bring relief.
CHORUS: I’m drenched in tears of lament.
XERXES: Shout, and beat in response to me.
CHORUS: This is our task, my sovereign.
1050
XERXES: Raise up your voices in wails.
CHORUS: ototototoi.
And amid my wails will be mingled
oi, the black blow of mourning.
XERXES: Beat your breasts, and cry out the Mysian song.*90
CHORUS: Agony, agony.
XERXES: Pull the gray hair of your beard; rip it out.
CHORUS: In handfuls, in handfuls, with sorrowful cry.
XERXES: Give a shrill wail.
CHORUS: I’ll do this as well.
strophe
1060
XERXES: Rend your gathered robe with the tips of your fingers.
CHORUS: Agony, agony.
XERXES: Pluck out your hair as you lament for the army.
CHORUS: In handfuls, in handfuls, with sorrowful cry.
XERXES: Let your eyes flow with tears.
CHORUS: I am weeping indeed.
epode
XERXES: Shout, and beat in response to me.
CHORUS: oioi, oioi.
XERXES: Mourn, and move on to the palace.
CHORUS: iō, iō. 1070
XERXES: That’s the cry through the city.
CHORUS: Yes, yes, that’s the cry.
XERXES: Step softly as you lament.
CHORUS: iō iō, on the hard Persian soil.
XERXES: ē ē ē ē, Destroyed
ē ē ē ē, by triple-oared ships.*91
CHORUS: With shrill laments we shall escort you home.
(The procession slowly moves offstage.)
* * *
*1 The Chorus call themselves the pista, trustworthy ones, evidently a Greek version of a name the Persians gave to their council of advisers.
*2 The bracketed ellipsis indicates that a line of text seems to be missing from the manuscripts, to judge by the incomplete sentence in the previous line. Probably the missing text made clear that it was a widowed bride thus bewailing her loss.
*3 Kissia was a region of Persia of which Susa was the capital, though Aeschylus, here and at line 121, seems to think it was a city.
*4 Egypt was at this time a province of the Persian empire.
*5 The marshes referred to are those of the Nile delta.
*6 Apparently a reference to the Greeks whose cities dotted the west coast of Asia Minor and were at one time under Lydian control. They, too, accompanied Xerxes’ army, forced to fight against their fellow Greeks, though Aeschylus tactfully turns a blind eye to that fact.
*7 A river in Lydia.
*8 A vivid metaphor. Anvils, thick masses of iron, could not be penetrated by the blades forged upon them.
*9 It is unclear what nation is meant.
*10 The chorus now divide into halves and sing responsively (as indicated by the rubrics “strophe” and “antistrophe�
� below). The meter changes to one based on ionics ( ˘ ˘ ¯ ¯) from the preceding anapests.
*11 The Hellespont (modern Dardanelles), named for the princess Helle, who (according to myth) crossed it on the back of a ram, had been bridged by Xerxes to bring his army from Asia into Europe. The bridge was built of two lines of ships, anchored side by side and linked by long cables of hempen rope. The bridge thus formed is often termed a “yoke” by Aeschylus, both because it linked two continents together and because it aided the Persian effort to put a “yoke” of subjection on Greece.
*12 A reference to Xerxes, Great King of Persia and leader of the invasion, who is not named explicitly until line 144.
*13 The Persian invasion force consisted of both land troops and navy. The fleet sailed along shore so as to stay in contact with the land army.
*14 The Asian troops commanded by Xerxes relied on the archery bow as their primary weapon, whereas Greek hoplites, with armor and tactics designed for hand-to-hand combat, favored the thrusting spear.
*15 These lines refer to Persia’s recent addition of a navy to its armed forces. Originally a landlocked people who had no experience of the sea, the Persians relied on Phoenicians and Egyptians to captain their warships.
*16 As the out-of-sequence line numbers indicate, this stanza has been moved by Garvie and other editors from the position it occupies in the manuscripts.
*17 A divine force that spurs mortals toward rash and morally arrogant actions.
*18 Greek sounds of lamentation, like this two-syllable cry, are used richly and musically in this play. These sounds and exclamations have been closely transliterated here, and in some other plays in this volume, so as to convey something of their original musicality.
*19 The language is obscure but refers to the straits of Hellespont.
*20 The Chorus here revert briefly to the anapestic meter of their entrance, before breaking into trochaic tetrameters—lines of four trochaic feet, used with unique frequency in this play—at 155.
*21 Pointing to the council chamber before which the scene is set.
*22 See note to line 85.
*23 Aeschylus here has the Chorus speak of the Great Kings as gods, though the Persians did not in fact believe their monarchs to be divine.
*24 Here the meter switches, for the first time in this play, to iambic trimeter. In most surviving dramas iambic trimeter is almost universal in dialogue and speeches, but the Persians is a very early play and more varied in its use of meter. It often employs longer trochaic tetrameter lines for dialogue; the chorus and Atossa, for example, return to this meter at line 215 below.
*25 The term Ionians normally refers to one subgroup of the Greek people, but Aeschylus has the Persian queen, in her ignorance of Europeans, apply it more broadly.
*26 “Doric” refers to the Greek subgroup dwelling primarily in the Peloponnese, known for a spare, unadorned style of clothing.
*27 At several points Aeschylus has the Persians refer to themselves as barbaroi or (as here) to their land as barbarē—illogically adopting a Greek perspective, according to which they were foreigners. To translate these terms as “barbarian” would be misleading, as the word clearly would not have a pejorative sense when applied by the Persians to themselves.
*28 The language Atossa uses here borrows from Athenian political vocabulary; she says that Xerxes will not undergo a euthunos, the audit to which Athenian magistrates were subjected after their terms of office were up.
*29 Many editors assume a gap in the text here. Atossa was last heard discussing the Persian army, but when the Chorus speak at line 238, the army they refer to is that of Athens, victors over Persian invaders at the Battle of Marathon, ten years before the time in which this play is set. Editors have also resequenced some of the lines that follow.
*30 A reference to the silver deposits on Athenian land. The state-run silver mines had furnished the revenue that built most of the Athenian navy.
*31 See note above, line 238.
*32 The meter here switches briefly to iambic trimeter, before the Chorus breaks into a lyric lament; the trimeters then resume at 290.
*33 See note to line 117.
*34 The Chorus are thinking back to Athens’ victory over Persian troops at the battle of Marathon ten years earlier.
*35 Sileniae was apparently a stretch of the coast of Salamis.
*36 In mythic times, Ajax was a ruler of Salamis.
*37 Yet another reference to Salamis, or perhaps an adjacent island.
*38 See note to line 187.
*39 The phrasing here tactfully avoids stating the truth, that Athens had indeed been sacked before the battle of Salamis. Its population, however, had largely fled before the sack occurred, and this is the point Aeschylus stresses, for the benefit of his Athenian audience.
*40 The story of the deceitful message is also told by Herodotus, who explains that Themistocles, the Athenian admiral, contrived the trick as a way to lure Xerxes into an attack and force the reluctant Greek navy to give battle.
*41 This fourth detachment was sent around to the western side of the island, to guard a second channel connecting the Bay of Salamis to the sea. It is not clear why the ships on the eastern side were divided into three groups.
*42 Psyttaleia.
*43 As confirmed by Herodotus (Histories 8.90.4), Xerxes observed the battle of Salamis from a throne set up on Mount Aigaleus, overlooking the straits.
*44 While the Persian navy suffered defeat at Salamis, the vastly larger land army remained intact, not having taken part in the engagement. These troops were left in Greece when the navy fled, in hopes they could later subdue the Greeks in a land battle.
*45 The route described here takes the Persians through northern Greece and Thrace, not across the Aegean as one might have expected (see map of Mainland Greece and Asia Minor). Ancient warships had no room to store food or water, and had to travel along coasts except in dire emergencies (in fact this was such an emergency, and many ships did sail direct for Asia, but Aeschylus ignores this).
*46 A river flowing through Thrace.
*47 A line has become damaged here.
*48 See note to line 117.
*49 The word here translated “ships,” barides, refers specifically to Asian or Egyptian vessels.
*50 See note to line 178.
*51 A poetic description of fish.
*52 Either the statement is an extreme hyperbole, or the term “Asia” is used to mean only Asia Minor, as is often the case. In fact only a small portion of Persia’s Asian holdings, the Greek cities of the eastern Aegean, had been liberated.
*53 A reference to proskynesis, a deep ritual bow by which subjects showed reverence to the Persian king.
*54 Salamis.
*55 Atossa does not exactly call Darius a “god” but a divine being of lesser power, a daimōn. The Greek word has no good English equivalent.
*56 This translation is an attempt to capture the exotic flavor of a foreign word, ballēn, the Chorus use here.
*57 Three lines of the epode are corrupted such that Garvie and others find them impossible to interpret.
*58 Darius here begins speaking in trochaic tetrameters (see note to line 176), and he and Atossa both use this meter through line 758.
*59 According to Herodotus (Histories 7.1–2), Darius had seven children by two different wives, and the succession of Xerxes was by no means a certainty at the time Darius died.
*60 Unlike later Greek writers who used “Bosporus” and “Hellespont” to refer to different straits, Aeschylus, both here and at line 746, conflates the two names.
*61 The line is damaged, and it is not clear why Atossa thus singles out the Bactrians, one of many Persian subject peoples.
*62 Referring to the bridge Xerxes built across the Hellespont.
*63 From here to the end of the scene the meter returns to iambic trimeter.
*64 This account of Persia’s royal dynasty is partly historical, partly unique to Aeschylus. Me
dus is not mentioned elsewhere, though the name seems connected to the Medes, the people from whom the Persians wrested sovereignty in the mid-sixth century B.C.
*65 With Cyrus and his son—known to the Greeks as Cambyses—Aeschylus’ account of Persian history begins to dovetail with that of Herodotus and other historical sources. The ruler whom Aeschylus calls Mardus (see footnote on next page) is probably to be identified with Herodotus’ Smerdis, an impostor who briefly usurped the throne before a team of conspirators overthrew him.
*66 A line that intrudes here in the manuscripts is clearly not genuine: “Mardus the sixth, Artaphrenes the seventh.” The conspirator here called Artaphrenes is the same man Herodotus calls Intaphrenes in his account of the conspiracy that unseated “Mardus” (whom Herodotus calls Smerdis); see Histories 3.70.
*67 Plataea, on the plains of Boeotia, was the site of the battle that destroyed the Persian land forces, in the year after Salamis. The Spartans took the lead role in the Greek victory there, which explains Aeschylus’ reference to the “Dorian spear.”
*68 The second part of the line is garbled.
*69 This line is unintelligible in the manuscripts.
*70 The point made by the Chorus is that Darius did not accompany his army on its invasions, by contrast with Xerxes, who risked his own person in Greece. The river Halys (today called Kizilirmak) runs south from Turkey’s northern coast, and had to be crossed on journeys westward toward Europe.
*71 Here begins a catalog of Darius’ conquests in the West, beginning with Thrace and moving eastward. Achelous was the name of several rivers and seems to have been used, by metonymy, for freshwater generally; on the Strymon, see line 497 and following.
*72 If (as Garvie and others believe) by “lake” Aeschylus means the Aegean, then the cities “outside” it might be those of the Hellespont region.
*73 I have preferred Broadhead’s emendation here to the manuscript reading.
*74 The places described are, respectively, the Hellespont, or Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the Bosporus, entrance to the Pontus (Black Sea).