Persians E-Book

Aeschylus

• Herausgeber: Synapse Publishing
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Persians by Aeschylus is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre. The story takes place in Susa, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire at that time. The Chorus of old men of Susa are awaiting news of King Xerxes’ expedition against the Greeks, and so does Xerxes’ mother, Atossa, who expresses her anxiety and unease. An exhausted messenger arrives, offering a graphic description of the Battle of Salamis and its gory outcome. Summoned by the Chours, the ghost of Xerxes’ father, Darius the Great, appears. When he learns of the Persian defeat, Darius condemns the hubris behind his son’s decision to invade Greece. Persians is a political and a moral play at the same time, commonly considered the seminal work of western tragedy.
Unabridged edition with an interactive table of contents.

Leseprobe

Aeschylus

PERSIANS

Translated by E.D.A. Morshead

© 2019 Synapse Publishing

By the same author in the Synapse catalogue:

Eumenides

Suppliant maidens

Libation bearers

Seven against Thebes

The Persians

Prometheus bound

Agamemnon

ARGUMENT

Xerxes, son of Darius and of his wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, went forth against Hellas, 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 Hellespont and made a canal 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 ships 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 Hellespont, 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.

PERSIANS

CHORUS

Away unto the Grecian land

Hath passed the Persian armament:

We, by the monarch's high command,

We are the warders true who stand,

Chosen, for honour and descent,

To watch the wealth of him who went—

Guards of the gold, and faithful styled

By Xerxes, great Darius' child!

But the king went nor comes again—

And for that host, we saw depart

Arrayed in gold, my boding heart

Aches with a pulse of anxious pain,

Presageful for its youthful king!

No scout, no steed, no battle-car

Comes speeding hitherward, to bring

News to our city from afar!

Erewhile they went, away, away,

From Susa, from Ecbatana,

From Kissa's timeworn fortress grey,

Passing to ravage and to war—

Some upon steeds, on galleys some,

Some in close files, they passed from home,

All upon warlike errand bent—

Amistres, Artaphernes went,

Astaspes, Megabazes high,

Lords of the Persian chivalry,

Marshals who serve the great king's word

Chieftains of all the mighty horde!

Horsemen and bowmen streamed away,

Grim in their aspect, fixed to slay,

And resolute to face the fray!

With troops of horse, careering fast,

Masistes, Artembáres passed:

Imaeus too, the bowman brave,

Sosthánes, Pharandákes, drave—

And others the all-nursing wave

Of Nilus to the battle gave;

Came Susiskánes, warrior wild,

And Pegastágon, Egypt's child:

Thee, brave Arsámes! from afar

Did holy Memphis launch to war;

And Ariomardus, high in fame,

From Thebes the immemorial came,

And oarsmen skilled from Nilus' fen,

A countless crowd of warlike men:

And next, the dainty Lydians went—

Soft rulers of a continent—

Mitragathes and Arcteus bold

In twin command their ranks controlled,

And Sardis town, that teems with gold,

Sent forth its squadrons to the war—

Horse upon horse, and car on car,

Double and triple teams, they rolled,

In onset awful to behold.

From Tmolus' sacred hill there came

The native hordes to join the fray,

And upon Hellas' neck to lay

The yoke of slavery and shame;

Mardon and Tharubis were there,