The Persians E-Book

Aeschylus

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 47

Beschreibung

The Persians Aeschylus - The Persians is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. First produced in 472 BC, it is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre. It dramatises the Persian response to news of their military defeat at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC), which was a decisive episode in the Greco-Persian Wars; as such, the play is also notable for being the only extant Greek tragedy that is based on contemporary events.

Leseprobe

Aeschylus

The Persians

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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 Persians

The Scene is laid at the Palace of Susa.

CHORUS.Away unto the Grecian landHath 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 styledBy Xerxes, great Darius’ child!But the king went nor comes again—And for that host, we saw departArrayed in gold, my boding heartAches with a pulse of anxious pain,Presageful for its youthful king!No scout, no steed, no battle-carComes speeding hitherward, to bringNews 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 wordChieftains 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 waveOf Nilus to the battle gave;Came Susiskánes, warrior wild,And Pegastágon, Egypt’s child:Thee, brave Arsámes! from afarDid 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 boldIn 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 cameThe native hordes to join the fray,And upon Hellas’ neck to layThe yoke of slavery and shame;Mardon and Tharubis were there,Bright anvils for the foemen’s spear!The Mysian dart-men sped to war,And the long crowd that onward rolledFrom Babylon enriched with gold—Captains of ships and archers skilledTo speed the shaft, and those who wieldThe scimitar;—the eastern bandWho, by the great king’s high command,Swept to subdue the western land!Gone are they, gone—ah, welladay!The flower and pride of our array;And all the Eastland, from whose breastCame forth her bravest and her best,Craves longingly with boding dread—Parents for sons, and brides new-wedFor absent lords, and, day by day,Shudder with dread at their delay!Ere now they have passed o’er the sea, the manifold host of the king—They have gone forth to sack and to burn; ashore on the Westland they spring!With cordage and rope they have bridged the sea-way of Helle, to passO’er the strait that is named by thy name, O daughter of Athamas!They have anchored their ships in the current, they have bridled the neck of the sea—The Shepherd and Lord of the East hath bidden a roadway to be!From the land to the land they pass over, a herd at the high king’s best;Some by the way of the waves, and some o’er the planking have pressed.For the king is a lord and a god: he was born of the golden seedThat erst upon Danae fell—his captains are strong at the need!And dark is the glare of his eyes, as eyes of a serpent blood-fed,And with manifold troops in his train and with manifold ships hath he sped—Yea, sped with his Syrian cars: he leads on the lords of the bowTo meet with the men of the West, the spear-armed force of the foe!Can any make head and resist him, when he comes with the roll of a wave?No barrier nor phalanx of might, no chief, be he ever so brave!