The Suppliants E-Book

Aeschylus

• Herausgeber: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 49

Beschreibung

The Suppliants Aeschylus - The Danaids form the chorus and serve as the protagonists. They flee a forced marriage to their Egyptian cousins. When the Danaides reach Argos, they entreat King Pelasgus to protect them. He refuses pending the decision of the Argive people, who decide in the favor of the Danaids. Danaus rejoices the outcome, and the Danaids praise the Greek gods. Almost immediately, a herald of the Egyptians comes to attempt to force the Danaids to return to their cousins for marriage. Pelasgus arrives, threatens the herald, and urges the Danaids to remain within the walls of Argos. The play ends with the Danaids retreating into the Argive walls, protected.

Leseprobe

Aeschylus

The Suppliants

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Dedication

Take thou this gift from out the grave of Time.The urns of Greece lie shattered, and the cupThat for Athenian lips the Muses filled,And flowery crowns that on Athenian hairHid the cicala, freedom’s golden sign,Dust in the dust have fallen. Calmly sad,The marble dead upon Athenian tombsSpeak from their eyes “Farewell”: and well have faredThey and the saddened friends, whose clasping handsWin from the solemn stone eternity.Yea, well they fared unto the evening god,Passing beyond the limit of the world,Where face to face the son his mother saw,A living man a shadow, while she spakeWords that Odysseus and that Homer heard,—I too, O child, I reached the common doom,The grave, the goal of fate, and passed away.—Such, Anticleia, as thy voice to him,Across the dim gray gulf of death and timeIs that of Greece, a mother’s to a child,—Mother of each whose dreams are grave and fair—Who sees the Naiad where the streams are brightAnd in the sunny ripple of the seaCymodoce with floating golden hair:And in the whisper of the waving oakHears still the Dryad’s plaint, and, in the windThat sighs through moonlit woodlands, knows the hornOf Artemis, and silver shafts and bow.Therefore if still around this broken vase,Borne by rough hands, unworthy of their load,Far from Cephisus and the wandering rills,There cling a fragrance as of things once sweet,Of honey from Hymettus’ desert hill,Take thou the gift and hold it close and dear;For gifts that die have living memories—Voices of unreturning days, that breatheThe spirit of a day that never dies.

Argument

Io, the daughter of Inachus, King of Argos, was beloved of Zeus. But Hera was jealous of that love, and by her ill will was Io given over to frenzy, and her body took the semblance of a heifer: and Argus, a many-eyed herdsman, was set by Hera to watch Io whithersoever she strayed. Yet, in despite of Argus, did Zeus draw nigh unto her in the shape of a bull. And by the will of Zeus and the craft of Hermes was Argus slain. Then Io was driven over far lands and seas by her madness, and came at length to the land of Egypt. There was she restored to herself by a touch of the hand of Zeus, and bare a child called Epaphus. And from Epaphus sprang Libya, and from Libya, Belus; and from Belus, Aegyptus and Danaus. And the sons of Aegyptus willed to take the daughters of Danaus in marriage. But the maidens held such wedlock in horror, and fled with their father over the sea to Argos; and the king and citizens of Argos gave them shelter and protection from their pursuers.

The Suppliants

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

DANAUS.THE KING OF ARGOS.HERALD OF AEGYPTUS.Chorus of the Daughters of Danaus.Attendants.

Scene.—A sacred precinct near the gates of Argos: statue and shrines of Zeus and other deities stand around.

CHORUS.Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands!Look down benign on us who craveThine aid—whom winds and waters draveFrom where, through drifting shifting sands,Pours Nilus to the wave.From where the green land, god-possest,Closes and fronts the Syrian waste,We flee as exiles, yet unbannedBy murder’s sentence from our land;But—since Aegyptus had decreedHis sons should wed his brother’s seed,—Ourselves we tore from bonds abhorred,From wedlock not of heart but hand,Nor brooked to call a kinsman lord!And Danaus, our sire and guide,The king of counsel, pond’ring wellThe dice of fortune as they fell,Out of two griefs the kindlier chose,And bade us fly, with him beside,Heedless what winds or waves arose,And o’er the wide sea waters haste,Until to Argos’ shore at lastOur wandering pinnace came—Argos, the immemorial homeOf her from whom we boast to come—Io, the ox-horned maiden, whom,After long wandering, woe, and scathe,Zeus with a touch, a mystic breath,Made mother of our name.Therefore, of all the lands of earth,On this most gladly step we forth,And in our hands aloft we bear—Sole weapon for a suppliant’s wear—The olive-shoot, with wool enwound!City, and land, and waters wanOf Inachus, and gods most high,And ye who, deep beneath the ground,Bring vengeance weird on mortal man,Powers of the grave, on you we cry!And unto Zeus the Saviour, guardOf mortals’ holy purity!Receive ye us—keep watch and wardAbove the suppliant maiden band!Chaste be the heart of this your landTowards the weak! but, ere the throng,The wanton swarm, from Egypt sprung,Leap forth upon the silted shore,Thrust back their swift-rowed bark again,Repel them, urge them to the main!And there, ’mid storm and lightning’s shine,And scudding drift and thunder’s roar,Deep death be theirs, in stormy brine!Before they foully grasp and winUs, maiden-children of their kin,And climb the couch by law denied,And wrong each weak reluctant bride.And now on her I call,Mine ancestress, who far on Egypt’s shoreA young cow’s semblance wore,—A maiden once, by Hera’s malice changed!And then on him withal,Who, as amid the flowers the grazing creature ranged,Was in her by a breath of Zeus conceived;And, as the hour of birth drew nigh,By fate fulfilled, unto the light he came;And Epaphus for name,