Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/104

74

Mute have I been awhile, and overwrought

At this great sorrow, for it passeth speech,

And passeth all desire to ask of it.

Yet if the gods send evils, men must bear.

(To the )

Unroll the record! stand composed and tell,

Although thy heart be groaning inwardly,

Who hath escaped, and, of our leaders, whom

Have we to weep? what chieftains in the van

Stood, sank, and died and left us leaderless?

Xerxes himself survives and sees the day.

Then to my line thy word renews the dawn

And golden dayspring after gloom of night!

But the brave marshal of ten thousand horse,

Artembares, is tossed and flung in death

Along the rugged rocks Silenian.

And Dadaces no longer leads his troop,

But, smitten by the spear, from off the prow

Hath lightly leaped to death; and Tenagon,

In true descent a Bactrian nobly born,

Drifts by the sea-lashed reefs of Salamis,

The isle of Ajax. Gone Lilaeus too,

Gone are Arsames and Argestes! all,

Around the islet where the sea-doves breed,

Dashed their defeated heads on iron rocks: