Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/105

Rh Arcteus, who dwelt beside the founts of Nile,

Adeues, Pheresseues, and with them

Pharnuchus, from one galley's deck went down.

Matallus, too, of Chrysa, lord and king

Of myriad hordes, who led unto the fight

Three times ten thousand swarthy cavaliers,

Fell, with his swarthy and abundant beard

Incarnadined to red, a crimson stain

Outrivalling the purple of the sea!

There Magian Arabus and Artames

Of Bactra perished—taking up, alike,

In yonder stony land their long sojourn.

Amistris too, and he whose strenuous spear

Was foremost in the fight, Amphistreus fell,

And gallant Ariomardus, by whose death

Broods sorrow upon Sardis: Mysia mourns

For Seisames, and Tharubis lies low—

Commander, he, of five times fifty ships,

Born in Lyrnessus: his heroic form

Is low in death, ungraced with sepulchre.

Dead too is he, the lord of courage high,

Cilicia's marshal, brave Syennesis,

Than whom none dealt more carnage on the foe,

Nor perished by a more heroic end.

So fell the brave: so speak I of their doom,

Summing in brief the fate of myriads!

Ah well-a-day! these crowning woes I hear,

The shame of Persia and her shrieks of dole!

But yet renew the tale, repeat thy words,

Tell o'er the count of those Hellenic ships,

And how they ventured with their beaked prows

To charge upon the Persian armament.