Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/112

82 And thence to Doris and the Melian gulf,

Where with soft stream Spercheus laves the soil.

Thence to the northward did Phthiotis' plain,

And some Thessalian fortress, lend us aid,

For famine-pinched we were, and many died

Of drought and hunger's twofold present scourge.

Thence to Magnesia came we, and the land

Where Macedonians dwell, and crossed the ford

Of Axius, and Bolbe's reedy fen,

And mount Pangaeus, in Edonian land.

There, in the very night we came, the god

Brought winter ere its time, from bank to bank

Freezing the holy Strymon's tide. Each man

Who heretofore held lightly of the gods.

Now crouched and proffered prayer to Earth and Heaven!

Then, after many orisons performed,

The army ventured on the frozen ford:

Yet only those who crossed before the sun

Shed its warm rays, won to the farther side.

For soon the fervour of the glowing orb

Did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream,

And men sank through and thrust each other down—

Best was his lot whose breath was stifled first!

But all who struggled through and gained the bank,

Toilfully wending through the land of Thrace

Have made their way, a sorry, scanted few,

Unto this homeland. Let the city now

Lament and yearn for all the loved and lost.

My tale is truth, yet much untold remains

Of ills that Heaven hath hurled upon our land.

Spirit of Fate, too heavy were thy feet,

Those ill to match! that sprang on Persia's realm.