Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/91

Rh In wild, disordered flight. This further stroke

Of fortune's malice fell for thee to mourn.

O wicked spirit! How did'st thou beguile

Our Persians' hearts! How bitter a revenge

Upon illustrious Athens was vouchsafed

To our dear son! Not all that Barbary lost

Beforetime on the field of Marathon

Sufficed! But, thinking to repay in kind

All that we suffered there, he hath drawn on

A deluge of immeasurable woe!

But tell me of the ships that 'scaped destruction,

Where didst thou leave these? Hast sure news of them?

The captains of the remnant hoisted sail

And ran before the wind, a rabble rout.

But the remainder of our army perished

In the Boeotian country, some of thirst

For lack of solace of refreshing springs.

We that were left, taking no time to breathe,

Crossed into Phocis and the Locrian land

And the Maliac gulf where the Spercheius flows

Watering a broad plain with his gracious stream.

Achaia and the Thessalian cities then

Opened to us their gates, but we were sore

Straitened for lack of meat. And there the most

Perished of thirst and hunger, for, God wot,

We must contend with both. Anon we came

To the Magnesian country and the coasts

Of Macedonia by the Axian frith

And Bolbe's reedy marshes and the range