Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/295

Rh The trumpet's blare fired all their ranks, and straight,

With simultaneous dip of sounding oar,

They at the signal smote the surging brine,

And instant all conspicuous were to sight.

First the right wing, well marshall'd, took the lead:

Then their whole naval force in fair array

Bore down against us. All at once was heard

A mighty shout: "Sons of Hellenès, on,

Your country free, your children free, your wives,

The temples of your fathers' deities,

Your tombs ancestral; for your all ye fight."

And from our side clamour of Persian speech

In answer rose; no time was then for pause,

But instant galley against galley dashed

Her armature of brass. A ship of Hellas

Led the encounter, and from Punic barque

Sheared her high crest. Thereon as fortune led,

Ship drave on ship; at first the Persian host,

A mighty flood, made head; but soon their ships

Thronged in the strait, of mutual aid bereft,

Each against other dashed with brazen beak,

Crushing the oar-banks of their proper fleet;

While the Hellenès ships, not without skill,

Circling around them smote: dead hulks of ships

Floated keel-upwards, and, with wrecks o'erstrewn

And slaughtered men, lost was the sea from sight,

Ay, shores and reefs were crowded with the dead.

In flight disordered every ship was rowed,

Poor remnant of the Persian armament.

Then as men strike at tunnies, or a haul