Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/313

Rh The lot I craved, and with a mighty host

Full many a warlike expedition led;

But ne'er on Susa brought I bale like this.

But Xerxes, young in years, is young of soul,

And my paternal charge remembers not.

For, be assured, ye my compeers in age,

Not all of us, of yore these powers who held,

Shall e'er be proven to have wrought such ills.

What then, O King Darius? What the goal

To which thine utterance tends? How in this strait

May we, thy Persians, fare hereafter best?

March ye no more against the Hellenès' land,

Not though the Median host outnumber theirs;

The soil itself to them is an ally.

How meanest thou? In what way their ally?

By famine slaying bloated armaments.

What if choice force we levy, well-equipped?