O'erwhelming sorrow has long held me mute.
Disaster such as this transcends all thought,
Bars all enquiry, chokes all utterance.
And yet we mortals must misfortune bear
When heaven ordains. Then, though thy heart be
wrung,
Calm thee and tell us all, that we may know
Who of our warriors lives, whom we must mourn
Among our chiefs, as having by his death
Left void the station of his high command.
MESSENGER.
Xerxes himself lives and beholds the sun.
ATOSSA.
Thy word is sunshine to my sorrowing house;
A cheerful day after a dismal night.
MESSENGER.
Artembares, that led ten thousand horse,
Lies slain upon the rough Silenian shore;
And Dadaces, that led a thousand more,
Pierced by a spear plunged headlong from his barque;
And Tenagon, Bactria's true son and pride,
Lies on the wave-washed beach of Ajax' Isle.
Lileus, Arsames, Argestes too,
Round the dove-haunted island drifting, struck
Its girdling rocks on fell disaster's day.
Matallus, that from Chrysa came, has fallen,
He that dark horsemen thrice ten thousand led;
The flowing beard that graced his cheek in gore
Steeped unto crimson turned its russet hue.
Arabian Magos, Bactrian Artames,
Die in a strange land, never to return;
And Tharybis, of five times fifty sail
Commander, Lyrna's son, with his fair face
By foul mischance of war has been laid low.
While, bravest of the brave, Syennesis,
Cilicia's admiral, who to the foe
Most trouble gave, has met a glorious doom.
ATOSSA.
Alas! this overtops the height of woe;
For Persia naught remains but shame and wail.
But now take up thy story, let me hear
What was the number of the Hellenic fleet,
That thus it dared our Persian armament
In battle with encountering prows to brave.