I should be most happy for the sake of Æschylus, and my translation, to think there was nothing in the ἁβροβάται. of this passage but the natural expression of grief so simply given in the scriptural narrative, I Kings xxi. 27; and in that stanza of one of Mr. Tennyson’s most beautiful poems—
“Full knee-deep lies the wintry snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing;
Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.”
But there is more in ἁβρός than mere gentleness, and to the Greek ear it would no doubt speak of the general luxuriance and effeminacy of the Persian manners. To put such an allusion into the mouth of Xerxes on the present occasion is no doubt in the worst possible taste; but the Greeks were too intensely national in their feelings to take a curious account of such matters.
[End of Notes]
LIST OF EDITIONS,
COMMENTARIES, AND TRANSLATIONS
USED BY THE TRANSLATOR
Editions of the whole Plays.