aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

The land that gave them birth,
Asia, their nursing mother, mourns;
And day succeeds today,
And wives and Ii ttle ones lose heart,
Sighing the time a way.
I grant you that our royal host,
The walled city's scourge,
Hath long since reached the neighbour coast
That frowns across the surge;
Hath roped with moored rafts the strait,
Their path the heaving deck,
At Athamantid Helle's Gate
Upon the sea's proud neck
Bolting a yoke from strand to strand:
And Asia's hordes, I grant,
Outnumber the uncounted sand:
Our king is valiant:
He shepherdeth a mighty flock,
God's benison therewith,
Till iron arms all Hellas lock,
Port, isle and pass and fri tho
And at his word leap captains bold
Ready to do or die,
Being himself of the race of gold,
Equal with God most high.
The dragon-light of his black eyes
Darts awe, aHo express
The lord of mighty argosies
And minions numberless.
So, sea ted in his Syrian car,
He leads 'gainst spear and pike
His sagittaries: death from far
Their wounding arrows strike.
Meseemeth none of mortal birth
That tide of men dare brave,
A sea tha t del ugeth the earth,
A vast resistless wave.
No! Persia's matchless millions
No human power can quell,
Such native valour arms her sons,
Such might incomparable!
For Fate from immemorial age
Chose out her sons for power:
Bade them victorious war to wage
And breach the bastioned tower:
In chivalry to take delight
Where clashing squadrons close:
Kingdoms and polities the might
Of their strong arm o'erthrows.
They gaze on ocean lawns that leap
With bickering billows gray
Swept by fierce winds; their myriads sweep
Ocean's immense highway,
Where, leashed with cables fibre-fine,
Their buoyant galleys bridge
The rough waves of the sundering brine
From ridge to crested ridge.
And yet what man, of woman born,
Outwi ts the guile of God ?
The pit He digs what foot may scorn,
Though with all lightness shod?
AESCHYLUS
16
For ruin first with laughing face
Lures man into the net,
Whence never wight of mortal race
Leapt free and scatheless yet.
These are the thoughts that fret and fray
The sahle garment of my soul.
Shall Persia's host sing "Wellaway,"
With universal shout of dole:
Shall Susa hear, of manhood shorn?
Shall this imperial city mourn?
Yea, and shall Kissia's castle-keep
With answering note of grief reply?
Shall huddled women wail and weep
Bearing the burthen to that cry,
While torn in rents their raiment falls
And tattered hang their costly shawls?
Not one is left: all they that drive
Or ride proud steeds, all footmen stout,
Like swarming bees that quit the hive,
With him that leads the dance, went out;
Shackling two shores across the sea
They thrust a floating promontory.
But beds are wet with many a tear
Where late the longed-for love lay warm;
New luxury of grief is dear
To our fair Persians: some mailed form
She kissed "Goodbye," her love, her own,
Each misses, left in wedlock lone.
Men of Persia, here in council, seated round this
ancien t roof,
Sounding deep, for sore the need is, let us put it to
the proof,
How it fareth with King Xerxes, great Darius'
golden heir,
Lord of lieges, mighty dynast, who made Persia
rich and fair;
Whether conquest wingeth onward with the
drawing of the bow
Or the ashen-hafted spear-head crowns with victory
the foe.
But, behold, a light that shineth with august and
godlike rays,
Royal Mother of King Xerxes, regnant Queen of
my young days;
Rapidly her chariot rolleth; in the dust I lay me
prone;
Homage, love and loyal duty proffer we in unison.
Enter the A TOSSA.
Queen-Dowager of Persian dames deep-veiled,
Mother of Xerxes and Darius' wife,
Spouse of a god, and not less justly hailed
As to one godlike authoress of life
Unless the power that prospered us of yore
Now with our armies goeth out no morel
Atossa. Therefore am I corne forth into the day
From golden courts and that one chamber fair