against all hope, I’m here, seeing this light.

CHORUS. Life stretches long

too long for grey old men

who hear of all hope

undone

MESSENGER. I was there. I can tell you, no hearsay,

the evils that sprang up hurtling against us.

CHORUS. No nonono

That bright storm

of arrows showing Asia’s massed colors

advanced

all for NOTHING

into hostile Greece?

MESSENGER. They met hard deaths. The corpses

pile on Salamis and every nearby shore.

CHORUS. No nonono

You’re saying

those we love are floating, foundering

awash

DEAD MEN shrouded

in sea-drowned cloaks?

MESSENGER. Our arrows didn’t help. The whole force

went down, broken, when ship rammed ship.

CHORUS. Rage

for the Persians killed

Wail the death howl

All that began well

comes to the worst end    CRY!

CRY OUT

For the army slaughtered!

MESSENGER. Salamis, I hate that hissing name.

And Athens, remembering makes me groan.

CHORUS. Athens

bears Persia’s hate

We will recall

wives she has widowed

mothers with no sons    NO!

and all

ALL FOR NOTHING!

ATOSSA. Silence has held me till now

heartsore,

struck by the blows of loss,

for this disaster so exceeds all bounds

that one can neither tell,

nor ask,

about the suffering.

Yet there is terrible need

for people to bear pain

when gods send it down.

You must

compose yourself: speak out,

unrolling all the suffering,

though you groan at our losses.

Who is not dead?

And whom shall we mourn?

Of all the leaders

whose hands grip authority

which one

left his post unmanned, deserted

when he died?

MESSENGER. Xerxes—he lives and sees light—

ATOSSA. You speak: light blazes in my house,

and white day after a black-storming night!

MESSENGER. —but Artembares,

commander of ten thousand horse,

is hammered along Sileniai’s raw coast

and thousand-leader Dadakes,

spearstuck,

danced back without any effort I could see

overboard

and Tenagon,

pureblooded Bactrian and chief,

scrapes against Ajax’ sea-pelted island.

Lilaios,

Arsames,

and a third, Argestes,

wave-tumbled around that dove-broody island,

kept butting resistant stones

and so did Pharnoukhos

whose home was Egypt, by Nile’s fresh flow,

and so did they

who plunged from one same ship,

Arkteus,

Adeues,

and a third, Pheresseues.

And Matallos from a golden city,

leader of ten thousand,

dying, stained his full beard’s tawny brush

changing its color with sea-purple dye.

And the Arab, Magos,

with Artabes the Bactrian,

who led thirty thousand black horse,

took up land as an immigrant

by dying there

on that harsh ground.

Amistris

and Amphistreus,

whose spear delighted in trouble,

and bright-souled Ariomardos,

whose loss brings Sardis down grieving,

and Seisames the Mysian,

Tharybis, too,

sealord of five times fifty ships,

Lyrnaian by descent, a hard-bodied man,

lies dead,

a wretch whose luck went soft,

and Syennesis,

first in courage, the Cilicians’ chief,

one man who made most trouble for the enemy,

died with glory.

These are the leaders

of whom I bring my memories.

But we suffered many losses there.