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Enter Xerxes in tattered robes, and attended by a scanty retinue
Xerxes
Alas, wretched am I who have met this cruel doom [910] which did not give the faintest sign of its coming! In what savage mood has Fortune trampled upon the Persian race? What misery is yet in store for me, unhappy wretch? The strength of my limbs is loosened as I look upon this aged group of citizens. [915] Ah, Zeus,I wish that the doom of death had buried me, too, together with the men who have been laid low! Chorus
Alas, my king, for our noble army, for the high honor of Persia's rule, [920] and for the splendor of the men now cut off by Fate! The land bewails her native youth, slaughtered for Xerxes, who has crowded Hades with Persian slain. [925] Many warriors, masters of the bow, our country's pride, a great multitude of men, have perished. Alas, alas, for our trusty defence! The land of Asia, the leading power of the earth, [930] has piteously, yes piteously, been bowed to her knees.
Aeschylus. Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. in two volumes. 1. Persians. Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. 1926.
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