Aeschylus

Now have we journeyed to a spot of earth Remote — the Scythian wild, a waste untrod. And now, Hephaestus, thou must execute The task our father laid on thee, and fetter This malefactor to the jagged rocks In adamantine bonds infrangible; For thine own blossom of all forging fire He stole and gave to mortals; trespass grave For which the Gods have called him to account, That he may learn… Read the rest of this passage →

While o’er the fields of Greece the embattled troops Of Persia march with delegated sway, We o’er their rich and gold-abounding seats Hold faithful our firm guard; to this high charge Xerxes, our royal lord, the imperial son Of great Darius, chose our honour’d age. But for the king’s return, and his arm’d host Blazing with gold, my soul presaging ill Swells in my tortured breast: for all…

Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see, Have sped me forth again from Loxias’ shrine, With strength unstrung, moving erect no more, But aiding with my hands my failing feet, Unnerved by fear. A beldame’s force is naught — Is as a child’s, when age and fear combine. For as I pace towards the inmost fane Bay-filleted by many a suppliant’s hand, Lo, at the central altar I descry One…

Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands Look down benign on us who crave Thine aid-whom winds and waters drave From where, through drifting shifting sands, Pours Nilus to the wave. From where the green land, god-possest, Closes and fronts the Syrian waste, We flee as exiles, yet unbanned By murder's sentence from our land; But-since Aegyptus had decreed His sons should wed his brother's…

Foretelleth, by the mastery of his art, That now an onset of Achaea's host Is by a council of the night designed To fall in double strength upon our walls. Up and away, then, to the battlements, The gates, the bulwarks! don your panoplies, Array you at the breast-work, take your stand On the floorings of the towers, and with good heart Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates, Nor hold…

Chorus (singing) strophe 1 Forth from the royal halls by high command I bear libations for the dead. Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand, And all my cheek is rent and red, Fresh-furrowed by my nails, and all my soul This many a day doth feed on cries of dole. And trailing tatters of my vest, In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn, Hang rent around my breast, Even as I, by…

Chorus (singing) Ten livelong years have rolled away, Since the twin lords of sceptred sway, By Zeus endowed with pride of place, The doughty chiefs of Atreus’ race, Went forth of yore, To plead with Priam, face to face, Before the judgment-seat of War! A thousand ships from Argive land Put forth to bear the martial band, That with a spirit stern and strong Went out to right the…