| For these my son, exacting as requital Punishment (or so he thought) Called on himself so numerous A train of woes. --Queen They, invading Greece, felt no awe, They did not hesitate to plunder images Of gods, and put temples to the torch; Altars were no more, and statues, like trees, Were uprooted, torn from their bases In all confusion. Thus their wickedness Shall no less make them suffer: Other woes the future holds in store, And still the fount of evils is not quenched, It wells up, and overflows: so great will be The sacrificial cake of clotted gore Made at Plataea by Dorian spear. And corpses, piled up like sand, shall witness, Mute, even to the century to come, Before the eyes of men, that never, being Mortal, ought we cast our thoughts too high. Insolence, once blossoming, bears Its fruit, a tasseled field of doom, from which A weeping harvest's reaped, all tears. --Darius |
September 15, 2006
The Persians
From The Persians, by Aeschylus (472 BC), translation by Seth G. Benardete:
