Chorus monologue — Four Plays of Aeschylus

Ah glorious and goodly they were, the life and the lot that we gained, The cities we held in our hand when the monarch invincible reigned, The king that was good to his realm, sufficing, fulfilled of his sway, A lord that was peer of the gods, the pride of the bygone day! Then could we show to the skies great hosts and a glorious name, And laws that were stable in might; as towers they guarded our fame! There without woe or disaster we came from the foe and the fight, In triumph, enriched with the spoil, to the land and the city’s delight. What towns ere the Halys he passed! what towns ere he came to the West, To the main and the isles of the Strymon, and the Thracian region possess’d! And those that stand back from the main, enringed by their fortified wall, Gave o’er to Darius, the king, the sceptre and sway over all! Those too by the channel of Helle, where southward it broadens and glides, By the inlets, Propontis! of thee, and the strait of the Pontic tides, And the isles that lie fronting our sea-board, and the Eastland looks on each one, Lesbo and Chios and Paros, and Samos with olive-trees grown, And Naxos, and Myconos’ rock, and Tenos with Andros hard by, And isles that in midmost Aegean, aloof from the continent, lie— And Lemnos and Icaros’ hold—all these to his sceptre were bowed, And Cnidos and neighbouring Rhodes, and Soli, and Paphos the proud, And Cyprian Salamis, name-child of her who hath wrought us this wrong! Yea, and all the Ionian tract, where the Greek-born inhabitants throng, And the cities are teeming with gold—Darius was lord of them all, And, great by his wisdom, he ruled, and ever there came to his call, In stalwart array and unfailing, the warrior chiefs of our land, And mingled allies from the tribes who bowed to his conquering hand! But now there are none to gainsay that the gods are against us; we lie Subdued in the havoc of wreck, and whelmed by the wrath of the sky!