Messenger monologue — Four Plays of Aeschylus

The captains of the ships that still survived Fled in disorder, scudding down the wind, The while our land-force on Boeotian soil Fell into ruin, some beside the springs Dropping before they drank, and some outworn, Pursued, and panting all their life away. The rest of us our way to Phocis won, And thence to Doris and the Melian gulf, Where with soft stream Spercheus laves the soil. Thence to the northward did Phthiotis’ plain, And some Thessalian fortress, lend us aid, For famine-pinched we were, and many died Of drought and hunger’s twofold present scourge. Thence to Magnesia came we, and the land Where Macedonians dwell, and crossed the ford Of Axius, and Bolbe’s reedy fen, And mount Pangaeus, in Edonian land. There, in the very night we came, the god Brought winter ere its time, from bank to bank Freezing the holy Strymon’s tide. Each man Who heretofore held lightly of the gods, Now crouched and proffered prayer to Earth and Heaven! Then, after many orisons performed, The army ventured on the frozen ford: Yet only those who crossed before the sun Shed its warm rays, won to the farther side. For soon the fervour of the glowing orb Did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream, And men sank through and thrust each other down— Best was his lot whose breath was stifled first! But all who struggled through and gained the bank, Toilfully wending through the land of Thrace Have made their way, a sorry, scanted few, Unto this homeland. Let the city now Lament and yearn for all the loved and lost. My tale is truth, yet much untold remains Of ills that Heaven hath hurled upon our land.