XERXES. Bitter indeed the pang for comrades slain, The brave and bold! thou strikest to my soul Pain, pain beyond forgetting, hateful pain. My inner spirit sobs and sighs with dole! CHORUS. Another yet we yearn to see, And see not! ah, thy chivalry, Xanthis, thou chief of Mardian men Countless! and thou, Anchares bright, And ye, whose cars controlled the fight, Arsaces and Diaixis wight, Kegdadatas, Lythimnas dear, And Tolmus, greedy of the spear! I stand bereft! not in thy train Come they, as erst! ah, ne’er again Shall they return unto our eyes, Car-borne, ’neath silken canopies! XERXES. Yea, gone are they who mustered once the host! CHORUS. Yea, yea, forgotten, lost! XERXES. Alas, the woe and cost! CHORUS. Alas, ye heavenly powers! Ye wrought a sorrow past belief, A woe, of woes the chief! With aspect stern, upon us Ate looms! XERXES. Smitten are we—time tells no heavier blow! CHORUS. Smitten! the doom is plain! XERXES. Curse upon curse and pang on pang we know! CHORUS. With the Ionian power We clashed, in evil hour! Woe falls on Persia’s race, yea, woe again, again! XERXES. Yea, smitten am I, and my host is all to ruin hurled! CHORUS. Yea verily—in mighty wreck hath sunk the Persian world! XERXES. (_holding up a torn robe and a quiver_) See you this tattered rag of pride? CHORUS. I see it, welladay! XERXES. See you this quiver? CHORUS. Say, hath aught survived and ’scaped the fray? XERXES. A store for darts it was, erewhile! CHORUS. Remain but two or three! XERXES. No aid is left! CHORUS. Ionian folk such darts, unfearing, see! XERXES. Right resolute they are! I saw disaster unforeseen. CHORUS. Ah, speakest thou of wreck, of flight, of carnage that hath been? XERXES. Yea, and my royal robe I rent, in terror at their fall! CHORUS. Alas, alas! XERXES. Yea, thrice alas! CHORUS. For all have perished, all! XERXES. Ah woe to us, ah joy to them who stood against our pride! CHORUS. And all our strength is minishèd and sundered from our side! XERXES. No escort have I! CHORUS. Nay, thy friends are whelmed beneath the tide! XERXES. Wail, wail the miserable doom, and to the palace hie! CHORUS. Alas, alas, and woe again! XERXES. Shriek, smite the breast, as I! CHORUS. An evil gift, a sad exchange, of tears poured out in vain! XERXES. Shrill out your simultaneous wail! CHORUS. Alas the woe and pain! XERXES. O, bitter is this adverse fate! CHORUS. I voice the moan with thee! XERXES. Smite, smite thy bosom, groan aloud for my calamity! CHORUS. I mourn and am dissolved in tears! XERXES. Cry, beat thy breast amain! CHORUS. O king, my heart is in thy woe! XERXES. Shriek, wail, and shriek again! CHORUS. O agony! XERXES. A blackening blow— CHORUS. A grievous stripe shall fall! XERXES. Yea, beat anew thy breast, ring out the doleful Mysian call! CHORUS. An agony, an agony!