MESSENGER. O hated name to hear, sad Salamis! O Athens, I remember thee with groans. ANTISTROPHE III. CHORUS. O Athens, Athens, thou hast reft us Of our all we did possess! Sonless mothers thou hast left us, Weeping wives and husbandless! ATOSSA. Thou see'st I have kept silence: this sad stroke Hath struck me dumb, as powerless to give voice To my own sorrows, as to ask another's. Yet when the gods send trouble, mortal men Must learn to bear it. Therefore be thou calm; Unfold the perfect volume of our woes, And, though the memory grieve thee, let us hear Thy tale to the end; what loss demands our tears, Which of the baton-bearing chiefs[f21] hath left An army to march home without a head. MESSENGER. Xerxes yet lives, and looks on the light. ATOSSA. Much light In this to me, and to my house thou speakest, A shining day from out a pitchy night. {311} MESSENGER. Artembares, captain of ten thousand horse, Upon the rough Silenian shores[f22] lies dead, And Dadaces, the chiliarch, spear-struck fell Precipitate from his ship--an easy leap; And noble Tenagon, a pure Bactrian born, Around the sea-lashed isle of Ajax floats. Lilaeus, Arsames, Argestes, these The waves have made their battering ram, to beat The hard rocks of the turtle-nurturing isle. Pharnuchus, Pheresseues, and Adeues, And Arcteus from their native Nile-spring far Fell from one ship into one grave. Matallus, The Chrysian myriontarch, who led to Hellas Full thrice ten thousand sable cavalry, His thick and bushy beard's long tawny pride Hath dyed in purple gore. The Magian Arabus The Bactrian Artames on the self-same shore Have found no cushioned lodgment.[f23] There Amestris,[n13] And there Amphistreus, wielder of the spear, And there Metragathes lies, for whom the Sardians Weep well-earned tears; and Sersames, the Mysian. With them, of five times fifty ships commander, Lyrnaean Tharybis, a goodly man, Lies hopeless stretched on the unfriendly strand. Syennesis, the brave Cilician chief Who singly wrought more trouble to the foe Than thousands, died with a brave man's report. These names I tell thee of the chiefs that fell, A few selecting out of many losses. ATOSSA. Alas! alas! more than enough I hear; Shame to the Persians and shrill wails. But say, Retracing thy discourse, what was the number Of the Greek ships that dared with Persia's fleet To engage, and grapple beak to beak. MESSENGER. If number Of ships might gain the fight, believe me, queen, The victory had been ours. The Greeks could tell But ten times thirty ships, with other ten, Of most select equipment. Xerxes numbered A thousand ships, two hundred sail and seven Of rapid wing beside. Of this be assured, {312} What might of man could do was done to save us; Some god hath ruined us, not weighing justly An equal measure. Pallas saves her city.[n14]