XERXES. With shrill melody, high and higher, Lift the wail to my desire! CHORUS. With thrilling melody, high and higher, We lift the wail to thy desire. XERXES. Mingle, mingle sigh with sigh! CHORUS. Wail for wail, and cry for cry. STROPHE VII. XERXES. Beat your breasts; let sorrow surge, Like a Mysian wailer's dirge! CHORUS. Even as a dirge; a Mysian dirge. XERXES. From thy chin the honor tear, Pluck thy beard of snowy hair![f36] CHORUS. We tear, we tear, the snowy hair. XERXES. Lift again the thrilling strain! CHORUS. Again, again, ascends the strain. ANTISTROPHE VII. XERXES. From thy breast the white robe tear, Make thy wounded bosom bare! CHORUS. The purfled linen, lo! I tear. XERXES. Pluck the honor from thy head, Weep in baldness for the dead! CHORUS. I pluck my locks, and weep the dead. XERXES. Weep, weep! till thine eyes be dim! CHORUS. With streaming woe, they swim, they swim {332} EPODE. XERXES. Ring the peal both loud and shrill! CHORUS. Grief to grief, and ill to ill! XERXES. Go to the palace: go in sadness! CHORUS. I tread the ground sure not with gladness. XERXES. Let sorrow echo through the city! CHORUS. From street to street the wailing ditty. XERXES. Sons of Susa, with delicate feet,[n33] Gently, gently tread the street! CHORUS. Gently we tread the grief-sown soil. XERXES. The ships, the ships by Ajax isle, The triremes worked our ruin sheer. CHORUS. Go. Thy convoy be a tear. [_Exeunt._ [The End] NOTES TO THE PLAYS {333} NOTES TO THE AGAMEMNON {335} Note 1 (p. 43). "High on the Atridan's battlements." DUNBAR, SEWELL, and CONNINGTON plead strongly for translating ἄγκαθεν here as in Eumen. v. 80, thus-- "As I lie propped on my arm Upon the Atridan housetop, like a dog." But this idea has always appeared to be more like the curious conceit of an ingenious philologist, than the natural conception of a great poet. Supposing the original reading to have been ἀνέκαθεν, the mere accidental lengthening of the leg of the ν by a hurried transcriber, would give the word the appearance of γ to a careless scrutinizer; and that this blunder was actually made the metre proves in Eumen. 361, in which passage, whatever SEW. may ingeniously force into it, the meaning _from above_ is that which is most in harmony with the context. Besides, in such matters, I am conservative enough to have a certain respect for tradition. Note 2 (p. 43). "The masculine-minded who is sovereign here." "ἀνδρόβουλον seems to be used here ambiguously, and to be the first hint of lurking mischief. The gradual development of the coming evil from these casual hints is one of the chief dramatic beauties of the Agamemnon."--SEW. Note 3 (p. 43). ". . . and lift high-voiced The jubilant shout."