Dash'd the resounding surges, instant all Rush'd on in view: in orderly array The squadron on the right first led, behind Rode their whole fleet; and now distinct we heard
From ev'ry part this voice of exhortation:- "Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save Your country,-save your wives, your children
The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb Where rest your honour'd ancestors; this day The common cause of all demands your valour." Meantime from Persia's hosts the deep'ning shout Answer'd their shout; no time for cold delay; But ship 'gainst ship its brazen beak impell'd. First to the charge a Grecian galley rush'd; Ill the Phoenician bore the rough attack, Its sculptured prow all shatter'd. Each advanced Daring an opposite. The deep array
Of Persia at the first sustain'd the encounter; But their throng'd numbers, in the narrow seas Confined, want room for action; and, deprived Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each Breaks all the other's oars: with skill disposed The Grecian navy circled them around In fierce assault; and rushing from its height The inverted vessel sinks: the sea no more Wears its accustomed aspect, with foul wrecks And blood disfigured; floating carcasses Roll on the rocky shores: the poor remains Of the barbaric armament to flight Ply every oar inglorious: onward rush The Greeks amidst the ruins of the fleet, As through a shoal of fish caught in the net, Spreading destruction: the wide ocean o'er Wailings are heard, and loud laments, till night With darkness on her brow brought grateful
Should I recount each circumstance of woe, Ten times on my unfinished tale the sun Would set; for be assured that not one day Could close the ruin of so vast a host.
The dance to this the monarch sends these chiefs,
That when the Grecians from their shatter'd ships
Should here seek shelter, these might hew them down
An easy conquest, and secure the strand To their sea-wearied friends; ill-judging what The event: but when the fav'ring god to Greece Gave the proud glory of this naval fight, Instant in all their glitt'ring arms they leap'd From their light ships, and all the island round Encompass'd, that our bravest stood dismay'd; While broken rocks, whirl'd with tempestuous force,
And storms of arrows crush'd them; then the Greeks
Rush to the attack at once, and furious spread The carnage, till each mangled Persian fell. Deep were the groans of Xerxes when he saw This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound Commanding the wide sea, o'erlooked his hosts. With rueful cries he rent his royal robes, And through his troops embattled on the shore Gave signal of retreat; then started wild, And fled disorder'd. To the former ills These are fresh miseries to awake thy sighs.
Atoss. Invidious Fortune, how thy baleful power Hath sunk the hopes of Persia! Bitter fruit My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance On Athens, famed for arms; the fatal field Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood, Sufficed not; that defeat he thought to avenge, And pull'd this hideous ruin on his head. But tell me, if thou canst, where didst thou leave The ships that happily escaped the wreck?
Mess. The poor remains of Persia's scatter'd
Spread ev'ry sail for flight, as the wind drives, In wild disorder; and on land no less The ruin'd army; in Baotia some, With thirst oppress'd, at Crene's cheerful rills
Atoss. Ah, what a boundless sea of woe hath Were lost; forespent with breathless speed some
On Persia, and the whole barbaric race!
The fields of Phocis, some the Doric plain,
Mess. These are not half, not half our ills; on And near the gulf of Melia, the rich vale
Came an assemblage of calamities,
That sunk us with a double weight of woe. Atoss. What fortune can be more unfriendly
Than this? Say on, what dread calamity Sunk Persia's host with greater weight of woe. Mess. Whoe'er of Persia's warriors glow'd in prime
Of vig'rous youth, or felt their generous souls Expand with courage, or for noble birth Shone with distinguish'd lustre, or excell'd In firm and duteous loyalty, all these Are fall'n, ignobly, miserably fall'n.
Atoss. Alas, their ruthless fate, unhappy friends! But in what manner, tell me, did they perish? Mess. Full against Salamis an isle arises, Of small circumference, to the anchor'd bark Unfaithful; on the promontory's brow, That overlooks the sea, Pan loves to lead
Through which Sperchius rolls his friendly stream. Achaia thence and the Thessalian state Received our famish'd train; the greater part Through thirst and hunger perish'd there, oppress'd At once by both: but we our painful steps Held onwards to Magnesia, and the land Of Macedonia, o'er the ford of Axius, And Bolbe's sedgy marches, and the heights Of steep Pangaos, to the realms of Thrace. That night, e'er yet the season, breathing frore, Rush'd winter, and with ice encrusted o'er The flood of sacred Strymon: Such as own'd No god till now, awe-struck, with many a prayer
* A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations ;-all were his! He counted them at break of dayAnd when the sun set, where were they? Byron.
Adored the earth and sky. When now the troops Had ceased their invocations to the gods, O'er the stream's solid crystal they began Their march; and we, who took our early way, Ere the sun darted his warm beams, pass'd safe: But when his burning orb with fiery rays Unbound the middle current, down they sunk Each over other; happiest he who found The speediest death: the poor remains, that 'scaped,
With pain through Thrace dragg'd on their toilsome march,
A feeble few, and reach'd their native soil; So Persia sighs through all her states, and mourns Her dearest youth. This is no feigned tale: But many of the ills, that burst upon us In dreadful vengeance, I refrain to utter.
Chor. O Fortune, heavy with affliction's load, How hath thy foot crush'd all the Persian race!
Atoss. Ah me, what sorrows for our ruin'd host Oppress my soul! Ye visions of the night, Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show These ills!-You set them in too fair a light. Yet, since your bidding hath in this prevail'd, First to the gods wish I to pour my prayers, Then to the mighty dead present my off'rings, Bringing libations from my house: too late, I know, to change the past; yet for the future, If haply better fortune may await it, Behooves you, on this sad event, to guide Your friends with faithful counsels. Should my
Return ere I have finish'd, let your voice Speak comfort to him; friendly to his house Attend him, nor let sorrow rise on sorrows.
Awful sovereign of the skies,
When now o'er Persia's numerous host Thou badest the storm with ruin rise,
All her proud vaunts of glory lost, Ecbatana's imperial head
By thee was wrapt in sorrow's dark'ning shade; Through Susa's palaces with loud lament, By their soft hands their veils all rent, The copious tear the virgins pour, That trickles their bare bosoms o'er.
From her sweet couch up starts the widow'd bride,
Her lord's loved image rushing on her soul, Throws the rich ornaments of youth aside,
And gives her griefs to flow without control: Her griefs not causeless; for the mighty slain Our melting tears demand, and sorrow-soften'd
Now her wailing's wide despair
Pours these exhausted regions o'er: Xerxes, ill-fated, led the war;
Xerxes, ill-fated, leads no more; Xerxes sent forth the unwise command, The crowded ships unpeopled all the land; That land, o'er which Darius held his reign, Courting the arts of peace, in vain,
O'er all his grateful realms adored, The stately Susa's gentle lord. Black o'er the waves his burden'd vessels sweep, For Greece elate the warlike squadrons fly; Now crush'd, and whelm'd beneath the indignant deep
The shatter'd wrecks and lifeless heroes lie: While, from the arms of Greece escaped, with toil
The unshelter'd monarch roams o'er Thracia's dreary soil.
The first in battle slain
By Cychrea's craggy shore
Through sad constraint, ah me! forsaken lie, All pale and smear'd with gore:- Raise high the mournful strain, And let the voice of anguish pierce the sky :- Or roll beneath the roaring tide,
By monsters rent of touch abhorr'd; While through the widow'd mansion echoing wide Sounds the deep groan, and wails its slaughter'd lord:
Pale with his fears the helpless orphan there
Gives the full stream of plaintive grief to flow; While age its hoary head in deep despair Bends, list'ning to the shrieks of woe. With sacred awe
No more shall Asia's realms revere; To their lord's hand
No more the exacted tribute bear. Who now falls prostrate at the monarch's throne? His regal greatness is no more. Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own, Free from the golden curb of pow'r; For on the rocks, wash'd by the beating flood, His awe-commanding nobles lie in blood.
Atoss. Whoe'er, my friends, in the rough stream
Hath struggled with affliction, thence is taught That, when the flood begins to swell, the heart Fondly fears all things; when the fav'ring gale Of Fortune smooths the current, it expands With unsuspecting confidence, and deems That gale shall always breathe. So to my eyes All things now wear a formidable shape, And threaten from the gods: my ears are pierc'd With sounds far other than of song. Such ills Dismay my sick'ning soul: hence from my house Nor glitt'ring car attends me, nor the train Of wonted state, while I return, and bear Libations soothing,-charms that soothe the dead: White milk, and lucid honey, pure-distill'd By the wild bee-that craftsman of the flowers: The limpid droppings of the virgin fount, And this bright liquid from its mountain-mother Borne fresh-the joy of the time-hallowed vine;- The pale-green olive's odorous fruit, whose leaves Live everlastingly-and those wreathed flowers, The smiling infants of the prodigal earth.
[Born, 518-Died, 439 B. C.]
Φωνᾶντα συνετοισι.—Olymp. II.
'Beneath mine elbow a full quiver lies
Of fleetest arrows, sounding to the wise;
But for the crowd they need interpreters. His skill is most who learns in Nature's school; All else, expert by rule,
Mere tongues in vehement gabble idly heard, Clamoring, like daws, at Jove's celestial bird.'-Cary.
THIS renowned bard was a native either of the Theban city, or of Cynocephalæ, a village in its immediate territory and neighbourhood. He was by profession a musician and poet, and for his early skill as such, is said to have been, in some degree, indebted to the beautiful Corinna, a distinguished poetess of the same age and country, but of whose compositions we know little or nothing. It is related of her, however, that she defeated her pupil in no less than five contests, and that, on one occasion, having recommended him to ornament his productions with mythical narrative, and receiving, in return, some lines cram-full of Theban mythology, she bade him "sow by hand, and not by sackfulls."-Of Pindar's numerous compositions, consisting of Hymns to the Gods, Funeral songs, and Odes in honour of the conquerors at the four great festivals of Greece, little besides the latter, have come down to us; but of the veneration in which he and his writings were held by all Greece, the most
unequivocal proofs remain. A portion of the people's first fruits was appropriated to his use; an iron chair was erected for him in the very temple of Apollo; his statue stood in the circle of games at Thebes; he was courted and enriched, alike by rulers and people, not only of his own, but of every land in which the Greek tongue was known; and in later times, when Thebes was captured, first by the Spartans, and subsequently by Alexander, the very house which he had inhabited, had the honour of being spared by the victors.* Pindar, though precluded by the unhappy circumstance of his country's league with Persia, from joining the ranks of Athens and Sparta, in the great war of Grecian independence, has not concealed his admiration of the heroes who did so.
But Pindar's greatest praise is the generally moral and religious tone which pervades his writings. He maintains the immortality of the soul, and distinctly lays down the doctrine of future punishments and rewards.
TO HIERO, KING OF SYRACUSE, VICTOR IN THE SINGLE HORSE RACE.
WITH water nought may vie;
And gold, like fire at midnight blazing, Glittering heaps outshineth far:
But, if thou tell'st of victory,
Soul, through wastes of ether gazing,
Than the sun no brighter star Seek; nor deem this earth supplies A nobler than th' Olympic prize. Thence doth the many-voiced hymn arise, Which in their thought wise minstrels frame, To warble forth the great Saturnian's name Round Hiero's blest hearth with plenty stor'd: Rightful sceptre who retains
O'er Sicilia's pastoral plains; Culling the top of every flower That blossometh in Virtue's bower: Nor less he knows the charms that lie In the sweet soul of Poesy,
Such Music as around his board By us, who love him, oft is pour'd.
Reach then the Dorian shell,
On yonder nail, suspended;
If in thee, sweet remembrance grateful dwell
It is to the latter of these captures that Milton has alluded, in a noble sonnet, written when the city of London was threatened with a like calamity.
"Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower; The great Emathian conqueror bade spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground!"
Of Pisa, and the steed Pherenicus, he whose speed, As with ungoaded side He rush'd by Alpheus' tide, With mighty triumph, blended
His Syracusan lord, the courser-loving king. For him a light of glory doth upspring Amid the land with heroes teeming, Lydian Pelops' colony,
Whom Neptune chose to be his joy; When from that cauldron pure,
Clotho did him secure,
Deck'd with an ivory shoulder whitely beaming.
Many a wonder is, in sooth,
But sometimes more than truth On man's beguiled thought Invention will prevail
With a well-woven tale,
In varied colours, quaintly wrought: And grace, that can a magic throw On all that charms the sense below, By lustre not his own reliev'd, Hath made th' incredible believed. But after-days the best convincers are: And man, should only fair Speak of the gods, and good: For so is blame eschew'd.
O son of Tantalus, not as of yore, Will I record thy story:
That when to gods, invited guests, At Sipylus, thy sire
Spread in return his ample feasts, Then, smitten with desire,
Thee the trident-ruler bore
Snatch'd up on golden steeds to Jove's high consistory;
Where Ganymede came after thee To Jove for equal ministry.
But when thou vanish'd wert; nor sought Long time, was to thy mother brought, Some envious neighbour whispering said That they thy limbs had with a blade, In seething water, hewn; and set Upon the board thy sodden flesh, and eat. That impious thought be far from me To tax a god with gluttony.
Small gain awaits the slanderer's tongue If any, mortal tribes among, In honour high advanced to live,
Th' Olympian watchers e'er did give, That Tantalus was he.
But the great bliss unable to digest, And with satiety opprest,
A direful harm he rued, the stone Enormous o'er him hung by Jove, Which alway from his head Endeavouring to remove, He is to joy a stranger.
Such life he hath; with endless danger, And toil insufferable, led: (With other three, not he alone,)
For that from heaven he stole away The nectar and ambrosia, Which him incorruptible made; And to his earthly peers convey'd.
Who hopes that aught he doth may lie A secret from immortal eye, Sins 'gainst the power of heaven. Therefore his son, the gods again Sent to the short-lived race of men, From their own mansions driven. He, soon as duskier down did shade The bloom upon his cheek display'd, Of ready nuptials thought;
And from her Pisan sire, the glorious maid To win, Hippodameia, sought.
He came; and by hoar ocean's flood Alone in darkness stood,
Then call'd amid the sullen roar
On him whose trident shook the shore. Straight at his feet the god appear'd, And thus his suppliant voice was heard.
Neptune, if thou at all hast held The gifts of Venus dear,
Of brave Enomaus be quell'd By thee the brazen spear.
In swiftest chariots speed me on To Elis, and with triumph crown. Thirteen hero-suitors slain,
His daughter's wedding he delays. The mighty conquest, ne'er will gain A man whom fear of peril frays.
And why, of those with death their doom, Should any, sitting down in gloom, Without a name his age consume, Vainly; nor a portion share
In aught that noble is and fair? Mine is the trial; and thine be To grant success and victory." He spoke; nor fail'd of his desire. And, honouring him, the god A golden car bestow'd,
And winged steeds that never tire. Enomaus fell his might before, And the virgin bride he led. Six lordly sons to him she bore, Each in school of virtues bred. And now by Alpheus' wave he lies, Mingled with famous obsequies, That round his tomb they celebrate, Near the great altar's thronged state. And far abroad the glory hath look'd out Of Pelops, in th' Olympic courses, Where swift feet do try their forces, And the toils of champions stout. O'er the victor's life, the balm Of triumph sheds a holy calm. The good supreme, that mortal knows, Still from to-day's contentment flows.
For such behoves me now to breathe Eolian measures; a fit wreath, That to the courser's speed belongs. No other host, expert in lovely lore, Or in might excelling more,
At least of mortals now,
I e'er shall clothe in folds of dædal songs. God is thy guardian, Hiero; and shares In these thy princely cares.
And, if he fail not soon,
I trust with yet a sweeter tune,
To sound in chariot swift thy praise; Finding a prosperous journey for my lays; And stand beside the Cronian height, That shines in evening's ample light.
Therefore for me the Muse
Doth in her strength a mightier weapon feed.
Manifold are the ways
That men to greatness lead: In kings the summit ends. No further stretch thy views. Thine be the lot, this time
To tread the path sublime;
For me, meanwhile, with conquerors my friends To live, conspicuous still
For the wise poet's skill, Wherever Greece extends.
FUTURE PUNISHMENT AND REWARD.
THE deeds that stubborn mortals do In this disordered nook of Jove's domain,
All find their meed; and there's a Judge below, Whose hateful doom inflicts th' inevitable pain.
O'er the Good, soft suns awhile,
Through the mild day, the night serene, Alike with cloudless lustre smile,
Tempering all the tranquil scene. Their's is leisure; vex not they Stubborn soil, or watery way,
To wring from toil want's worthless bread: No ills they know, no tears they shed, But with the glorious gods below Ages of peace contented share: Meanwhile the Bad, in bitterest woe, Eye-startling tasks, and endless tortures bear. All, whose stedfast virtue thrice
Each side the grave unchanged hath stood, Still unseduced, unstained with vice,
They, by Jove's mysterious road,
Pass to Saturn's realm of rest, Happy isle, that holds the Blest; Where sea-born breezes gently blow O'er blooms of gold that round them glow, Which Nature boon from stream or strand Or goodly tree profusely showers; Whence pluck they many a fragrant band, And braid their locks with never-fading flowers.
A wail she utter'd; left him then Where on the ground he lay; When straight two dragons came With eyes of azure flame,
By will divine awaked out of their den; And with the bees' unharmful venom, they Fed him, and nursled through the day and night. The king meanwhile had come,
From stony Pytho driving; and at home Did of them all, after the boy, inquire, Born of Evadne;-"for," he said, "the sire Was Phoebus, and that he
Should of earth's prophets wisest be, And that his generation should not fail." Not to have seen or heard him they avouch'd, Now five days born. But he, on rushes couch'd, Was cover'd up in that wide brambly maze :— His delicate body wet
With yellow and empurpled rays
From many a violet.
And hence his mother bade him claim For ever this undying name.
STILL, as ancient legends say, Amid the depths of ocean lay The wondrous island unreveal'd; What time the sovran Father held Council with the gods to share Earth and all her regions fair. Each had his portion. But not one Bethought him of the absent Sun, For whose chaste power, in sooth forgot, No land remain'd to own his lot. Recall'd to mind, high Jove would fain Have cast the chances o'er again. But he allow'd not. For his ken, He said, amid the silvery surge, Had mark'd an islet land emerge. Kindly for flocks and foodful grain. And straight to seal the portion his, Golden-tired Lachesis
He bade her hands to heaven uprear, And a faithful vow to swear, The mighty oath of every god, Confirm'd by Jove's imperial nod; That soon as full disclos'd to air, Henceforth he should that region share: Truth crown'd the words; the island bloom'd From the moist sea, by him assum'd, Of heaven's sharp rays authentic sire, Lord of the coursers breathing fire.
TO THE ORCHOMENIAN GRACES, IN BEHALF OF THE BOY ASOPICHUS.
O YE, ordain'd by lot to dwell Where Cephisian waters well; And hold your fair retreat
Mid herds of coursers beautiful and fleet; Renowned queens, that take your rest
In Orchomenus the blest,
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