song begins with a description of the grand departure of the army, and the proud position of Xerxes, himself the most beautiful in person of all that magnificent host.
Strophe.
"Already o'er the adverse strand
In arms the monarch's martial squadrons spread;
The threat'ning ruin shakes the land,
And each tall city bows its towered head.
Bark bound to bark, their wondrous way
They bridge across the indignant sea;
The narrow Hellespont's vexed waves disdain,
His proud neck taught to bear the chain.
Now has the peopled Asia's warlike lord,
By land, by sea, with foot, with horse
Resistless in his rapid course,
O'er all their realms his warring thousands poured;
Now his intrepid chiefs surveys,
And glitt'ring like a god his radiant state displays."
Antistrophe.
"Fierce as the dragon scaled in gold
Through the deep files he darts his glowing eye:
And pleased their order to behold,
His joyous standard blazing to the sky,
Rolls onward his Assyrian car,
Directs the thunder of the war,
Bids the winged arrows' iron storm advance
Against the slow and cumbrous lance.
What shall withstand the torrent of his sway,
When dreadful o'er the yielding shores
The impetuous tide of battle roars,
And sweeps the weak opposing mounds away?
So Persia with resistless might
Rolls her unnumbered hosts of heroes to the fight."
