"Two women stood before mine eyes
Gorgeously vested, one in Persian robes
Adorned, the other in the Doric garb.
With more than mortal majesty they moved,
Of peerless beauty; sisters too they seemed,
Though distant each from each they chanced to dwell,
In Greece the one, on the barbaric coast
The other. 'Twixt them soon dissension rose:
My son then hasted to compose their strife,
Soothed them to fair accord, beneath his car
Yokes them, and reins their harnessed necks. The one
Exulting in her rich array, with pride
Arching her stately neck, obeyed the reins;
The other with indignant fury spurned
The car, and dashed it piecemeal, rent the reins
And tore the yoke asunder: down my son
Fell from the seat, and instant at his side
His father stands, Darius, at his fall
Impressed with pity: him when Xerxes saw,
Glowing with grief and shame he rends his robes.
This was the dreadful vision of the night."
Disturbed by such a dream, the queen had gone to sacrifice to the gods, but there a new omen had presented itself—an eagle defeated by a hawk, and flying for sanctuary to the altar of the Sun. She cannot but interpret these things as portending some misfortune to her son, and she feels that on his success in war his prestige at home, and perhaps his throne, depends. By the advice of the elders, she promises to seek assistance from the gods, and in particular to pray for help to the shade of her dead husband Darius. Meanwhile she asks the old question that had so irritated Athenian pride—"Where, in what clime, the towers of Athens rise?"
