A tender passage follows, in which the father bids his wife show all gentleness to her offending son. It is not unlike the tenderness with which the ghost in "Hamlet" ends his revelations, bidding the son be gentle to his mother:—
"With gentlest courtesy
Soothe his affliction; for his duteous ear,
I know, will listen to thy voice alone.
Now to the realms of darkness I descend."
Again the Chorus chant the glories of Darius's reign, and sadly contrast them with the present ruin, while the queen goes away to put on her most gorgeous robes, according to the ghost's command, and meet her son.
"E'en the proud towns, that reared
Sublime along the Ionian coast their towers,
Where wealth her treasures pours,
Peopled from Greece, his prudent reign revered.
With such unconquered might
His hardy warriors shook the embattled field,
Heroes that Persia yields,
And those from distant lands that took their way,
And wedged in close array
Beneath his glittering banners claimed the fight.
But now these glories are no more:
Farewell the big war s plumèd pride,
The gods have crushed this trophied power;
Sunk are our vanquished arms beneath the indignant tide."
As this chorus ends, Xerxes, in rent robes and with disfigured face, comes lamenting upon the scene, tortured with the thought of his lost heroes, and wishing
