Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/295

The trumpet's blare fired all their ranks, and straight,
With simultaneous dip of sounding oar,
They at the signal smote the surging brine,
And instant all conspicuous were to sight. 400
First the right wing, well marshall'd, took the lead:
Then their whole naval force in fair array
Bore down against us. All at once was heard
A mighty shout: "Sons of Hellenès, on,
Your country free, your children free, your wives,
The temples of your fathers' deities,
Your tombs ancestral; for your all ye fight."
And from our side clamour of Persian speech
In answer rose; no time was then for pause,
But instant galley against galley dashed 410
Her armature of brass. A ship of Hellas
Led the encounter, and from Punic barque
Sheared her high crest. Thereon as fortune led,
Ship drave on ship; at first the Persian host,
A mighty flood, made head; but soon their ships
Thronged in the strait, of mutual aid bereft,
Each against other dashed with brazen beak,
Crushing the oar-banks of their proper fleet;
While the Hellenès ships, not without skill,
Circling around them smote: dead hulks of ships 420
Floated keel-upwards, and, with wrecks o'erstrewn
And slaughtered men, lost was the sea from sight,
Ay, shores and reefs were crowded with the dead.
In flight disordered every ship was rowed,
Poor remnant of the Persian armament.
Then as men strike at tunnies, or a haul