Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/320

A voice well versed in pain;
Like Mariandyne mourner's strain, 920
A doleful, tear-fraught wail.

Xerxes. Antistrophe I.

Pour notes of doleful sound,
A voice of wailing, fraught with grief profound;
From me hath changeful Fortune turned away.

2nd Chorus.

With groans I too will pay
Due honour to our city's bale—
Our sea-inflicted woes;
Yea, like the anguished throes
Of child-reft sire, shall sound my tear-fraught wail.

Xerxes. Strophe II.

Our ship-fenced Ares from the Ionian's might
Dire mischief did sustain,
In shock of changeful fight; 930
The mournful-fated coast shearing^[1] and land-bound main.^[2]

Chorus.

Cry woe! search out the worst; woe, woe!

1. κερσάμενος. Blomfield says, with reference to this word, "Interpreters render it, 'having devastated.' But I have nowhere met κειρομαι in the middle voice, except to mean, shear the locks in sign of grief."
2. Hermann admits the conjecture of Pauw and Heath, μυχίαν πλάκα—Paley.