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Note 1 (p. 301).
"Forth they went with arrow and bow."
The bow was as characteristic of Persian as the spear of Hellenic
warfare; and, accordingly, they are contrasted below, p. 305. The
Persian Darics bore the figure of an archer. DICT. ANTIQ _voci_
DARIC. "The army of Xerxes, generally," says GROTE, "was armed with
missile weapons, and light shields, or no shield at all; not properly
equipped either for fighting in regular order, or for resisting the line
of spears and shields which the Grecian heavy-armed infantry brought to
bear upon them."--Vol. V. p. 43. This was seen with striking evidence
when an engagement took place on confined ground as at Thermopylæ, Do.
p. 117.
Note 2 (p. 302).
". . . golden Sardes."
So Creon, in the Antigone of Sophocles, in wrathful suspicion that
Tiresias is in conspiracy to prophesy against him for filthy lucre,
is made to exclaim (v. 1037)--
"Traffic as ye will
In the amber-ore that opulent Sardes sends,
And Indian gold."
So also, "golden Babylon," below; which will recall to the Christian
reader the famous words, "Thou shalt take up this proverb against the
king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased, the golden city
ceased!"--Isaiah xiv. 4. In the same way XERXES is called "the
god-like son of a golden race," in the choral hymn which immediately
follows the present introductory chaunt. SOUTHEY, the most learned of
our poets, has not forgotten this orientalism when he says--
"Hark! at the golden palaces
The Brahmin strikes the hour."
--CURSE OF KEHAMA V.
where see the note.
Note 3 (p. 302).
"The well-poised dart."
The Mysians had on their heads a peculiar sort of helmet belonging to
the country, small shields, and javelins burnt at the point.--HERODOT.
VII. 74.--STAN.
Note 4 (p. 302).
"The Asian tribes that wear the sword."
The μάχαιρα here is the _acinaces_, or short scimitar, of which the
fashion may be seen in the _Dict. Antiq._ under that word.
Note 5 (p. 303).
"Shepherd of many sheep."
A phraseology inherited from the times when "Mesha, king of Moab, was a
_sheepmaster_, and rendered unto the king of Israel 100,000 lambs, and
100,000 rams, with the wool."--2 Kings iii. 4. So Agamemnon, in Homer
(Od. III. 156), is called ποιμήν λάων--the shepherd of the people. See
above, p. 413, Note 48.
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Note 6 (p. 304).
"But, when the gods deceive."
The sudden change of tone here from unlimited confidence in the strength
of their own armament, to a pious doubt arising from the consideration
that the gods often disappoint "the best laid schemes of men and mice,"
and that "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the
strong"; this is at once extremely characteristic of ancient Hellenic
piety (see the Note on ὕβρις, p. 348), and serves here the dramatic
purpose of making the over-weening pride of Xerxes, by contrast, appear
more sinful. With regard to the style of religious conception here, and
the general doctrine that the gods deceive mortal men, especially at
moments of extraordinary prosperity and on the point of some sudden
reversal, the student will read GROTE's Greece, Vol. V. p. 13.
Note 7 (p. 306).
"Let us fall down before her with humble prostration."
This very humble way of expressing respect was quite oriental, and
altogether abhorrent to the feelings of the erect Greek, boasting of his
liberty. The reader of history may call to mind how this was one of the
points of oriental court state, the mooting of which in his later years
caused a breach between Alexander the Great and his captains. For
references, see STAN.
Note 8 (p. 307).
"And dipped my hands in the fair-flowing fount."
This purification, as STAN. has noted, was customary among the
ancients, after an ill-omened dream. He quotes ARISTOPHANES, Ran.
1338.
"But come, attendants, light a lamp
And take a pail, and from the stream
Water bring, and warm it well,
To wash away the god-sent dream"--
and other passages.
Note 9 (p. 307).
"I saw an eagle flying to the altar."
The sight in reality, or in vision, of one bird plucking another under
various modifications, was familiar to the ancient divination, as the
natural expression of conquest and subjugation. So in the Odyssey
shortly before the opening of the catastrophe--
"Thus as he spake, on his right hand a bird of omen flew,
A hawk, Apollo's messenger swift, and held within its claws
A pigeon, which it rudely plucked, and scattered on the ground
Its feathery plumes, between the skies and where Telemachus
stood."--XV. 525.
In such matters, the ancients did not strain after originality, as a
modern would do, but held closely by the most natural, obvious, and
most significant types.
Note 10 (p. 308).
"Where, O friends, is famous Athens on the broad face of the earth?"
Here commences a series of questions with regard to Attic geography,
topography, and statistics, which to the most inexperienced reader will
appear to come in here not in the most natural way. That the mother of
Xerxes should have actually been so ignorant of the state of Athens, as
she is here dramatically represented, seems scarcely supposable. But
that she {429} and the mighty persons of the East generally were grossly
ignorant of, and greatly underrated the resources of the small state
that was rising in the West, is plain, both from the general habit of
the oriental mind, and from what Herodotus (V. 105, quoted by PAL.)
narrates of Darius, that, when he heard of the burning of Sardes by the
Athenians and the Ionians, he asked "_who the Athenians were_." On this
foundation, a dramatic poet, willing "to pay a pleasant compliment to
Athenian vanity" (BUCK.), might well erect such a series of
interrogatories as we have in the text, though it may be doubted whether
he has done it with that tact which a more perfect master of the
dramatic art--Shakespere, for instance--would have displayed. There are
not a few other passages in the Greek drama where this formal style of
questioning _ab ovo_ assumes somewhat of a ludicrous aspect.
Note 11 (p. 309).
"Slaves are they to no man living, subject to no earthly name."
As in the quickness of their spirits, the sharpness of their wits, and
their love of glory, so particularly in the forward boast of freedom,
the ancient Hellenes were very like the modern French. 'Twere a curious
parallel to carry out; and that other one also, which would prove even
more fertile in curious results, between the ancient Romans and the
modern English.
Note 12 (p. 310).
"The sundered planks, and the drifted dead."
I do not think there can be any doubt as to the meaning of the original
here, πλαγκτοῖς (ε)ν διπλάκεσσιν--_among the wandering planks_--δίπλαξ
can mean nothing but a double or very strong plank, plate, or (if
applied to a dress, as in HOMER) _fold_. There is no need of
supposing any "clinging to the planks," as LIN., following BUTLER,
does. Nevertheless, I have given, likewise, in my translation, the full
force of BLOM.'s idea that δίπλαξ means the _ebb and flow of the
sea_. This, indeed, lies already in φέρεσθαι. CONZ. agrees with my
version. "_Wie treiben stürmend umher sie die Planken!_"
Note 13 (p. 311).
". . . There Amestris."
PAL. asserts confidently that the three following verses are corrupt.
One of them sins against Porson's canon of the Cretic ending, and (what
is of much more consequence) connects the name of Ariomardus with
Sardes, which we found above (p. 302), connected with Thebes. For the
sake of consistency, I have taken PORSON's hint, and introduced
Metragathus here, from v. 43.
Note 14 (p. 312).
". . . Pallas saves her city."
The apportionment of the last clause of this, and the whole of the
following lines, I give according to WELL. and PAL., which BUCK.
also approves in his note. The translation, in such a case, is its own
best vindication.
Note 15 (p. 312).
"There came a Greek."
The sending of this person was a device of Themistocles, to hasten on
a battle, and keep the Greeks from quarrelling amongst themselves. The
person sent was Sicinnus his slave, "seemingly an Asiatic Greek, who
understood Persian, and had perhaps been sold during the late Ionic
revolt, {430} but whose superior qualities are marked by the fact,
that he had the care and teaching of the children of his
master."--GROTE.
Note 16 (p. 312).
"And darkness filled the temple of the sky."
The word τέμενος, says Passow, in the post-Homeric writers of the
classical age was used almost exclusively in reference to sacred, or, as
we should say, consecrated property. I do not think, therefore, that
LIN. does full justice to this word when he translates it merely "the
_region of the air_"; as little can I be content with CONZ.'s
"_Hallen_." DROYSEN preserves the religious association to
well-instructed readers, by using the word _Hain_; but surely _temple_
is better in the present connection and to a modern ear. Lucretius (Lib.
I. near the end) has "_Coeli tonitralia templa._"
Note 17 (p. 314).
". . . dance-loving Pan."
PAN, "the simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god" (Wordsworth, Exc. IV.),
was in the mind of the Athenians intimately associated with the glory of
the Persian wars, and regarded as one of their chief patrons at Marathon
(Herod. VI. 105). This god was the natural patron of all wild and
solitary places, such as are seldom disturbed by any human foot save
that of the Arcadian shepherds, whose imagination first produced this
half-solemn half-freakish creation; and in this view no place could be
more appropriate to him than "the barren and rocky Psyttaleia"
(STRABO, 395). That he was actually worshipped there, we have, besides
the present passage of our poet, the express testimony of Pausanias (I.
36)--"What are called Panic terrors were ascribed to Pan; for loud
noises whose cause could not be easily traced were not unfrequently
heard in mountainous regions; and the gloom and loneliness of forests
and mountains fill the mind with a secret horror, and dispose it to
superstitious apprehensions."--KEIGHTLEY.
Note 18 (p. 315).
". . . slowly with much hard toil."