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    The Suppliants
    The Suppliants
    The Suppliants
    Ebook60 pages47 minutes

    The Suppliants

    By Aeschylus

    3.5/5

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    The Danaids form the chorus and serve as the protagonists. They flee a forced marriage to their Egyptian cousins. When the Danaides reach Argos, they entreat King Pelasgus to protect them. He refuses pending the decision of the Argive people, who decide in the favor of the Danaids. Danaus rejoices the outcome, and the Danaids praise the Greek gods. Almost immediately, a herald of the Egyptians comes to attempt to force the Danaids to return to their cousins for marriage. Pelasgus arrives, threatens the herald, and urges the Danaids to remain within the walls of Argos. The play ends with the Danaids retreating into the Argive walls, protected.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInteractive Media
    Release dateOct 19, 2016
    ISBN9781911535768
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      Book preview

      The Suppliants - Aeschylus

      SUPPLIANTS

      THE SUPPLIANTS

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      DANAUS

      THE KING OF ARGOS

      HERALD OF AEGYPTUS

      CHORUS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF DANAUS

      Attendants

      SCENE

      A sacred precinct near the shore in Argos. Several statues of the gods can be seen, as well as a large altar. As the play opens, DANAUS, and his fifty daughters, the maidens who compose the CHORUS, enter. Their costumes have an oriental richness about them not characteristic of the strictly Greek. They carry also the wands of suppliants. The CHORUS is singing.

      CHORUS

      Zeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands

      Look down benign on us who crave

      Thine aid-whom winds and waters drave

      From where, through drifting shifting sands,

      Pours Nilus to the wave.

      From where the green land, god-possest,

      Closes and fronts the Syrian waste,

      We flee as exiles, yet unbanned

      By murder›s sentence from our land;

      But-since Aegyptus had decreed

      His sons should wed his brother›s seed,-

      Ourselves we tore from bonds abhorred,

      From wedlock not of heart but hand,

      Nor brooked to call a kinsman lord!

      And Danaus, our sire and guide,

      The king of counsel, pond›ring well

      The dice of fortune as they fell,

      Out of two griefs the kindlier chose,

      And bade us fly, with him beside,

      Heedless what winds or waves arose,

      And o›er the wide sea waters haste,

      Until to Argos› shore at last

      Our wandering pinnace came-

      Argos, the immemorial home

      Of her from whom we boast to come-

      Io, the ox-horned maiden, whom,

      After long wandering, woe, and scathe,

      Zeus with a touch, a mystic breath,

      Made mother of our name.

      Therefore, of all the lands of earth,

      On this most gladly step we forth,

      And in our hands aloft we bear-

      Sole weapon for a suppliant›s wear-

      The olive-shoot, with wool enwound!

      City, and land, and waters wan

      Of Inachus, and gods most high,

      And ye who, deep beneath the ground,

      Bring vengeance weird on mortal man,

      Powers of the grave, on you we cry!

      And unto Zeus the Saviour, guard

      Of mortals› holy purity!

      Receive ye us-keep watch and ward

      Above the suppliant maiden band!

      Chaste be the heart of this your land

      Towards the weak! but, ere the throng,

      The wanton swarm, from Egypt sprung,

      Leap forth upon the silted shore,

      Thrust back their swift-rowed bark again,

      Repel them, urge them to the main!

      And there, ‹mid storm and lightning›s shine,

      And scudding drift and thunder›s roar,

      Deep death be theirs, in stormy brine!

      Before they foully grasp and win

      Us, maiden-children of their kin,

      And climb the couch by law denied,

      And wrong each weak reluctant bride.

      strophe 1

      And now on her I call,

      Mine ancestress, who far on Egypt’s shore

      A young cow’s semblance wore,-

      A maiden once, by Hera’s malice changed!

      And then on him withal,

      Who, as

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