Very pleasing to the Athenian is the irony which he traces here;—the contrast between the hope and the event. Those clouds of arrows only kept the sun from the eyes of the Greeks, while the "slow and cumbrous lance" was active enough to scatter all those "unnumbered hosts of heroes." Still intenser is the irony in the stanzas that follow—"What mortal," they sing, "can withstand misfortune and the vengeance of the sky? Flattering at first, she falls with crushing power upon her victim: and so"—mark here the irony—"shall Persia fall upon her foes." But there is ground for fear too. While all are away in Greece, any invader might find in Persia an easy prey. Then how would her homes be filled with mourning; with maidens rushing in despair about her streets, lamenting for the guardians of her towers; with wives deploring the long absence of their loves! So the song ends with the very same strain of lamentation for a supposed calamity as will soon be raised for a real one; when the youth, for whom the maidens weep, will be known to be absent for ever, and the matron's couch for ever desolate.
When this chorus, one of the finest in all Æschylus, is concluded, Atossa, the queen-mother,—"the mother of the Persians' god,"—comes upon the scene, and is greeted by the elders with the utmost reverence. She comes to seek their advice. Unquiet thoughts have for some time disturbed her, and dreams of ominous import have visited her, but especially in the night that is just past. "Methought," she says,
