Your wives, your children, your forefathers' graves,
The temples of your gods; all are at stake."
In answer rang on our side, loud and wide,
The Persian war-cry. Time to lose was none.
At once, encountering with their brazen beaks
The squadrons met. A ship of Hellas first
Charged a Phoenician galley and stove in
Her stern-works; general then the onset grew.
At first the prowess of our Persian host
Made head, but, crowded in the narrow strait,
Our galleys, powerless mutual aid to lend,
Dashed on their consorts with their brazen beaks,
And swept each other's banks of oars away.
Meanwhile the watchful foe, surrounding them,
Charged on the rout; ship after ship went down
Before him, and the sea was lost to sight
Beneath the drifting wrecks and floating dead.
Then all resistance ended, and our ships
Plied one and all their oars in panic flight.
The foe, as 'twere a haul of tunny fish,
With splintered oars and fragments of the wreck
Assailed and slaughtered them; the waters rang
With mingled cries of death and victory,
Till night's dark veil descending closed the scene.
The sum of our disasters, though I spoke
For ten long days, I never could unfold.
Know in a word, so vast a multitude
Has never fallen in one disastrous day.

ATOSSA.