Struck where they chose. Many of ours capsized,
Until the very sea was hid from sight
Choked up with drifting wreckage and drowning men.
The beaches and low rocks were stacked with corpses:
The few barbarian vessels still afloat,
Fouling each other fled in headlong rout.
But they with broken oars and splintered spars
Beat us like tunnies or a draught of fish,
Yea, smote men's backs asunder; and all the while
Shrieking and wailing hushed the ocean surge,
Till night looked down and they were rapt away.
But, truly, if I should discourse the length
Of ten long days I could not sum our woes.
There never yet 'twixt sunrise and sunset
Perished so vast a multitude of men.
Queen.
Woe! woe! An ocean of calamity
Hath broke on Persia and all Barbary.
Messenger.
But this is not the half. A grief ensued
So heavy, its forerunner kicks the beam.
Queen.
Oh, can misfortune come in hatefuller shape?
What spite of malice adverse to our host
Sweeps through some more immeasurable arc
The moving finger that metes out our woes?
Messenger.
The prime of Persian manhood, men who had
True greatness in their souls, illustrious born,
And ever among the first in the king's trust,
Died miserably a most inglorious death.
