Previous
Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Persians, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War, Nationalism, and Propaganda
Humility vs. Hubris
Faith and Endurance
Performance, Grief, and Community
Gendered Roles and Loss
Summary
Analysis
A Chorus of Persian elders gathers in front of the tomb of King Darius, near the royal palace in the Persian capital city of Sousa. The elders, all senior advisors to members of Persia’s royal family, introduce themselves as “protectors” of the empire’s treasure, bragging that Darius’s son Xerxes—the new king—has hand-selected them for their positions at court. Now, however, the Chorus is apprehensive, as Xerxes’s army of Persian troops, which set out to conquer Greece several months ago, has yet to return.
This group of Persian elders chants in unison, collectively assuming their role as the play’s narrator (as was traditional for the Chorus in Ancient Greek drama). In addition to laying out the context of the Persian army’s attempted invasion of Greece, the Chorus’s speech also establishes the Persian Empire as a force to be reckoned with. The Persians’ treasure is the result of their myriad military conquests. No wonder, then, that they are currently attempting to further enrich themselves by making a new conquest in Greece.
Active
Themes
The Chorus describes the Persian army, listing off the names of generals from all over central Asia. There are generals from Egypt, Lydia, and Babylon. When they set off, the Persian forces were well-equipped, armed with fast ships and strong horses. But despite this “awesome parade,” not one solider has made his way back to Persia, a fact that strikes fear into the hearts of wives and children all across the empire.
Lydia is now modern-day Turkey, and Babylon is now modern-day Iraq. By listing these generals and the various territories they represent, the Chorus underscores just how powerful and geographically far-reaching the Persian Empire is at this moment in time (shortly after Xerxes inherited power from his father, King Darius). At the same time, however, the fact that Xerxes’s army has yet to return from their attack on Greece suggests that this era of Persian domination might not last forever. Finally, it is important to note the gender divide in the way the Chorus talks; the male generals are named and valorized, while their wives are reduced into an anxious, nameless mass.
Active
Themes
The Chorus begins to sing in a series of Strophes and Antistrophes, explaining the routes that the Persian troops took to reach to Greece. The naval forces traveled to Greece via the “way of Helle,” a thin strip of water between Turkey and Greece. Meanwhile, Xerxes himself led a group of men in a land invasion, some armed with spears and some with arrows. The Chorus boasts that the Persians, backed by the war god Ares, are “never defeated” in battle.
Still, even as the Chorus celebrates that the gods have long been on the sides of the Persians, they know that no people can escape “doom” forever. No wonder, then, that some wives and children in Persia have begun to wear black, preemptively mourning the loved ones who have yet to return from Greece. Just as the Chorus wonders in unison whether Xerxes has been defeated, the Queen—Darius’s widow and Xerxes’s mother—appears from within the royal palace.
Get the entire The Persians LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
The Chorus greets the Queen, celebrating her as the “mother of a god”—unless, the Chorus cautions, “the fortune of our army brings us now a change.” The Queen replies that she, too, is anxious about the army’s fate, and seeks council from the Chorus. Specifically, the Queen is nervous about a dream she had, which she fears is a bad omen for Persia’s military.
Active
Themes
In the Queen’s dream, she saw two beautiful sisters, one decked out in Persian robes and the other dressed in Dorian (Greek) clothing. One sister was supposed to inherit “Asia” (the Persian Empire) while the other was supposed to inherit Greece. But in the dream, the two sisters began to fight, so Xerxes tried to intervene, chaining the two women to his chariot. One of the women obeyed, but the other one fought against the chains with so much force that she snapped Xerxes’s chariot in two.
Active
Themes
The Queen continues on with her dream: his chariot broken, Xerxes collapsed, prompting the ghost of his father Darius to appear. But when Xerxes saw his father, he felt so much shame that he tore his robes to shreds. With that, the Queen woke up, eager to shake the frightening dream away by performing a small sacrifice to the gods.
The Queen then made her way, as she tells the Chorus, to the palace’s altar. But just as the Queen went to dip her fingers in the altar’s fountains, she spotted an eagle soaring through the air—only to see the eagle captured and killed by a falcon. The Queen finishes her story, hoping that if Xerxes comes back a hero, he will be admired by everyone across Persia. At the same time, however, the Queen pleads with the Chorus that if Xerxes’s army has been defeated, they will not hold her beloved son “to account.”
Active
Themes
The Chorus Leader steps forward, advising the Queen to approach the gods with supplications and to pour libations on the ground. Specifically, the Chorus Leader urges the queen to pray to her dead husband Darius, so that the ghost of the former king might return to guide his country through this difficult time. The Queen promises that she will do everything the elders have suggested.
Before she makes her offerings, the Queen asks the Chorus for more information about Athens, the Greek city Xerxes has gone to invade. The Chorus tells the Queen that Athens is a populous city, rich in silver and skilled in combat with their shields and spears. When the Queen asks who rules the Athenians, the Chorus replies that “they are slaves to none, nor are they subject.” The Queen then marvels that her son would try to attack such a powerful city, but the Chorus explains that if Xerxes could take Athens, all of “Hellas” (Greece) would fall under Persian control.
A Messenger arrives in disarray, confirming the Queen’s worst fears: the Persians have been defeated, and nearly all of the Persian soldiers have been killed. The Chorus begins to sing of their woe, while the Messenger reveals that he witnessed the destruction of the Persian forces (whom he refers to as “the host”) first-hand. Now, the Messenger cries, the dead bodies of Persian troops lay strewn all across the shores of Salamis, an island near Athens, having been defeated in a Greek naval attack.
Active
Themes
The Messenger groans in pain as he remembers the carnage at Salamis, while the Chorus sings of all the Persian women who have been widowed, the mothers who have lost their sons. At last, the Queen speaks, reminding the Chorus that humans must “endure” even when the gods send terrible misfortune. The Queen then asks which of the Persian generals survived this awful onslaught.
The Messenger reveals that Xerxes has survived, and the Queen feels tremendous relief. But most of Persia’s most prominent generals, the Messenger continues, have perished, their bodies left on beaches or thrown into the sea. To prove his point, the Messenger begins to list the names of generals who have died.
Active
Themes
The Queen tries to understand what happened, asking whether the Greek fleet outnumbered the Persian ships. In fact, the Messenger replies, the opposite was true: though the Persians had 1,000 ships, the Greeks only had 300. But the Messenger believes that some god—maybe Pallas Athena, the patron goddess of Athens—protected the Greek forces despite their small numbers. In fact, the Messenger now informs the Queen that Athens remains completely intact, untouched by the hordes of Persians who came to invade it.
The Queen asks about each army’s tactics, and the Messenger reveals that the Greeks won by trickery. One day, an Athenian soldier approached Xerxes, whispering to him that the Greeks planned to flee the naval battlefield in their boats at nightfall. Xerxes then ordered his troops to form flotillas around Salamis (also known as “Ajax’ island”) and the surrounding straits, cutting off the Greek navy should it decide to escape. Having crafted this plan, Xerxes sat down to dinner, filled with “confident pride.” “Of the god-given future,” the Messenger sighs, Xerxes “knew nothing.”
All night, Xerxes’s men waited in their ships, yet no Greek boats ever set sail. Instead, at dawn, the entire Greek armada launched a surprise attack on the Persian fleet. As the Greek soldiers cried out to each other to “free your fathers’ land,” they successfully pushed the Persian ships into the narrow straits around the island. Eventually, the Persian ships were forced so close together that they crash into each other, destroying the vessels and drowning the sailors inside.
The Messenger finishes his tale, grimly musing that he thinks this no single day in history has ever resulted in so many casualties. But before the Queen can collapse in sobs, the Messenger shares more bad news. After the first attack, Xerxes tried to rebound by sending some of his most heroic generals to a small island near Salamis, hoping to capture any Greek troops who were hiding there. But instead, the Greek soldiers surrounded the Persians who came ashore the island, attacking them, mangling their bodies, and ensuring all of these valorized Persian generals died “in infamy, dishonor, and in ugliness.”
Active
Themes
When Xerxes, seated on a hill overlooking the carnage, saw how many men had died, he began to wail, tearing his robes in shame. Upon hearing this, the Queen curses the Greeks, angry that they defeated Persians not only in this conflict but at the battle of Marathon 10 years earlier. Still, the Queen presses on, anxiously asking the Messenger what happened to the surviving soldiers.
Active
Themes
The Messenger sadly explains that most of the men who survived the initial carnage died of hunger and thirst while trying to make their way back to Persia. Only a few, traveling overland to Persia via Macedonia, made it through the difficult journey. And not even all of those men were left unscathed, as the route involved crossing a frozen river. Some made it across before the sun came up (and those who did thanked the gods), but others drowned when the sun melted the river and the ice cracked in pieces.
Active
Themes
His tragic story at last complete, the Messenger departs, leaving the Chorus Leader to lament how cruel the gods have been to the Persians. The Queen reflects that her dream was an accurate prediction of the “miseries” her people experienced, but she still vows to have hope for the future. To that end, the Queen decides she will pray to the gods and offer libations to the dead. In the meantime, she asks the Chorus of elders to look out for Xerxes and to guide him home should he return to Sousa.
The Queen exits, and the Chorus chants to the god Zeus, asking the deity to consider the suffering of the Persians left alive. Though his father Darius was almost always successful in battle, when “Xerxes led,” the Chorus chants, “Xerxes lost.” Now, the Chorus pictures all the widowed Persian women at home, realizing that they will never again hold their loved ones in their arms.
In a series of Strophes and Antistrophes, the Chorus tries to come to terms with the idea that the Persian Empire has lost control over Asia. People will no longer obey Persian laws or pay tribute to Persian leaders. Instead, “the remains of Persia” lie dead on “Ajax’ island” (Salamis), the soldiers’ slain bodies now the bloody remnants of a fallen power.
The Queen returns with offerings for the dead: milk, honey, olives, wine, and flowers. The Queen reflects that people in a painful moment think their bad fortune will last forever, just as people in a victorious moment believe their good fortune will never end. To seek a different perspective, the Queen is thus determined to summon her dead husband Darius from the dead.
The Queen lays her libations on the ground, and the Chorus begins to chant “hymns and incantations” to call Darius’s spirit back to earth. In their chants, the Chorus praises Darius’s accomplishments in battle and calls on the gods to help raise Darius from the dead. Finally, the Chorus reminds Darius of the horrors the Persians have just suffered in battle, hoping the famed leader’s spirit will be moved by news of his people’s suffering.
Active
Themes
At last, the Ghost of Darius rises from his tomb, explaining to the Chorus that it is not easy to rise up from the dead. The Chorus is in awe at seeing the Ghost, and they are reluctant to tell their revered leader about the carnage Persia has suffered. Darius emphasizes that the Chorus must speak succinctly, since he does not have much time before the gods of the underworld will demand his return to them. But still, they are too impressed by the Ghost of Darius to tell him what has happened at Salamis.
Active
Themes
Darius then asks his beloved wife the Queen to give him answers. When he notices that the Queen is crying, Darius grows softer, reminding her that “all human beings suffer human troubles.” The Queen works up the courage to tell Darius what has happened, explaining that “all of Persia” has been destroyed at Athens—and that their son Xerxes, leading failed campaigns both by land and by sea, is to blame.
Darius laments that so many of Persia’s youths have lost their lives in battle, and he asks the Queen if there are any survivors. The Queen explains that Xerxes is one of the few soldiers to make it out alive, and that he is currently on his way back to Persia. Sighing, Darius reflects that Zeus had prophesized ruin for his sons, though he did not expect it to come so quickly. Darius also regrets that Xerxes’s “youthful confidence” led to such great losses, noting that all the wealth past Persian kings have fought for years to accumulate is now lost.
Active
Themes
The Queen tells Darius that Xerxes was egged on by foolish advisors, who told him that if he failed to attack the Greeks, he would be seen as a coward. But Darius brushes this off, instead reminiscing about Sousa’s past greatness. For generations, famous leaders like King Medus and King Cyrus had served as rulers not only over Persia but over Asia as a whole. Now, however, Xerxes has ruined all of that, his failure unlike any that has happened in all of Persia’s history.
The Chorus asks Darius if he has any advice about how the Persian forces can avoid such misfortune in the future. Darius cautions that Persia should never again invade Greece, as the Greeks will always have an advantage on their home soil. Darius also predicts that any Persian soldiers left behind in Greece will soon die grisly deaths, just as the prophecy foretold (and in prophecies, as Darius notes, “there are no half-measures”).
Still, Darius does not blame the Greeks for all this misery. Instead, he faults Xerxes and his forces for their arrogance, saying the gods turned against them because they refused to show “awe and reverence” to various temples and religious statues in Greece. As Darius describes the suffering he still thinks is yet to come, he declares that his son’s “insolence […] will bear its fruit, a tasseled field of doom, from which a deadly harvest must be reaped.”
Darius now prepares to return to the underworld. Before he goes, he asks the Queen to gather Xerxes’s finest clothing, since when Xerxes arrives, he will have ripped all his own robes to shreds. Darius then comforts the Chorus by reminding them that wealth is of no use to the dead. The Queen also exits, deeply disturbed to learn that Xerxes has traveled so far with his clothes ripped and disheveled.
The Chorus again breaks into song, still using Strophes and Antistrophes. When Darius was ruler, the Chorus recalls, Persia was well-respected, peaceful, and powerful, the “victors” in every conflict they fought. The Chorus even notes that Darius used to rule over many of the islands a victorious Greece will now lay claim to, including Naxos, Mykonos, and even Salamis itself.
Active
Themes
At last, Xerxes arrives, collapsing the second that he spots the aged members of the Chorus in mourning. Upon noticing Xerxes, the Chorus grows even louder in its song, describing the many men who lost in their lives in battle because of Xerxes’s military failures. Filled with shame, Xerxes declares himself “nothing but evil,” and he joins in the Chorus’s song, singing every other verse.
The Chorus asks Xerxes where the other Persian generals have gone, and Xerxes replies that he left them for dead, their bodies strewn on the shores of Salamis. Xerxes blames himself for the carnage, but he also blames the Ares, the god of war, whom he feels acted as the Greek army’s “partisan” and “protector.”
The Chorus continues to cry out, naming more and more generals who have been lost in the battle. Xerxes sings alongside them, showing the elders of the Chorus that he has ripped his robes in shame. Overcome with emotion, Xerxes begs to the Chorus to “cry out antiphonal to me,” and the Chorus obliges by continuing to alternate lines of the song with Xerxes (“a woesome gift in response to woe”).
Xerxes and the Chorus raise their voices for one final expression of “woe,” reflecting that similar cries are being heard all around the city of Sousa. Xerxes decides that it is time for the elders in the Chorus to return to their homes, where they can grieve in private. But first, the Chorus promises to escort Xerxes back to the palace, assuring him that “we shall escort you with mournful lament.”
