Strophe
195 Our sorrows defy number;
all the ship’s timbers are rotten;
taking of thought is no spear for the driving away of the plague
There are no growing children in this famous land;
there are no women bearing the pangs of childbirth.
200 You may see them one with another, like birds swift on the wing,
quicker than fire unmastered,
speeding away to the coast of the Western God.
The chorus sings about their experience in the plague. The plague they were referring to was one that devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian war. The illness ravaged the city when it was at its peak, leaving it in turmoil. Line 195 explains how sorrowful the people were. And they go on to sing about how the plague affected their population. People were dying at alarming rates. Lines 200-202 shows that people were dying fast, like quicks birds flying towards “the coast of the Western God”, the Western God is seen as death since the sun sets in the west. A simile when the people were compared to a “bird swift on the wing” to give the audience an idea of how fast they were dying as a result of the plague.
