Passus from a speech by Queen Athosseus, in which she first recounts her ominous dream about the death of Xerxes, and then relates signs read from the flight of birds - a hawk that attacks and defeats a defenceless eagle. This eagle in the vision of Atossa was dodging from the falcon towards the bonfire or the altar (eschara) in the morning when she intended to make sacrifices. The passus does not contain references to the blood sacrifice, only pelanos offerings and purification rites are mentioned. It does, however, contain technical terms related to the blood sacrifice: θυηπόλος, τέλος, βωμός, ἐσχάρα, which should be noted for their function in contexts directly related with the blood sacrifice.

ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἀνέστην καὶ χεροῖν καλλιρρόου
ἔψαυσα πηγῆς, σὺν θυηπόλῳ χερὶ
βωμὸν προσέστην, ἀποτρόποισι δαίμοσιν
θέλουσα θῦσαι πέλανον, ὧν τέλη τάδε.
ὁρῶ δὲ φεύγοντ᾽ αἰετὸν πρὸς ἐσχάραν
Φοίβου.

Tr.:Kiedy wstałam i zanurzyłam dłonie w pięknym bijącym Źródle, stanęłam przy ołtarzu z ręką spełniającą ofiary, Zamierzając złożyć w ofiarę pelanos bogom zła odwrócicielom, Którym takie ofiary są należne. Widzę zaś, że orzeł umyka w stronę ołtarza Feba.

202: σὺν θυηπόλῳ χερί – „z ręką spełniającą ofiary”. Θυηπόλος – „ofiarny”, „spełniający ofiarę”, w postaci urzeczownikowionej, jak sugerują Suda (s.v.: Θυηπόλος: ὁ θύων, ὁ ἱερεύς) i Hesychios (s.v.: θυηπόλος· ὁ περὶ τὰς θυσίας ἀναστρεφόμενος, ἱερεύς) – „ofiarnik”, „kapłan”.

203: θῦσαι πέλανον – „złożyć (oznacza spalić) w ofiarę pelanos”. Pelanos – półpłynna mieszanina miodu, mąki i oliwy (por. Fraenkel 1950, vol. 1: 54–55 w komentarzu do w. 96 Ag. oraz Jameson 1956: passim), ewentualnie ciastko ofiarne lub placek (por. Pauzaniasz 8.2.3: πέμματα ἐπιχώρια […], ἃ πελάνους καλοῦσιν ἔτι καὶ ἐς ἡμᾶς Ἀθηναῖοι).

204: ὧν τέλη τάδε – „którym takie ofiary są należne”. Frits M.J. Waanders in his work on the meaning of the words τέλος and τελέω (Waanders 1983: 96, cf. also 17) suggests here the meaning of τέλος as a neutral "task, duty', which would give the sense of 'make a sacrifice to the gods [...] to whom such an action is due'. It seems, however, that a more basic meaning, already only related to the performatics of the sacrificial ritual (ibidem: 96), already directly denoting this sacrifice (in Waanders 1983: 96 - 'offerings', 'religiousobligation' in relation to Supp. 122; Bielawski 2004: 65-68) is more justified here because of the context. It even seems that τέλη are a kind of equivalent for πέλανον (detailed commentary on this verse Bielawski 2004: 69-70). Henry D. Broadhead (1960: 82) in his commentary on Persians points out two possible meanings of τέλη in this place: 1. as 'rites', 'rituals', 'sacred, ritual activities'; 2. as "sacrifices" ("offerings"). Ultimately, however, he proposes the translation: "require such offerings". A recent commentary (Garvie 2009: 123) replicates these considerations. In another earlier work, Waanders (1976: 478) points to the commented verse as an example of the use of the noun τέλος in an explicitly religious sense. In this case, the noun should be to be considered as belonging to the technical language of sacrifice, albeit not of the bloody (such a meaning, however, is also possible).

205: πρὸς ἐσχάραν - "towards the altar"; ἐσχάρα is primarily the hearth on the altar, here used metonymically to denote the entire altar. Apart from the above passus, twice more, both in the advice of the choir leader (vv. 219-220: δεύτερον δὲ χρὴ χοὰς / γῇ τε καὶ φθιτοῖς χέασθαι), as well as later in the Queen's declarations (v. 229: πάντ᾽ ἐφήσομεν θεοῖσι τοῖς τ᾿ ἔνερθε γῆς φίλοις^[1]In West's edition: Πάντα θήσομεν θεοῖσι τοῖς τ ̓ ἔνερθε γῆς φίλοις (Page's lesson was not noted by West in the apparatus at all).), sacrifices to the gods and to the dead appear - but in both cases it is only a liquid sacrifice combined with prayer. Similarly, in verses 522-524, after hearing the messenger speak of the Salamanian disaster, the Queen declares the necessity of raising prayers to the gods (θεοῖς μὲν πρῶτον εὔξασθαι θέλω) and of offering to the earth and to the dead (γῇ τε καὶ φθιτοῖς) gifts (δωρήματα), consisting of the pelanos brought from home (λαβοῦσα πέλανον ἐξ οἴκων ἐμῶν). The extensive passus with the necromantic sacrifice for the dead (vv. 609-622) contains detailed information on this type of sacrifice and its components, but the vocabulary present technical vocabulary does not contain any - even metaphorical - references to the blood sacrifice. The same, by the way, as later in Darius's spirit speech (v. 685).

τόσος γὰρ ἔσται πέλανος αἱματοσφαγὴς
πρὸς γῇ Πλαταιῶν Δωρίδος λόγχης ὕπο.

Tr.: For such a bloody, sacrificial pelanos The Doric spear will roll out on the Plataean soil.

Passus from the ghost speech of Darius, who announces the defeat of the Persians at Plataea, indicating as the cause of the defeat the insult to the Greek temples. Aeschylus uses here a metaphor of the language characteristic for blood sacrifice, presenting the death of Persian soldiers as a sacrifice (pelanos, see comment above on v. 203), which is previously mentioned repeatedly by the Queen, the chorus and the spirit of Darius as appropriate to the land and the dead. In a sense, the metaphor applies also the language of the bloodless sacrifice - pelanos as a liquid and bloodless sacrifice becomes in Aeschylus' poetic vision a blood sacrifice (αἷμα), in addition rolled out in the manner proper to a blood sacrifice (σφαγής). In the metaphorical image, the Dorians use a spear - and not a knife (machaira) as in the classic blood sacrifice - they slaughter (sphazein) not the sacrificial animals, but Persians, in order to draw blood from them. And this blood is in turn sacrificed like pelanos, characteristic of the bloodless sacrifice. Thus, in this image there is a metaphorical feedback between bloody and bloodless sacrifice, building up on the one hand image of a bloody death on the one hand, and on the other a link to the repeatedly mentioned earlier, the offerings to the dead.

816: αἱματοσφαγής - "bloody, sacrificial"; Aeschylus hapax legomenon. Compositum composed of αἷμα and the subject σφάγ- - from the verb σφάζω, associated with the ritual of blood sacrifice and meaning the slaughter of a victim. Neither Byzantine lexicons nor modern studies of the technical language of sacrifice invoke this adjective (e.g. Rudhardt). It is not even noted by the LSJ (also in the supplement). Zygmunt Węclewski's Greek-Polish dictionary (1905) gives the meaning of (sv.): "splashed with the blood of the slain", sanguine maculatus, and Montanari's dictionary (s.v.): "made with the blood of the slaughtered" with the indication that in the relevant passus it refers to libations. In the interpretation of the latter we would have "pelanos mixed with the blood of the slaughtered". Several late manuscripts contain the lection αἱματοσταγής instead of αἱματοσφαγής. In at least one instance, both Roger D. Dawe and Denys L. Page found the lesson overwritten. The sense of this compositum remains similar: 'dripping with blood', however the image of the metaphor is weakened by depriving it of its etymological connection to the language of blood sacrifice and the process of butchering a victim. Martin L. West, in his edition that forms the basis of this commentary, argues in favour of the αἱματοσταγής lesson, citing in the critical apparatus verse 1389 Ag. where we have the phrase αἵματος σφαγήν (so also Garvie 2009: 313-314).