Rhesus
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng3
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and urged them on, while they snorted and breathed fury from their nostrils, striving in terror to unseat their riders. Up I sprang to defend the horses from the brutes, for the horror of the night scared me. Then as I raised my head I heard the groans of dying men,
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and a warm stream of new-shed blood bespattered me, beside my murdered master as he died. To my feet I start, but all unarmed; and as I peer about and grope to find my sword, a stalwart hand from somewhere near struck me with a sword
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beneath the ribs. I felt the sword-thrust, the deep gaping wound it gave me. Down on my face I fell, while they fled clean away with horses and chariot. Oh, oh! Tortured with pain, too weak to stand, a piteous object!
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I know what happened, for I saw it; but how the victims met their death I cannot say, nor at whose hand. But I can well surmise we have our friends to thank for this grief.
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Chorus Leader
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Charioteer of Thrace’s hapless king,
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do not suspect us. Enemies did this. But Hector himself is here, having learned your mischance; he sympathizes as he should with your hard fate.
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Hector
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You who have caused this great calamity, how did the enemy’s spies come
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without your knowledge, to your shame, and spread destruction through the army, and you did not drive them away either as they entered or left the camp? Who but you shall pay the penalty for this? You, I say, were here to guard the army. But they are gone without a wound, with many a scoff
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at Phrygian cowardice, and at me their leader. Now mark you this—by father Zeus I swear—either the scourge or the headsman’s axe awaits you for such conduct; or else consider Hector to be nothing, a mere coward.
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Chorus
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Woe, woe! It was in quest of you, yes, you, great lord of my city, that I went, when I brought news to you that the Argive army was kindling fires about the ships;
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for by the springs of Simois I vow my eye kept sleepless watch by night, nor did I slumber or sleep. Do not be angry with me, my lord; I am guiltless of all.
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Yet if hereafter you find that I in word or deed have done amiss, bury me alive beneath the earth; I ask no mercy.
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Charioteer
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Why threaten these? Why try to undermine my barbarian mind with your subtle words, you yourself a barbarian?
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You did this deed; neither they who have died nor we who are wounded will believe it was any other. A long and clever speech you’ll need to prove to me you did not slay your friends because you coveted the horses, and to gain them murdered
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your own allies, after strongly imposing on them come. They came, they are dead; Paris found more decent means to shame the rights of hospitality than you, who killed your allies. No, do not tell me some Argive came and slaughtered us. Who could have passed the Trojan lines
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and come against us without detection? You and your Phrygian troops were camped in front of us. Who was wounded, who was slain among your friends, when that foe you speak of came? It was we, far off, were wounded, while some have met a sterner
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fate and said farewell to the sunlight. Briefly, then, I blame no Achaean. For what enemy could have come and found the lowly bed of Rhesus in the dark, unless some god were guiding the murderers’ steps? They did not know so much
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as know of his arrival. No, this is your plot!
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Hector
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For a long time now I have had to do with allies, yes, ever since Achaea’s army settled in this land, and never a harsh word have I known them say of me; but with you I am to make a beginning. Never may such longing
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for horses seize me that I should slay my friends! This is the work of Odysseus; for who of all the Argives but he would have devised or carried out such a deed? I fear him; and my mind is a little troubled lest he should have met and slain Dolon as well;
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for he has been gone a long time and does not appear.
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Charioteer
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I do not know this Odysseus of whom you speak. It was no enemy’s hand that struck us.
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Hector
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If it pleases you to think that, do so.
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Charioteer
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O land of my fathers, would I might die in you!
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Hector
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Die! No! Enough are those already dead.
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Charioteer
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Where am I to turn, I ask you, bereft of my master?
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Hector
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My house shall shelter you and cure you of your hurt.
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Charioteer
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How shall murderers’ hands care for me?
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Hector
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This fellow will never have done repeating the same story.
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Charioteer
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Curses on the doer of this deed! On you my tongue fixes no charge, as you complain; but Justice is over all.
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Hector
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Take him away; carry him to my palace and tend him carefully, that he may have no fault to find. And you must go to those upon the walls,
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to Priam and his aged councillors, and tell them to give orders for the burial of the dead at the resting-place along the public road. The charioteer is carried off.
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Chorus
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Why does fate change and bring Troy once again to mourning after her great good fortune, planting what seeds?
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Oh, oh! What deity above our heads, O king, bears in her hands as on a bier the newly slain corpse? I shudder at this sight of woe.
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Muse
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Behold me,Trojans; for I, the Muse, one of the nine sisters, that have honor among the wise, I am here, having seen the piteous death his foes have dealt my darling son. Yet the crafty Odysseus, that slew him, one day hereafter shall pay a fitting penalty.
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Muse
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O my son, your mother’s grief, I mourn for you in my native strains of woe! What a journey you made to Troy, a very path of ill-fortune and sorrow!
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starting, in spite of all my warnings and your father’s earnest prayers, in defiance of us. Woe to me for you, my dear, dear son! Ah, woe!
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Chorus Leader
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As far as one can who has no common tie of kin,
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I bewail and mourn your son.
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Muse
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Curses on the son of Oeneus! Curses on Laertes’ child! who has bereft me of my fair son and left me childless! and on that woman, too,
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that left her home in Hellas, and sailed here with her Phrygian lover, bringing death to you, my dearest, for the sake of Troy, and emptying countless cities of their brave heroes.
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Muse
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Many indeed are the wounds, Thamyris, son of Philammon, that you have inflicted on my heart, in your life and in your death. Yes, for it was your pride, your own undoing, and your rivalry with the Muses that made me mother of this poor son of mine. For as I crossed the river’s streams
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I came too near to Strymon’s fruitful couch, that day we Muses came to the brow of Mount Pangaeus with its soil of gold, furnished forth with all our music for one great trial of minstrel skill with that clever Thracian bard; and we blinded him,
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Thamyris, the man who often reviled our craft.
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And then, when I gave birth to you, because I felt shame of my sisters and my virginity, I sent you to the swirling stream of your father, the river; and Strymon did not entrust your nurture to mortal hands, but to the fountain nymphs.
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There you were reared most fairly by the maiden nymphs, and you ruled over Thrace, a leader among men, my child. So long as you ranged your native land in quest of bloody deeds of prowess I did not fear for your death; but I forbade you to set out for Troy,
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in my knowledge of your doom; but Hector’s sages and those countless embassies persuaded you to go and help your friends.
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This was your doing, Athena; you alone are to blame for his death —neither Odysseus nor the son of Tydeus
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had anything to do with it—do not think it has escaped my eye. And yet we sister Muses do special honor to your city, your land we chiefly haunt; and those dark mysteries with their torch processions were revealed by Orpheus, cousin of this dead man
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whom you have slain. Musaeus, too, your holy citizen, of all men most advanced in lore, was trained by Phoebus and us, the nine sisters. And here is your reward for this; in my arms I hold my child and mourn for him. I’ll bring to you no other learned man.
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Chorus Leader
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Vainly it seems the Thracian charioteer reviled us with plotting this man’s murder, Hector.
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Hector
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I knew it; it needed no seer to say that he had perished by the arts of Odysseus. Now I, when I saw the Hellene army camped
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in my land, of course would not hesitate to send heralds to my friends, bidding them come and help my country; and so I sent, and he as in duty bound came to share my toils. I do not at all rejoice to see him dead. And now I am ready to raise a tomb for him
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and burn at his pyre great store of fine raiment; for he came as a friend and in sorrow he is going away.
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Muse
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He shall not go into earth’s dark soil; so earnest a prayer will I address to the bride of the nether world, the daughter of the goddess Demeter, giver of increase,
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to release his soul; and, debtor as she is to me, show that she honors the friends of Orpheus. And to me for the rest of time he will be as one who is dead and does not see the light; for never again will he meet me or see his mother;
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but he will lie hidden in a cavern of the land with veins of silver, restored to life, a deified man, just as the prophet of Bacchus dwelt in a grotto beneath Pangaeus, a god whom his votaries honored.
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Lightly now shall I feel the grief of the sea-goddess,
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for her son too must die. First then for you we sisters must chant our dirge, and then for Achilles when Thetis mourns some day. Pallas, your slayer, shall not save him; so true the shaft Loxias keeps in his quiver for him.
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Oh, the sorrows that a mother feels! the troubles of mortals! whoever fairly reckons you up will live and die childless and will have no children to bury.
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Chorus Leader
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His mother now must see to this man’s burial; but for you, Hector, if you will carry out any scheme,
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now is the time, for day is dawning.
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Hector
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Go, bid our allies arm at once and yoke the horses; torch in hand you must await the blast of the Etrurian trumpet; for I hope to pass beyond their army
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and walls and fire the ships of the Achaeans, bringing to the Trojans this approaching beam of the sun as the day of freedom.
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Chorus
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Obedience to our prince! let us go to array ourselves in armor and tell these orders
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to our allies; perhaps the god who is on our side may grant us victory.
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Hector
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Why this tumultuous haste?
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Hector
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I am.
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Chorus
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No.
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Hector
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Why do you desert your post and rouse the army, unless you have some tidings of the night?
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Chorus
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For he alone had heart enough for home and country to go and spy on the naval station; I admire
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his spirit; how few stout hearts there are, when on the sea the sunlight dies and the city labors in the surge.
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Phrygia yet has left a valiant few, and bold hearts in the battle’s press; it is only Mysia’s sons who scorn us as allies.
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Chorus
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Which of the Achaeans will the earth-treading murderer slay
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in their beds, as he pretends to be a four-footed beast on the ground? May he lay Menelaus low, slay Agamemnon and bring his head
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to Helen’s hands, causing her to lament her evil kinsman, who has come against my city, against the land of Troy with his army of a thousand ships.
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Chorus
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Shall old Troy once more at last spend the whole day in drinking toasts and singing love’s praise, while the bewildering wine-cup sends a capacious challenge round,
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as over the sea for Sparta the sons of Atreus quit the Ilian strand? O friend, with your arm and spear may you do me this service, then safe return.
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Chorus
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Come, appear, brandish that shield of gold full in Achilles’ face; raise it aslant along the chariot’s branching rail, urging on your horses, and shaking your lance with double point.
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For none after facing you will ever join the dance on the plains of Argive Hera; no, but he shall die, slain by Thracians, and this land shall bear the burden of his corpse and be glad.
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Look; I mean that man. There are the thieves who in the gloom disturbed this army.
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Chorus
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Come near. Strike, everyone!
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Chorus
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No, but you, who came to slay us—
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Chorus
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No, no, lay on!
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Odysseus
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Ah! do not slay a friend!
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Odysseus
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Phoebus.
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Chorus
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Right! every man hold back his spear!
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Odysseus
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Somewhere here I caught a sight of them.
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Why, of course.
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Odysseus.
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He will suspect.
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Well, who?
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Chorus Leader
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It is one of the allies who is groaning.