Rhesus
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. I. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1906.
- on which you may wreak vengeance on them, gripping your lance in your death-dealing hand!
- Such exploits am I ready to achieve to atone for my long absence; (with due submission to Nemesis I say this); then when we have cleared this city of its foes
- and you have chosen out first-fruits for the gods, I wish to march with you against the Argives’ country and at my coming lay Hellas waste with war, that they in turn may know the taste of ill.
- If I could rid the city of this present curse
- and restore it to its old security, I should indeed feel deep gratitude towards the gods. But, as for sacking Argos and the pasture-lands of Hellas with the spear, it is no such easy task as you say.
- Do they not say that here came the greatest chiefs of Hellas?
- Yes, and I do not scorn them; I have enough to do in driving them away.
- Well, when we slay these, is our task not fully done?
- Do not leave the present need to look to distant schemes.
- You are, it seems, content to suffer and make no return.
- Yes, for I rule a great empire, even though I am here.
- But on the left wing or the right or in the centre of the allies you may plant your shield and marshal your troops.
- Alone I will face the foe, Hector. But if you are ashamed, after all your previous toil,
- to have no share in firing their ships’ prows, place me face to face with Achilles and his army.
- Against that man you cannot range your eager spear.
- Why, it was surely said he sailed to Ilium.
- He sailed and he is here; but he is angry
- and takes no part with the other chieftains in the battle.
- Who next to him has won a name in their army?
- Aias and the son of Tydeus are, I take it, in no way his inferiors; there is Odysseus, a wheedling rascal, but bold enough indeed,