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.

  1. Phoebus.
Chorus
  1. Right! every man hold back his spear!
  2. Do you know where the men have gone?
Odysseus
  1. Somewhere here I caught a sight of them.
Chorus
  1. Close on their track each man of you! Or should we shout for aid?
  2. [*](The print edition attributes line 691 to Odysseus.)No, it would be strange conduct to disturb our friends with wild alarms by night. Exeunt Odysseus and Diomedes.
Chorus
  1. Who was that man who slipped away? Who was he that will loudly boast his daring in escaping me?
  2. How shall I catch him now? To whom shall I liken him, the man who came by night with fearless step passing through our ranks and the guard we set? Is he a Thessalian or
  3. a dweller in some seacoast town of Locris? Or does he make his living among the islands scattered in the sea? Who was he? Where from? What is his fatherland? What god does he avow as lord of all the rest?
  4. Whose work is this? is it the deed of Odysseus?
  5. If one may conjecture from his former acts, of course it is.
  6. Do you think so really?
  7. Why, of course.
  8. He is a bold foe for us.
  9. What strength? Whom are you praising?
  10. Odysseus.
  11. Do not praise the crafty weapons that a robber uses.
Chorus
  1. Once before he came into this city, with swimming bleary eyes, clad in rags and tatters, his sword hidden in his cloak.
  2. And like some vagrant menial he slunk about begging his living, his head rough and dirty; and he spoke bitterly of the royal house of the Atreidae—as though he were really opposed to those chiefs!
  3. Would, oh! would he had perished, as was his due, before he set foot on Phrygia’s soil!