Rhesus

Euripides

Euripides. The Rhesus of Euripides. Translated into English rhyming verse with explanatory notes by Gilbert Murray. Murray, Gilbert, translator. London: George Allen and Company, Ltd., 1913.

  1. Your camp a spear-swept causeway builded wide
  2. To where beached galleys flame above the dead.
  3. Him slay, and all is won. Let Hector’s head
  4. Sleep where it lies and draw unvexèd breath;
  5. Another’s work, not thine, is Hector’s death.
ODYSSEUS.
  1. Most high Athena, well I know the sound
  2. Of that immortal voice. ’Tis ever found
  3. My helper in great perils.—Where doth lie
  4. Rhesus, mid all this host of Barbary?
[*](numeration out of sync: 612 omitted )
ATHENA.
  1. Full near he lies, not mingled with the host
  2. Of Troy, but here beyond the lines—a post
  3. Of quiet till the dawn, that Hector found.
  4. And near him, by his Thracian chariot bound,
  5. Two snow-white coursers gleam against the wan
  6. Moon, like the white wing of a river swan.
  7. Their master slain, take these to thine own hearth,
  8. A wondrous spoil; there hides not upon earth
  9. A chariot-team of war so swift and fair.
ODYSSEUS.
  1. Say, Diomede, wilt make the men thy share,
  2. Or catch the steeds and leave the fight to me?