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. Then he shall be the first dead Trojan!
ATHENA.
  1. No;
  2. Beyond the ordainèd end thou canst not go.
  3. Fate hath not willed that Paris by thy deed
  4. Shall die; it is another who must bleed
  5. To-night. Therefore be swift!
  6. For me, my guise
  7. Shall melt and change in Alexander’s eyes,
  8. Yea, till he dream ’tis Cypris, his delight [*](P. 36, 11. 637 ff., Athena as Cypris.]—It is not clear how this would be represented on the Greek stage, though there is no reason to think there would be any special difficulty. On a modern stage it could be worked as follows:—The Goddess will be behind a gauze, so that she is invisible when only the lights in front of the gauze are lit, but visible when a light goes up behind it. She will first appear with helmet and spear in some hard light; then disappear and be rediscovered in the same place in a softer light, the helmet and spear gone and some emblems of Cypris—say a flower and a dove—in their place. Of course the voice will change too.The next scene, where the two spies are caught and let go, is clear enough in its general structure; the details must remain conjectural.)
  9. And help in need, that meets him in the night,