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. Who writhed beside me, dying! With a bound
  2. I sprang up, empty-handed, groping round
  3. For spear or sword, when, lo, a young strong man
  4. Was close to me and slashed, and the sword ran
  5. Deep through my flank. I felt its passage well,
  6. So deep, so wide, so spreading . . . then I fell.
  7. And they, they got the bridles in their hand
  8. And fled .... Ah! Ah! This pain. I cannot stand.
  9. I know, I saw, thus much. But why or how
  10. Those dead men went to death I cannot know,
  11. Nor by whose work. But this I say; God send
  12. ’Tis not foul wrong wrought on us by a friend.
LEADER.
  1. Good charioteer of that ill-fortuned king,
  2. Suspect us not. ’Tis Greeks have done this thing.
  3. But yonder Hector comes. He hath been shown
  4. The foul deed, and thy sorrows are his own.
Enter HECTOR in wrath, with a band of Guards.
HECTOR.
  1. Ye workers of amazement! Have your eyes
  2. No sight? Ye watch and let these Argive spies
  3. Pass—and our friends are butchered in their sleep—[*](P. 46, 11. 810-830. Hector and the Guard.]—There is intentional colour here—the impulsive half-barbaric rage of Hector, the oriental grovelling of the Guard, and of course the quick return to courteous self-mastery with which Hector receives the taunts of the wounded man.)
  4. And then pass back unwounded, laughing deep