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. ’Tis thine, all thine; dream not thy cruel hand
  2. Is hid from me! Yet ever on thy land
  3. The Muse hath smiled; we gave it praise above
  4. All cities, yea, fulfilled it with our love.
  5. The light of thy great Mysteries was shed
  6. By Orpheus, very cousin of this dead
  7. Whom thou hast slain; and thine high citizen
  8. Musaeus, wisest of the tribes of men,
  9. We and Apollo guided all his way:
  10. For which long love behold the gift ye pay!
  11. I wreathe him in my arms; I wail his wrong
  12. Alone, and ask no other mourner’s song.
She weeps over RHESUS.
LEADER.
  1. Hector, thou hearest. We were guiltless here,[*](P. 52, l. 950. These short speeches between Hector and the Leader of the Guard make a jarring note in the midst of the Muse’s lament. Perhaps it would not be so if we knew how the play was produced, but at present this seems like one of several marks of comparative crudity in technique which mark the play, amid all its daring and inventiveness.)
  2. And falsely spake that Thracian charioteer.
HECTOR.
  1. Always I knew it. Had we any need
  2. Of seers to tell this was Odysseus’ deed?
  3. For me, what could I else, when I beheld
  4. The hosts of Argos camped upon this field,
  5. What but with prayers and heralds bid my friend
  6. Come forth and fight for Ilion ere the end?