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. He owed me that.—Yet, now my friend is slain,
  2. His sorrow is my sorrow. On this plain
  3. I will uplift a wondrous sepulchre,
  4. And burn about it gifts beyond compare
  5. Of robes and frankincense. To Troy’s relief
  6. He came in love and parteth in great grief.
MUSE.
  1. My son shall not be laid in any grave[*](P. 52, 1. 962 ff., My son shall not be laid in any grave.]—Like other Northern barbaric princes, such as Orpheus (1. 972 below) and Zalmoxis (Herodotus, iv. 95) and Holgar the Dane, Rhesus lies in a hidden chamber beneath the earth, watching, apparently, for the day of uttermost need when he must rise to help his people. There is no other passage in Greek tragedy where such a fate is attributed to a hero, though the position of Darius in the Persae and Agamemnon in the Choephori or the Electra is in some ways analogous.The last lines of the Muse have a very Euripidean ring: cf. Medea, l. 1090 (p. 61, My thoughts have roamed a cloudy land), Alcestis, 1. 882.)
  2. Of darkness; thus much guerdon will I crave
  3. Of Death’s eternal bride, the heavenly-born
  4. Maid of Demeter, Life of fruits and corn,
  5. To set this one soul free. She owes me yet,
  6. For Orpheus widowed, an abiding debt.
  7. To me he still must be—that know I well—
  8. As one in death, who sees not. Where I dwell
  9. He must not come, nor see his mother’s face.
  10. Alone for ever, in a caverned place
  11. Of silver-veinèd earth, hid from men’s sight,
  12. A Man yet Spirit, he shall live in light:
  13. As under far Pangaion Orpheus lies,
  14. Priest of great light and worshipped of the wise.