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. Howbeit an easier anguish even to me
  2. Falls than to Thetis in her azure sea;
  3. For her son too shall die; and sorrowing,
  4. First on the hills our band for thee shall sing,
  5. Then for Achilles by the weeping wave.
  6. Pallas could murder thee, but shall not save
  7. Thy foe; too swift Apollo’s bolt shall fly.
  8. O fleshly loves of sad mortality,
  9. O bitter motherhood of these that die,
  10. She that hath wisdom will endure her doom,
  11. The days of emptiness, the fruitless womb;
  12. Not love, not bear love’s children to the tomb.
The VISION rises through the air and vanishes.
LEADER.
  1. The dead man sleepeth in his mother’s care;[*](P. 54, 11. 983-end. This curious and moving end—not in death or peace but in a girding of tired men to greater toil—reminds one of the last words of The Trojan Women: Forth to the long Greek ships And the sea’s foaming, and the last words of the Chanson de Roland there quoted. The Trojans evidently go forth under the shadow of disaster, though with firmness and courage. The stage direction is of course purely conjectural. If Diomedes left some sign of Dolon’s death for Hector to see, as he probably must have done, then Hector must at some time or other see it. If so, this seems to be the place. )
  2. But we who battle still—behold, the glare
  3. Of dawn that rises. Doth thy purpose hold,
  4. Hector, our arms are ready as of old.
HECTOR.
  1. March on; and bid the allies with all speed
  2. Be armed, bind fast the yoke upon the steed,
  3. Then wait with torches burning, till we sound
  4. The Tuscan trump.—This day we shall confound,