Euripides Rhesus 728-996

Chorus

Woe, woe! It was in quest of you, yes, you, great lord of my city, that I went, when I brought news to you that the Argive army was kindling fires about the ships;

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for by the springs of Simois I vow my eye kept sleepless watch by night, nor did I slumber or sleep. Do not be angry with me, my lord; I am guiltless of all.

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Yet if hereafter you find that I in word or deed have done amiss, bury me alive beneath the earth; I ask no mercy.

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Charioteer

Why threaten these? Why try to undermine my barbarian mind with your subtle words, you yourself a barbarian?

You did this deed; neither they who have died nor we who are wounded will believe it was any other. A long and clever speech you’ll need to prove to me you did not slay your friends because you coveted the horses, and to gain them murdered

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your own allies, after strongly imposing on them come. They came, they are dead; Paris found more decent means to shame the rights of hospitality than you, who killed your allies. No, do not tell me some Argive came and slaughtered us. Who could have passed the Trojan lines

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and come against us without detection? You and your Phrygian troops were camped in front of us. Who was wounded, who was slain among your friends, when that foe you speak of came? It was we, far off, were wounded, while some have met a sterner

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fate and said farewell to the sunlight. Briefly, then, I blame no Achaean. For what enemy could have come and found the lowly bed of Rhesus in the dark, unless some god were guiding the murderers’ steps? They did not know so much

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as know of his arrival. No, this is your plot!

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Hector

For a long time now I have had to do with allies, yes, ever since Achaea ’s army settled in this land, and never a harsh word have I known them say of me; but with you I am to make a beginning. Never may such longing

for horses seize me that I should slay my friends! This is the work of Odysseus; for who of all the Argives but he would have devised or carried out such a deed? I fear him; and my mind is a little troubled lest he should have met and slain Dolon as well;

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for he has been gone a long time and does not appear.

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Charioteer

I do not know this Odysseus of whom you speak. It was no enemy’s hand that struck us.

Hector

If it pleases you to think that, do so.

Charioteer

O land of my fathers, would I might die in you!

Hector

Die! No! Enough are those already dead.

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Charioteer

Where am I to turn, I ask you, bereft of my master?

Hector

My house shall shelter you and cure you of your hurt.

Charioteer

How shall murderers’ hands care for me?

Hector

This fellow will never have done repeating the same story.

Charioteer

Curses on the doer of this deed! On you my tongue fixes no charge, as you complain; but Justice is over all.

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Hector

Take him away; carry him to my palace and tend him carefully, that he may have no fault to find. And you must go to those upon the walls,

to Priam and his aged councillors, and tell them to give orders for the burial of the dead at the resting-place along the public road. The charioteer is carried off.

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Chorus

Why does fate change and bring Troy once again to mourning after her great good fortune, planting what seeds?

Oh, oh! What deity above our heads, O king, bears in her hands as on a bier the newly slain corpse? I shudder at this sight of woe.

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Muse

Behold me,Trojans; for I, the Muse, one of the nine sisters, that have honor among the wise, I am here, having seen the piteous death his foes have dealt my darling son. Yet the crafty Odysseus, that slew him, one day hereafter shall pay a fitting penalty.

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Muse

O my son, your mother’s grief, I mourn for you in my native strains of woe! What a journey you made to Troy , a very path of ill-fortune and sorrow!

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starting, in spite of all my warnings and your father’s earnest prayers, in defiance of us. Woe to me for you, my dear, dear son! Ah, woe!

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Chorus Leader

As far as one can who has no common tie of kin,

I bewail and mourn your son.

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Muse

Curses on the son of Oeneus! Curses on Laertes ’ child! who has bereft me of my fair son and left me childless! and on that woman, too,

that left her home in Hellas , and sailed here with her Phrygian lover, bringing death to you, my dearest, for the sake of Troy , and emptying countless cities of their brave heroes.

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Muse

Many indeed are the wounds, Thamyris, son of Philammon, that you have inflicted on my heart, in your life and in your death. Yes, for it was your pride, your own undoing, and your rivalry with the Muses that made me mother of this poor son of mine. For as I crossed the river’s streams

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I came too near to Strymon’s fruitful couch, that day we Muses came to the brow of Mount Pangaeus with its soil of gold, furnished forth with all our music for one great trial of minstrel skill with that clever Thracian bard; and we blinded him,

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Thamyris, the man who often reviled our craft.

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And then, when I gave birth to you, because I felt shame of my sisters and my virginity, I sent you to the swirling stream of your father, the river; and Strymon did not entrust your nurture to mortal hands, but to the fountain nymphs.

There you were reared most fairly by the maiden nymphs, and you ruled over Thrace , a leader among men, my child. So long as you ranged your native land in quest of bloody deeds of prowess I did not fear for your death; but I forbade you to set out for Troy ,

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in my knowledge of your doom; but Hector’s sages and those countless embassies persuaded you to go and help your friends.

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This was your doing, Athena; you alone are to blame for his death —neither Odysseus nor the son of Tydeus

had anything to do with it—do not think it has escaped my eye. And yet we sister Muses do special honor to your city, your land we chiefly haunt; and those dark mysteries with their torch processions were revealed by Orpheus, cousin of this dead man

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whom you have slain. Musaeus, too, your holy citizen, of all men most advanced in lore, was trained by Phoebus and us, the nine sisters. And here is your reward for this; in my arms I hold my child and mourn for him. I’ll bring to you no other learned man.

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Chorus Leader

Vainly it seems the Thracian charioteer reviled us with plotting this man’s murder, Hector.

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Hector

I knew it; it needed no seer to say that he had perished by the arts of Odysseus. Now I, when I saw the Hellene army camped

in my land, of course would not hesitate to send heralds to my friends, bidding them come and help my country; and so I sent, and he as in duty bound came to share my toils. I do not at all rejoice to see him dead. And now I am ready to raise a tomb for him

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and burn at his pyre great store of fine raiment; for he came as a friend and in sorrow he is going away.

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Muse

He shall not go into earth’s dark soil; so earnest a prayer will I address to the bride of the nether world, the daughter of the goddess Demeter, giver of increase,

to release his soul; and, debtor as she is to me, show that she honors the friends of Orpheus. And to me for the rest of time he will be as one who is dead and does not see the light; for never again will he meet me or see his mother;

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but he will lie hidden in a cavern of the land with veins of silver, restored to life, a deified man, just as the prophet of Bacchus dwelt in a grotto beneath Pangaeus, a god whom his votaries honored.

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Lightly now shall I feel the grief of the sea-goddess,

for her son too must die. First then for you we sisters must chant our dirge, and then for Achilles when Thetis mourns some day. Pallas, your slayer, shall not save him; so true the shaft Loxias keeps in his quiver for him.

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Oh, the sorrows that a mother feels! the troubles of mortals! whoever fairly reckons you up will live and die childless and will have no children to bury.

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Chorus Leader

His mother now must see to this man’s burial; but for you, Hector, if you will carry out any scheme,

now is the time, for day is dawning.

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Hector

Go, bid our allies arm at once and yoke the horses; torch in hand you must await the blast of the Etrurian trumpet; for I hope to pass beyond their army

and walls and fire the ships of the Achaeans, bringing to the Trojans this approaching beam of the sun as the day of freedom.

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Chorus

Obedience to our prince! let us go to array ourselves in armor and tell these orders

to our allies; perhaps the god who is on our side may grant us victory.

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LEADER

(grovelling before HECTOR) ⁵

Woe, woe! It was for thee, only for thee,

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I must have gone, O Help and Majesty,

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That time with message that the fires were burning.

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Mine eye was keen; I swear by Simois river,

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It never drooped nor slumbered, never, never,

From eve till morning!

My master, verily, I am innocent utterly,

Build not such wrath against me, Lord, nor harden

Thy heart; let Time be judge; and if in deed

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Or word I have offended, let me bleed!

Bury me here alive! I ask no pardon.

THRACIAN.

HECTOR is standing over him ready to strike when the CHARIOTEER speaks.

Why threaten them? Art thou a Greek to blind

My barbarous wit so nimbly, in a wind

Of words? This work was thine. And no man’s head

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Is asked by us, the wounded and the dead,

Save thine. It needs more play, and better feigned,

To hide from me that thou hast slain thy friend

By craft, to steal his horses.—That is why

He stabs his friends. He prays them earnestly,

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Prays them to come; they came and they are dead.

A cleaner man was Paris, when he fled

With his host’s wife. He was no murderer.

Profess not thou that any Greek was there

To fall on us. What Greek could pass the screen

Of Trojan posts in front of us, unseen?

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Thyself was stationed there, and all thy men.

What man of yours was slain or wounded when

Your Greek spies came? Not one; ’tis we, behind,

Are wounded, and some worse than wounded, blind

Forever to the sunlight. When we seek

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Our vengeance, we shall go not to the Greek.

What stranger in that darkness could have trod

Straight to where Rhesus lay—unless some God

Pointed his path? They knew not, whispered not,

Rhesus had ever come. . . . ’Tis all a plot.

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HECTOR

(steadied and courteous again).

Good allies I have had since first the Greek

Set foot in Troy , and never heard them speak

Complaint of Hector. Thou wilt be the first.

I have not, by God’s mercy, such a thirst

For horses as to murder for their sake.

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He turns to his own men.

Odysseus! Yet again Odysseus! Take

All the Greek armies, is there one but he

Could have devised, or dared, this devilry?

I fear him; yea, fear in mine own despite,

Lest Dolon may have crossed him in the night

And perished; ’tis so long he cometh not.

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THRACIAN.

I know not who Odysseus is, nor what.

I know it was no Greek that wounded us.

HECTOR.

To think thus pleasures thee? Well, have it thus.

THRACIAN.

Home, home! To die at home and rest my head!

HECTOR.

Nay, die not, friend. We have enough of dead.

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THRACIAN.

How can I live? Lost, and my master slain.

HECTOR.

My house will shelter thee and heal thy pain.

THRACIAN.

Thy house? Will murderers’ nursing give me peace?

HECTOR.

Still the same tale! This man will never cease.

THRACIAN.

My curse rest—not on Hector, but on those

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Who stabbed us, as thou say’st.—Ah, Justice knows! ⁸

HECTOR.

There, lift him.—Bear him to my house. Take pains,

If care can do it, that the man complains

No more of Troy.—Ye others, bear withal

To Priam and the Elders of the Wall

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My charge, that, where the cart-road from the plain

Branches, they make due burial for our slain.

CHORUS.

Back from the heights of happiness,

Back, back, to labour and distress

Some god that is not ours doth lead

Troy and her sons; He sows the seed,

Who knows the reaping?

In the air at the back there appears a Vision of the MUSE holding the body of her dead son RHESUS. ⁹

Ah! Ah!

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My king, what cometh? There appears

Some Spirit, like a mist of tears;

And in her arms a man lieth,

So young, so wearied unto death;

To see such vision presageth

Wrath and great weeping.

MUSE.

Nay, look your fill, ye Trojans. It is I,

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The many-sistered Muse, of worship high

In wise men’s hearts, who come to mourn mine own

Most pitifully loved, most injured, son,

For whose shed blood Odysseus yet shall pay

Vengeance, who crawled and stabbed him where he lay.

MUSE.

With a dirge of the Thracian mountains, ¹⁰

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I mourn for thee, O my son.

For a mother’s weeping, for a galley’s launching, for

the way to Troy;

A sad going, and watched by spirits of evil.

His mother chid him to stay, but he rose and went.

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His father besought him to stay, but he went in anger.

Ah, woe is me for thee, thou dear face,

My belovèd and my son!

LEADER.

Goddess, if tears for such as thee may run

In our low eyes, I weep for thy dead son.

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MUSE.

I say to thee: Curse Odysseus,

And cursèd be Diomede!

For they made me childless, and forlorn for ever, of

the flower of sons.

Yea, curse Helen, who left the houses of Hellas .

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She knew her lover, she feared not the ships and sea.

She called thee, called thee, to die for the sake of Paris,

Belovèd, and a thousand cities

She made empty of good men.

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O conquered Thamyris, is this thy bane ¹¹

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Returned from death to pierce my heart again?

Thy pride it was, and bitter challenge cast

’Gainst all the Muses, did my flesh abase

To bearing of this Child, what time I passed

Through the deep stream and looked on Strymon’s face,

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And felt his great arms clasp me, when to old

Pangaion and the earth of hoarded gold

We Sisters came with lutes and psalteries,

Provoked to meet in bitter strife of song

That mountain wizard, and made dark the eyes

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Of Thamyris, who wrought sweet music wrong.

I bore thee, Child; and then, in shame before

My sisterhood, my dear virginity,

I stood again upon thy Father’s shore

And cast thee to the deeps of him; and he

Received and to no mortal nursing gave

His child, but to the Maidens of the Wave.

And well they nursed thee, and a king thou wast

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And first of Thrace in war; yea, far and near

Through thine own hills thy bloody chariot passed,

Thy battered helm flashed, and I had no fear;

Only to Troy I charged thee not to go:

I knew the fated end: but Hector’s cry,

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Borne overseas by embassies of woe,

Called thee to battle for thy friends and die.

And thou, Athena—nothing was the deed

Odysseus wrought this night nor Diomede—

’Tis thine, all thine; dream not thy cruel hand

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Is hid from me! Yet ever on thy land

The Muse hath smiled; we gave it praise above

All cities, yea, fulfilled it with our love.

The light of thy great Mysteries was shed

By Orpheus, very cousin of this dead

Whom thou hast slain; and thine high citizen

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Musaeus, wisest of the tribes of men,

We and Apollo guided all his way:

For which long love behold the gift ye pay!

I wreathe him in my arms; I wail his wrong

Alone, and ask no other mourner’s song.

LEADER.

Hector, thou hearest. We were guiltless here, ¹²

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And falsely spake that Thracian charioteer.

HECTOR.

Always I knew it. Had we any need

Of seers to tell this was Odysseus’ deed?

For me, what could I else, when I beheld

The hosts of Argos camped upon this field,

What but with prayers and heralds bid my friend

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Come forth and fight for Ilion ere the end?

He owed me that.—Yet, now my friend is slain,

His sorrow is my sorrow. On this plain

I will uplift a wondrous sepulchre,

And burn about it gifts beyond compare

Of robes and frankincense. To Troy’s relief

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He came in love and parteth in great grief.

MUSE.

My son shall not be laid in any grave ¹³

Of darkness; thus much guerdon will I crave

Of Death’s eternal bride, the heavenly-born

Maid of Demeter, Life of fruits and corn,

To set this one soul free. She owes me yet,

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For Orpheus widowed, an abiding debt.

To me he still must be—that know I well—

As one in death, who sees not. Where I dwell

He must not come, nor see his mother’s face.

Alone for ever, in a caverned place

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Of silver-veinèd earth, hid from men’s sight,

A Man yet Spirit, he shall live in light:

As under far Pangaion Orpheus lies,

Priest of great light and worshipped of the wise.

Howbeit an easier anguish even to me

Falls than to Thetis in her azure sea;

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For her son too shall die; and sorrowing,

First on the hills our band for thee shall sing,

Then for Achilles by the weeping wave.

Pallas could murder thee, but shall not save

Thy foe; too swift Apollo’s bolt shall fly.

O fleshly loves of sad mortality,

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O bitter motherhood of these that die,

She that hath wisdom will endure her doom,

The days of emptiness, the fruitless womb;

Not love, not bear love’s children to the tomb.

LEADER.

The dead man sleepeth in his mother’s care; ¹⁴

But we who battle still—behold, the glare

Of dawn that rises. Doth thy purpose hold,

Hector, our arms are ready as of old.

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HECTOR.

March on; and bid the allies with all speed

Be armed, bind fast the yoke upon the steed,

Then wait with torches burning, till we sound

The Tuscan trump.—This day we shall confound,

God tells me, their Greek phalanx, break their high

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Rampart and fire the galleys where they lie.

Pointing to the dawn.

Yon first red arrow of the Sun, that brings

The dawn to Troy, hath freedom on his wings.

CHORUS.

The Chief hath spoken: let his will

Be law, ye Trojans.—Raise the cry

To Arms! To Arms! and down the line

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Of allies pass the battle-sign.

The God of Ilion liveth still;

And men may conquer ere they die.