HECTOR.
Ye all so wish it?-Well, ye conquer me.
(To AENEAS)
Go thou and calm the allies. There
will be
Some stir among them, hearing of these high
And midnight councils.-I will seek the spy
To send to the Greek camp. If there we learn
Of some plot hatching, on the man's return
I straight will call thee and share counsels. So.
But wait attentive. If he says they go
Shipward and plan to escape, one trumpet call
Shall warn thee, and I wait no more, but fall
On camp and hulls, or ever dawn can rise.
AENEAS.
Aye, haste and send him. Now thy plans are wise,
And when need comes I am with thee, sword by
sword. [Exit AENEAS.
HECTOR (turning to the Guards and other soldiers).
Ye gathered Trojans, sharers of my word,
Who dares to creep through the Greek lines alone?
Who will so help his fatherland?
Doth none
Offer? Must I do everything, one hand
Alone, to save our allies and our land?
[A lean dark man pushes forward from the back.
DOLON
1.
I, Prince!-I offer for our City's sake
To go disguised to the Greek ships, to make
Their counsels mine, and here bring word to thee.
If that be thy full service, I agree.
HECTOR.
Dolon the Wolf! A wise wolf and a true!
Thy father's house was praised when first I knew
Troy: this shall raise it twofold in our eyes.
DOLON.
'Tis wise to do good work, but also wise
To pay the worker. Aye, and fair reward
Makes twofold pleasure, though the work be hard.
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1 P. 10, l. 150 ff., Dolon.]-The name is derived from dolos, "craft." In our version of Homer Dolon merely wears, over his tunic, the skin of a grey wolf. He has a leather cap and a bow. In the play he goes, as Red Indian spies used to go, actually disguised as a wolf, on all fours in a complete wolf-skin. The same version is found on the Munich cylix of the early vase-painter Euphronius (about 500 B.C.), in which Dolon wears a tight-fitting hairy skin with a long tail. The plan can of course only succeed in a country where wild animals are common enough to be thought unimportant. The playwright has evidently chosen a more primitive and romantic version of the story; the Homeric reviser has, as usual, cut out what might seem ridiculous. (See J. A. K. Thomson in Classical Review, xxv. pp. 238 f.)
The Rhesus of Euripides. Translated into English rhyming verse with explanatory notes by Gilbert Murray, LL.D., D.Litt, F.B.A., Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford. Euripides. Gilbert Murray. New York. Oxford University Press. 1913.
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