RHESUS.
Yea, more atonement thou shalt take from me
For this slow help.-May Adrasteia see
My heart and pardon!-When we two have set
Troy free from these who compass her with hate,
Soon as the Gods have had their first-fruits, I
With thee will sail-so help me Zeus on high!-
And sack all Hellas with the sword, till these
Doers of deeds shall know what suffering is.
HECTOR.
By heaven, could I once see this peril rolled
Past us, and live in Ilion as of old,
Untrembling, I would thank my gods! To seek
Argos and sack the cities of the Greek-
'Twere not such light work as thou fanciest.
RHESUS.
These Greeks that face thee, are they not their best?1
HECTOR.
We seek not better. These do all we need.
RHESUS.
When these are beaten, then, we have done the deed.
HECTOR.
Lose not thy path watching a distant view.
RHESUS.
Thou seem'st content to suffer, not to do?
HECTOR.
I have a kingdom large by mine own right ..
What station will best please thee in this fight
To ground the targe and stablish thine array?
Right, left, or midmost in the allies? Say.
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1 P. 26, l. 480. It may be remarked that the play here uses a fairly common Homeric phrase in a sense which the scholars of our tradition knew but rejected.
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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