Epeisodion 2
LEADER.
All hail, great King! A whelp indeed
Is born in Thracia’s lion fold,
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Whose leap shall make strong cities bleed.
Behold his body girt with gold,
And hark the pride of bells along
The frontlet of that targe’s hold.
CHORUS.
A God, O Troy, a God and more!
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’Tis Ares’ self, this issue strong
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Of Strymon and the Muse of song,
Whose breath is fragrant on thy shore!
RHESUS.
Lord Hector, Prince of Ilion, noble son
Of noble sires, all hail! Long years have run
Since last we greeted, and ’tis joy this day
To see thy fortunes firm and thine array
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Camped at the foe’s gate. Here am I to tame
That foe for thee, and wrap his ships in flame.
HECTOR.
Thou child of Music and the Thracian flood,
Strymonian Rhesus, truth is alway good
In Hector’s eyes. I wear no double heart.
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Long, long ago thou shouldst have borne thy part
In Ilion’s labours, not have left us here,
For all thy help, to sink beneath the spear.
Why didst thou—not for lack of need made plain!—
Not come, not send, not think of us again?
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What grave ambassadors prayed not before
Thy throne, what herald knelt not at thy door?
What pride of gifts did Troy not send to thee?
And thou, a lord of Barbary even as we,
Thou, brother of our blood, like one at sup
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Who quaffs his fill and flings away the cup,
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Hast flung to the Greeks my city! Yet, long since,
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’Twas I that found thee but a little prince
And made thee mighty, I and this right hand;
When round Pangaion and the Paiôn’s land,
Front against front, I burst upon the brood
Of Thrace and broke their targes, and subdued
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Their power to thine. The grace whereof, not small,
Thou hast spurned, and when thy kinsmen, drowning, call,
Comest too late. Thou! Others there have been
These long years, not by nature of our kin . .
Some under yon rough barrows thou canst see
Lie buried; they were true to Troy and me;
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And others, yet here in the shielded line
Or mid the chariots, parching in the shine
Of noonday, starving in the winds that bite
Through Ilion’s winter, still endure and fight
On at my side. ’Twas not their way, to lie
On a soft couch and, while the cups go by,
Pledge my good health, like thee, in Thracian wine.
I speak as a free man. With thee and thine
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Hector is wroth, and tells thee to thy face.
RHESUS.
Thy way is mine, friend. Straight I run my race
In word and deed, and bear no double tongue.
I tell thee, more than thine my heart was wrung,
Yea, angered past all durance, thus to stay
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Back from thy battles. ’Twas a folk that lay
Hard on my borders, Scythians of the north;
Just when my host for Troy had started forth,
They fell upon our homes. I had reached the coast
Of the Friendless Sea and purposed to have crossed
My Thracians there. We turned; and all that plain
Is trampled in a mire of Scythian slain
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Ploughed by our spears, and blood of Thrace withal
Not stinted. This it was that drowned thy call
For help and held me back from Ilion’s need.
I broke their power; the princes of their breed
I took to hostage, made their elders swear
To bring my house due tribute, year by year,
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Then, never lagging, crossed the Pontus mouth,
Marched by long stages through Bithynia south
And here am come . . . not drunken with the feast,
As thou wouldst have me be, not lulled to rest
In golden chambers. In this harness hard
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I have borne my nights of winter storm that starred
The Euxine into ice and scared the strong
Paionians. Long I have been, but not too long
To save thee yet. Friend, this is the tenth year
Thou labourest on unceasing, with no clear
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Vantage; day creeps by day, and Ares throws
The same red dice for thee and for thy foes.
Now, hear my vow. Before one day’s eclipse
I swear to break their wall, to burn their ships
And slay their princes. On the second day
I leave this soil and take my homeward way,
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Thy pains relieved. No Trojan of the land
Need move, nor turn the buckler in his hand.
Alone my late-comers will turn the tide
And smite your Greeks, for all their bitter pride.