Stasimon 3
CHORUS.
Sweet words and faithful heart!
455
From those proud lips the Wrath that none may bear!
Now, nor in days of yore,
460
Prince like to thee, so valiant and so fair.
Or face thy lance? May I but stand that day
Watching to see him reel
465
Broken beneath thy steel,
And once in blood his many murders pay!
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
470
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,
475
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?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.
HECTOR.
We seek not better. These do all we need.
480
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
485
To ground the targe and stablish thine array?
Right, left, or midmost in the allies? Say.
RHESUS.
’Twould please me best to fight these Greeks alone.
Yet, if ’twould irk thine honour not to have thrown
One firebrand on the ships with me, why, then
490
Set us to face Achilles and his men.
HECTOR.
Achilles? Nay, his spear ye cannot meet.
RHESUS.
How so? Fame said he sailed here with the fleet.
HECTOR.
He sailed, and he is here. But some despite
’Gainst the great King now keeps him from the fight.
495
RHESUS.
Who next to him hath honour in their host?
HECTOR.
Next, to my seeming, Ajax hath the most,
Or Diomede.—But Odysseus is a tough
And subtle fox, and brave; aye, brave enough.
No man of them hath harmed us more than he.
500
He climbed here to Athena’s sanctuaryP. 27, l. 501 ff. These three achievements of Odysseus are all in the traditional saga. The Rapt of the Palladium, or figure of Pallas, by Odysseus and Diomedes, was in an old lost epic, called The Little Iliad; the Begging in Troy in the Little Iliad and also in Odyssey IV. 242 ff.; the great ambuscades in Odyssey IV. 290 ff., VIII. 493 ff., and in Odysseus’s own feigned story, XIV. 468 ff. According to our tradition they belong to a later period of the war than the death of Rhesus, but perhaps the sequence was different, or not so definite, at the time of this play.
One night, and stole her image clean away
To the Argive ships. Yes, and another day,
Guised as a wandering priest, in rags, he came
And walked straight through the Gates, made loud acclaim
Of curses on the Greek, spied out alone
All that he sought in Ilion, and was gone—
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Gone, and the watch and helpers of the Gate
Dead! And in every ambush they have set
By the old Altar, close to Troy, we know
He sits—a murderous reptile of a foe!
RHESUS.
No brave man seeks so dastardly to harm
510
His battle-foes; he meets them arm to arm.
This Greek of thine, this sitter like a thief
In ambush, I will make of him my chief
Care. I will take him living, drive a straight
Stake through him, and so star him at the Gate
515
To feed your wide-winged vultures. ’Tis the death
Most meet for a lewd thief, who pillageth
God’s sanctuary, or so we hold in Thrace.
HECTOR.
Seek first some sleep. There still remains a space
Of darkness.—I will show the spot that best
May suit you, somewhat sundered from the rest.
520
Should need arise, the password of the night
Is Phoebus: see your Thracians have it right.
Advance beyond your stations, men, at some
Distance, and stay on watch till Dolon come
With word of the Argives’ counsel. If his vow
525
Prosper, he should be nearing us by now.P. 28, l. 528. Rhesus shows the simple courage of a barbarian in his contempt for the ruses of Odysseus, the brutality of a barbarian in the methods of punishment he proposes. Such proposals would disgust a Greek; it looks as if they displeased Hector. In any case his abruptness here, and his careful indication of the place where the Thracians are to sleep, far from the rest of the camp, have some dramatic value for the sequel.
[Choral]
Say, whose is the watch? Who exchanges
CHORUS.
With us? The first planets to rise
Are setting; the Pleiades seven
Move low on the margin of heaven,
530
And the Eagle is risen and ranges
The mid-vault of the skies.
ANOTHER.
No sleeping yet! Up from your couches
And watch on, the sluggards ye are!
The moon-maiden’s lamp is yet burning.
THIRD GUARD.
Oh, the morning is near us, the morning!
535
Even now his fore-runner approaches,
DIVERS GUARDS.
Who drew the first night-watch?
ANOTHER.
’Twas one Koroibos, called the Mygdon’s Son.
THE GUARD.
And after?
540
THE OTHER.
The Mount Taurus men
540
Had second watch: from them again
The Mysians took it. We came then.
A GUARD.
’Tis surely time. Who will go tell
The fifth watch? ’Tis the Lycians’ spell
By now; ’twas thus the portions fell.
545
ANOTHER.
Nay, hearken! Again she is crying
Where death-laden Simois falls,
Of the face of dead Itys that stunned her,
Of grief grown to music and wonder:
550
Most changeful and old and undying
550
The nightingale calls.
550
And on Ida the shepherds are waking
Their flocks for the upland. I hear
The skirl of a pipe very distant.
And sleep, it falls slow and insistent.
’Tis perilous sweet when the breaking
555
DIVERS GUARDS
Why have we still no word nor sign
Of that scout in the Argive line?
ANOTHER.
I know not; he is long delayed.
God send he trip not on the blade
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Of some Greek in an ambuscade!
It may be. I am half afraid.
LEADER.
Our time is past! Up, men, and tell
The fifth watch. ’Tis the Lycians’ spell
Now, as the portions fairly fell.