Euripides' RHESUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

44 pages - You are on Page 15

Hector: His country? and the home that he hath left?

Messenger: His country, Thrace: men call his father Strymon.

Hector: Didst say that Rhesus was setting foot in

Messenger: Thou hast it; and savest me half my speech.

Hector: How is it that he comes to Ida's meadows, wandering from the
broad waggon track across the plain?

Messenger: I cannot say for certain, though I might guess. To make
his entry by night is no idle scheme, when he hears that the plains
are packed with foemen's troops. But he frightened us rustic hinds
who dwell alog the slopes of Ida, the earliest settlement in the land,
as he came by night through yon wood where wild beasts couch. On surged
the tide of Thracian warriors with loud shouts; whereat in wild amaze
we drove our flocks unto the heights, for fear that some Argives were
coming to plunder and harry thy steading, till that we caught the
sound of voices other than Greek and ceased from our alarm. Then went
I and questioned in the Thracian tongue those who were reconnoitring
the road, who it was that lead them, and whose he avowed him to be,
that came to the city to help the sons of Priam. And when I had heard
all I wished to learn, I stood still awhile; and lo! I see Rhesus
mounted like a god upon his Thracian chariot. Of gold was the yoke
that linked the necks of his steeds whiter than the snow; and on his
shoulders flashed his targe with figures welded in gold; while a gorgon
of bronze like that which gleams from the aegis of the goddess was
bound upon the frontlet of his horses, ringing out its note of fear
with many a bell. The number of his host thou couldst not reckon to
a sum exact, for it was beyond one's comprehension; many a knight
was there, and serried ranks of targeteers, and archers not a few,
with countless swarms of light-armed troops, in Thracian garb arrayed,
to bear them company. Such the ally who comes to Troy's assistance;
him the son of Peleus will ne'er escape or if he fly or meet him spear
to spear.

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