Euripides' RHESUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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Rhesus: I too am such another as thyself; straight to the point I
cut my way; no shuffling nature mine. My heart was wrung with sorer
anguish than ever thine was at my absence from this land; I fumed
and chafed, but Scythian folk, whose borders march with mine, made
war on me on the very eve of my departure for Ilium; already had I
reached the strand of the Euxine sea, there to transport my Thracian
army. Then did my spear pour out o'er Scythia's soil great drops of
bloody rain, and Thrace too shared in the mingled slaughter. This
then was what did chance to keep me from coming to the land of Troy
and joining thy standard. But soon as I had conquered these and taken
their children as hostages and appointed the yearly tribute they should
pay my house, I crossed the firth, and lo! am here; on foot I traversed
all thy borders that remained to pass, not as thou in thy jeers at
those carousals of my countrymen hintest, nor sleeping soft in gilded
palaces, but amid the frozen hurricanes that vex the Thracian main
and the Paeonian shores, learning as I lay awake what suffering is,
this soldier's cloak-my only wrap. True my coming hath tarried, but
yet am I in time; ten long years already hast thou been at the fray,
and naught accomplished yet; day in, day out, thou riskest all in
this game of war with Argives. While I will be content once to see
the sungod rise, and sack yon towers and fall upon their anchored
fleet and slay the Achaeans; and on the morrow home from Ilium will
I go, at one stroke ending all thy toil. Let none of you lay hand
to spear to lift it, for I, for all my late arrival, will with my
lance make utter havoc of those vaunting Achaeans.

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