Euripides' RHESUS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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Charioteer: Why threaten these? Why try to undermine my poor barbarian
wit by crafty words, barbarian thou thyself? Thou didst this deed;
nor they who have suffered ail, nor we by wounds disabled will believe
it was any other. A long and subtle speech thou'lt need to prove to
me thou didst not slay thy friends because thou didst covet the horses,
and to gain them didst murder thine own allies, after bidding them
come so straitly. They came, and they are dead. Why, Paris found more
decent means to shame the rights of hospitality than thou, with thy
slaughter of thy allies. Never tell me some Argive came and slaughtered
us. Who could have passed the Trojan lines and come against us without
detection? Thou and thy Phrygian troops were camped in front of us.
Who was wounded, who was slain amongst thy friends, when that foe
thou speak'st of came? 'Twas we were wounded, while some have met
a sterner fate and said farewell to heaven's light. Briefly, then,
no Achaean do I blame. For what enemy could have come and found the
lowly bed of Rhesus in the dark, unless some deity were guiding the
murderers' steps? They did not so much as know of his arrival. No,
'tis thy plot this!

Hector: 'Tis many a long year now since I have had to do with allies,
aye, ever since Achoea's host settled in this land, and never an ill
word have I known them say of me; but with thee I am to make a beginning.
Never may such longing for horses seize me that I should slay my friends!
This is the work of Odysseus. Who of all the Argives but he would
have devised or carried out such a deed? I fear him much; and somewhat
my mind misgives me lest he have met and slain Dolon as well; for
'tis long since he set out, nor yet appears.

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