{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_35170/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_35170","id":"gutenberg_35170","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35170","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Rhesus (Legendary character) -- Drama"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Barbara Watson and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net\n((This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries))\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 RHESUS\n\n\n\n\n                           THE ATHENIAN DRAMA\n                           FOR ENGLISH READERS\n\n  A Series of Verse Translations of the Greek Dramatic Poets, with\n                   Commentaries and Explanatory Notes.\n\n              Crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 7s. 6d. each net.\n                   Each Volume Illustrated from ancient\n                      Sculptures and Vase-Painting.\n\nAESCHYLUS: _The Orestean Trilogy._ By Prof. G. C. Warr. With an\n  Introduction on _The Rise of Greek Tragedy_, and 13 Illustrations.\n\nSOPHOCLES: _OEdipus Tyrannus_ and _Coloneus_, and _Antigone_. By Prof.\n  J. S. Phillimore. With an Introduction on _Sophocles and his\n  Treatment of Tragedy_, and 16 Illustrations.\n\nEURIPIDES: _Hippolytus_; _Bacchae_; _Aristophanes' 'Frogs.'_ By\n  Prof. Gilbert Murray. With an Appendix on _The Lost Tragedies\n  of Euripides_, and an Introduction on _The Significance of the Bacchae\n  in Athenian History_, and 12 Illustrations.          [_Fifth Edition._\n\n\n                       ALSO UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE\n\nTHE HOMERIC HYMNS. A New Prose Rendering by Andrew Lang, with Essays\n  Critical and Explanatory, and 14 Illustrations.\n\n\n                         THE PLAYS OF EURIPIDES\n\n   Translated into English Rhyming Verse, with Explanatory Notes,\n                        by Prof. Gilbert Murray.\n\n _Hippolytus._                     14th Thousand. }\n _Bacchae._                        10th Thousand. } Paper Covers, 1s.\n _The Trojan Women._               11th Th.       }   each net.\n _Electra._                        11th Thousand. }\n _Medea._                           8th Thousand. } Also crown 8vo,\n _Iphigenia in Tauris._             6th Th.       }   cloth, gilt top,\n _The Frogs of Aristophanes._      10th Thousand. }   2s. each net.\n _OEdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles._  12th Thousand. }\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                                   THE\n                                 RHESUS\n                                   OF\n                                EURIPIDES\n\n\n\n                  TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYMING VERSE\n                        WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES BY\n\n                             GILBERT MURRAY\n                         LL.D., D. Litt., F.B.A.\n          REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                      GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD.\n                         44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE\n                                  1913\n\n                         [All rights reserved]\n\n\n\n\n                  Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.\n                  At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh\n\n\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTION\n\n\nThis short play needs rather a long introduction. It has had the bad\nfortune to become a literary problem, and almost all its few readers are\nso much occupied with the question whether it can be the work of\nEuripides--and if not his, whose?--that they seldom allow themselves to\ntake it on its merits as a stirring and adventurous piece, not\nparticularly profound or subtle, but always full of movement and life\nand possessing at least one or two scenes of great and penetrating\nbeauty.\n\nThe outlines of the _Rhesus_ Question are these.--The _Rhesus_ appears\nin the MSS. of Euripides; we know from the Athenian Didascaliae, or\nRecords of Performances, that Euripides wrote a play of the name; some\npassages in it are quoted by early Alexandrian writers as from \"the\n_Rhesus_ of Euripides;\" no passage is quoted under any other name. This\nseems about as strong as external evidence need be. Yet the ancient\nintroduction to the play mentions that \"some think the play spurious,\"\nand expresses the odd opinion that \"it suggests rather the Sophoclean\nstyle.\" Further, it tells us that, besides the present opening scene,\nthere were extant two different prologues, one of which was \"quite prosy\nand perhaps concocted by the actors.\" This seems to show that the\nAlexandrian scholars who tried for the first time to collect the\ncomplete works of Euripides, some two centuries after his death, found\nthis play current as \"Euripides' _Rhesus_,\" but that it was credited\nwith three different openings and that its style was felt to be somehow\npeculiar.\n\nThe peculiarity of style is incontestable. It does not to our judgment\nsuggest Sophocles. It suggests a young man imitating Aeschylus, and it\nhas a great number of Euripidean expressions. Hermann, who collected\nwhat he took to be \"imitations\" of early poets in the _Rhesus_, noted\nonly 25 of Sophocles, 38 of Aeschylus, and 84 of Euripides.\n\nIs it, then, the work of a somewhat imitative fourth-century poet,\nnaturally influenced by his great forerunners? Hardly: because, with a\nfew exceptions, the verse and diction of the _Rhesus_, are markedly\nearly in character, the verse severe and smooth, the diction direct and\nrather grandiose, the choral lyrics strictly relevant. In Euripides'\nlater years Drama was moving rapidly away from all these things and, as\nfar as we can judge, continued so moving after his death. If the\n_Rhesus_ is a post-classical play it can hardly be honest fourth-century\nwork: it must be deliberately archaistic, a product of the Alexandrian\nspirit if not actually of the Alexandrian age. This is what Hermann\nbelieved. But unfortunately it is not a bit more like our fragments of\nAlexandrian tragedy than it is like the _Medea_; and, further, if it is\nan Alexandrian pseudo-classic tragedy, how did it succeed in deceiving\nthe Alexandrian critics, detectives specially trained for this kind of\nwork?\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us try quite a different hypothesis, and begin by accepting the\nexternal evidence as true. The famous critic, Crates, of the second\ncentury B.C., happens to mention--in excuse of what he took to be a slip\nin the poet's astronomy--that the _Rhesus_ of Euripides was a youthful\nwork. Now the earliest dated tragedy of Euripides that we possess is the\n_Alcestis_, B.C. 438, written when he was about forty-six. His style may\nwell have been considerably different fifteen or twenty years earlier,\nand must certainly have been much under the influence of Aeschylus. So\nfar, so good. Then what of the other difficulties, the three different\nopening scenes and the few passages of late phrasing or technique? One\nobvious explanation suits both. The three different openings pretty\nclearly imply that the play was reproduced more than once after the\npoet's death and adapted by the producer for each occasion. This\nhappened to many plays of Euripides, and in one case we even know the\nname of the producer; he was Euripides the Younger, son of the poet.\nAmong other things we have reason to believe that he wrote some parts of\nthe _Iphigenia in Aulis_. And in this connexion we can hardly help\nnoticing that the _Iphigenia in Aulis_, like the _Rhesus_ and like no\nother Greek tragedy, has two alternative openings, one a dull prologue\nand one a lyrical scene in anapaests under the stars. The general style\nof the two plays is utterly different; the _Iphigenia_ is most typically\nlate Euripidean; but one would not be surprised to learn that they had\nboth passed at some time through the same revising hand.\n\nThis hypothesis seems to work well. But one difficulty remains.\n\nWe have so far gone on the supposition that Euripides at twenty-five or\nthirty perhaps wrote very differently from Euripides at forty-six, and\nthat the manner we call Euripidean is only the manner of his later life.\nThere is nothing improbable in this suggestion, but have we any\nevidence? Yes, a very little, and unfortunately it does not say what we\nwant. We have some fragments--twenty lines altogether--preserved from\nthe _Peliades_, with which Euripides won his first victory in the year\n455, seventeen years before the _Alcestis_, and as far as they go they\nare just in his ordinary manner--a good deal more so, in fact, than much\nof the _Alcestis_ is. Let us face this difficulty.\n\nThe ordinary style of Euripides is full, flexible, lucid, antithetic,\nstudiously simple in vocabulary and charged with philosophic reflection.\nIf we look in his extant remains for any trace of a style, like that of\nthe _Rhesus_, which is comparatively terse, rich, romantic, not\nshrinking from rare words and strong colour and generally untinged by\nphilosophy, we shall find the nearest approach to it in the _Cyclops_.\nNext to the _Cyclops_ I am not sure what play would come, but the\n_Alcestis_ would not be far off. It has especially several Epic forms\nwhich cannot be paralleled in tragedy. Now the conjunction of these two\nplays with the _Rhesus_ is significant. The three seem to be three\nearliest of the extant plays; they are also--if we count the\n_Heraclidae_ as mutilated--the three shortest. But, what is more\nimportant, the _Cyclops_ is not a tragedy but a satyr-play, and the\n_Alcestis_ is a tragedy of a special sort, written to take the place of\na satyr-play. It is a tragedy with some half grotesque figures and a\nfantastic atmosphere.\n\nThis is no place for a close analysis of the diction of the various\nworks of Euripides; but taking one rough test, just for what it is\nworth, we may try to count the number of words in each play which are\nnot found elsewhere in Euripides. The _Medea_, a central sort of play,\nhas in its 1419 lines 103 such words. The _Alcestis_, with 1163 lines,\nhas 122; the _Rhesus_, with less than 1000 lines, has 177; the\n_Cyclops_, with only 701 lines, has actually 220. This calculation is\ndoubtless slightly inexact: in any case it is worth very little until it\nis carefully analysed. But on the whole it accords with my general\nimpression that the _Rhesus_ in its variation from the Euripidean norm\ngoes further than the _Alcestis_, and not so far as the _Cyclops_, and\ngoes in very much the same direction. I feel in the _Rhesus_ a good deal\nof that curious atmosphere, not exactly comic, but wild and extravagant,\nwhich the Greeks felt to be suited to the Satyr horde; the atmosphere\nnormally breathed by the one-eyed Giant of the cavern on volcanic Aetna,\nor the drunken and garlanded Heracles who wrestles with Death and cracks\nhis ribs for him at midnight among the tombs. The whole scene and\nsetting of the _Rhesus_; the man-wolf crawling away into the darkness\nand his two enemies presently crawling in out of the same darkness with\nhis bloody spoils; the divine Thracian king with his round targe that\nshines by night and his horses whiter than the snow; the panic of the\nwatch, the vaunting of the doomed chieftain, the goddess disguised as\nanother goddess, the thrilling half-farcical scene where the spy\nOdysseus is actually caught and befools his captors: these things are\nnot of course comic, like some incidents in the _Cyclops_. They belong\nto tragedy; but they are near the outside limit of the tragic\nconvention, and would perhaps be most at home in a pro-satyric tragedy\nlike the _Alcestis_.\n\nIn the upshot I see no adequate reason for rejecting the external\nevidence which makes this play a work of Euripides, if we suppose it to\nbe an early pro-satyric play which was produced again after the poet's\ndeath by Euripides the Younger or some contemporary. Most scholars,\nhowever, prefer to think it simply an archaistic work of the fourth\ncentury.\n\nOn this theory the Alexandrians when looking for the _Rhesus_ of\nEuripides found an anonymous play called _Rhesus_ and accepted it for\nwhat it was worth. The Prologues mentioned in the argument would perhaps\nbelong to other plays of the same name; one, no doubt, to the real play\nof Euripides. The rich and severe style may, for all we know--for direct\nevidence fails us--be the natural mark of some reactionary archaistic\nschool about the time of Plato or Aristotle. The same date might well be\nindicated by the great interest our play takes in the Iliad, and by its\nalmost \"Alexandrian\" use of the gods as ornamental machinery. I cannot\ncall such a theory improbable; but it really amounts to rejecting the\nexternal evidence in order to place the _Rhesus_ in a period of tragic\nstyle of which we happen to know nothing. It is certainly not confirmed\nby the scanty fragments we possess of Theodectes or Chairemon.\n\nAnd, if one is to venture into more speculative and subjective\narguments, I find it rather hard to think of any lyric poet except\nEuripides who could have written the Adrasteia chorus or the lines about\nthe Nightingale in the Watchers' Song; of any playwright except\nEuripides who would have ended a play of gallant martial adventure with\nthe vision of a solitary mother clasping her dead son. There are many\nother passages, too, like the mysterious sobbing in the dark that\nheralds the entry of the wounded Thracian, and the final passing out of\nthe army to its certain defeat, which seem to me more like undeveloped\ngenius than common imitative mediocrity. If a nameless fourth-century\npoet wrote this play, I think we should have heard more of him.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe story of the play is taken straight from the Doloneia, an Epic\nrhapsody which now takes its place as the Tenth Book of the Iliad, but\nwas very likely independent in the time of Euripides (_Rise of the Greek\nEpic_, p. 313 f.). The play seems in one or two points to follow a more\narchaic model than the version in our Homer. (See notes on l. 150 and l.\n175.)\n\nIn Rhesus himself--the name is said to be the Thracian form of\n_rex_[1]--we seem to have the traditional divine king of the Thracian\ntribes about Pangaion, seen through the eyes of Greek romance. He is the\nson of the greatest of Rivers and the Muse of the Mountain: she is\nsimply \"The Muse,\" otherwise nameless, and we are lost if we try to bind\nher down to the identity of any Greek goddess. Like many Thracian heroes\nRhesus has a dash of the Sun-god in him, the burning targe, the white\nhorses and the splendour. Like them he is a boaster and a deep drinker,\na child of battle and of song. Like other divine kings he dies in his\nyouth and strength, and keeps watch over his people from some \"feasting\npresence, full of light,\" where he lies among the buried silver-veins of\nPangaion. If the uttermost need comes, doubtless he will wake again.\nWhen the Athenians began making their dangerous settlements on the coast\nof Thrace--ten thousand settlers were massacred by Rhesus's people about\n465 B.C.: Amphipolis not fully established till 437--they found the\nlegend of Rhesus in the air, and eventually they thought it prudent to\nsend for his hallowed bones from the Troad, where they were supposed to\nbe buried, and give them a tomb in the Athenian colony. Possibly that\npacified him. And his legend in the mouth of the poets seemed perhaps\nlike the story of his own mountaineers, multitudes of strong men, stormy\nand chivalrous, terrible in onset, who somehow in the end melted away\nbefore the skill and persistent courage of a civilised Greek city.\n\n[Footnote 1: Perdrizet, _Cultes et Mythes de Pangee_, p. 17.]\n\n\n\n\nRHESUS\n\n\n\n\nCHARACTERS OF THE PLAY\n\n\nHECTOR, _Prince of Ilion and General of the Trojan Armies_.\nAENEAS, _a Trojan Prince_.\nDOLON, _a Trojan_.\nPARIS, _also called_ ALEXANDER, _brother of Hector_.\nRHESUS, _King of Thrace, son of the River Str[^y]mon and the Muse\n    of the Mountains_.\nA THRACIAN, _the King's charioteer_.\nODYSSEUS, _a Greek chieftain, famous for craft and daring_.\nDIOMEDES, _a Greek chieftain, famous for valour_.\nA SHEPHERD.\n\nThe Goddess ATHENA.\nThe MUSE OF THE MOUNTAINS.\n\nCHORUS _of Trojan Guards with their_ LEADER.\n_Some_ THRACIANS _with their_ CAPTAIN, _Attendants, &c._\n\n_The date and authorship of the play are unknown; it probably\nbelongs to the Fifth Century B.C., and is attributed to Euripides._\n\n\n\n\n                      RHESUS\n\n\n_It is a cloudy but moonlight night on the plain before Troy.         [vv. 1-10]\n    The Trojans and their allies have won a decisive victory and\n    are camping on the open field close to the Greek outposts.\n    The scene is in front of a rude tent or hut that has been set\n    up for_ HECTOR, _the Trojan leader. A watch-fire burns low in\n    front. Far off at the back can be seen rows of watch-fires in\n    the Greek camp. The road to Troy is in front to the left; the\n    road to Mount Ida leads far away to the right._\n\n_All is silence; then a noise outside. Enter tumultuously a band\n    of Trojan Pickets._\n\n                  VARIOUS VOICES.\n\n(_The dash -- in these passages indicates a new speaker._)\n\n    On to the Prince's quarters!--Ho!\n    Who is awake? What man-at-arms,\n    Or squire or groom?--Let Hector know\n        New rumour of alarms\n    From sentinels who stand at mark\n    The four long watches of the dark,\n    While others sleep.--Uplift thine head,\n    O Hector! On thine elbow rise,\n    Unhood the eagle of thine eyes,\n        Up from thy leaf-strewn bed!--\n\n    Lord Hector!\n\n        HECTOR (_coming out from the tent_).                         [vv. 11-28]\n\n                Who goes there? Who cries?\n    A friend? The watchword! . . . By what right\n    Do men come prowling in the night\n    Across my quarters? Come! Speak out.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\n    A picket, Lord.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\n                      In such a rout?\n\n                      LEADER.\n\n    Be not afraid, Lord.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\n                        I am not.\n    Is there an ambush? No? Then what,\n    In God's name, brings you from your post\n        With no clear tale to speak,\n    To spread this turmoil through a host\n    That lies in harness--do ye all\n    Know nothing?--out against the wall\n        And gateways of the Greek?\n\n      CHORUS (_various voices confusedly_).      [_Strophe._\n\n    To arms! To arms, Lord Hector!--Send\n        First where the allied armies lie,\n    Bid them draw sword and make an end\n        Of sleep.--Let someone fly\n    And get the horses' armour on!--\n    Who goes with me to Panthooes' son?--\nWho's for Sarpedon and the Lycians?--None                            [vv. 29-54]\n      Hath seen the priest go by?--\n  Ho, Captain of the Runners, ho!--\n  Ho, Trojans of the horned bow!\n      String, string! For need is nigh.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\n  Ha, silence there! . . .\n                      First words of fear,\n      Then comfort. All an empty swell!\n  It seems the lash of trembling Pan\n  Hath caught you. Speak, if speak ye can.\n  What tidings? Not a word is clear\n      Of the whole tale ye tell.\n\n        [_The turmoil subsides, the_ LEADER _comes forward_.\n\n                      LEADER.                    [_Antistr._\n\n  Great beacons in the Argive line\n    Have burned, my chief, through half the night.\n  The shipyard timbers seemed to shine.\n    Then, clear against the light,\n  Toward Agamemnon's tent the whole\n  Army in tumult seemed to roll,\nAs stirred by some strange voice, shoal after shoal.\n    A night of such discord\n  Was never seen. And we, in dread\n  What such things boded, turned and sped\n    Hither; dost blame us, Lord?\n\n       HECTOR (_after a moment of thought_).\n\nNo! Welcome, friend, with all thy tale of fear!\nIt shows they mean to fly: they mean to clear\nDecks in the dark and so delude my sight . . .                       [vv. 55-78]\nI like that beacon-burning in the night.\n  O Zeus above, who checked my conquering way,\nWho baulked the hungry lion of his prey\nOr ever I could sweep my country clear\nOf these despoilers, dost thou hate my spear?\nHad but the sun's bright arrows failed me not,\nI ne'er had rested till the ships were hot\nWith fire, and through the tents upon the plain\nThis bloody hand had passed and passed again!\nMyself, I longed to try the battle-cast\nBy night, and use God's vantage to the last,\nBut sage and prophet, learned in the way\nOf seercraft, bade me wait for dawn of day,\nAnd then--leave no Greek living in the land.\nThey wait not, they, for what my prophets planned\nSo sagely. In the dark a runaway\nBeats a pursuer.\n                  Through our whole array\nSend runners! Bid them shake off sleep and wait\nReady with shield and spear. 'Tis not too late\nTo catch them as they climb on board, and slash\nTheir crouching shoulders till the gangways splash\nWith blood, or teach them, fettered leg and arm,\nTo dig the stiff clods of some Trojan farm.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nMy Prince, thy words run fast. Nor thou nor I\nHave knowledge yet that the Greeks mean to fly.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWhat makes them light their beacons? Tell me, what?\n\n                      LEADER.                                        [vv. 79-90]\n\nGod knows! And, for my part, I like it not.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWhat, feared? Thou wouldst be feared of everything!\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nThey never lit such light before, O King.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nThey never fled, man, in such wild dismay.\n\n               LEADER (_yielding_).\n\n'Twas all thy work.--Judge thou, and we obey.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nMy word is simple. Arm and face the foe.\n\n                             [_A sound of marching without._\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nWho comes? Aeneas, and in haste, as though\nFraught with some sudden tiding of the night.\n\n                  _Enter_ AENEAS.\n\n                      AENEAS.\n\nHector, what means it? Watchers in affright\nWho gather shouting at thy doors, and then\nHold midnight council, shaking all our men?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nTo arms, Aeneas! Arm from head to heel!\n\n                      AENEAS.                                       [vv. 91-109]\n\nWhat is it? Tidings? Doth the Argive steal\nSome march, some ambush in the day's eclipse?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\n'Tis flight, man! They are marching to the ships.\n\n                      AENEAS.\n\nHow know'st thou?--Have we proof that it is flight?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nThey are burning beacon-fires the livelong night.\nThey never mean to wait till dawn. Behind\nThat screen of light they are climbing in the blind\nDark to their ships--unmooring from our coast.\n\n    AENEAS (_looking toward the distant fires:\n                  after a pause_).\n\nGod guide them!--Why then do you arm the host?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nI mean to lame them in their climbing, I\nAnd my good spear, and break them as they fly.\nBlack shame it were, and folly worse than shame,\nTo let these spoilers go the road they came\nUnpunished, when God gives them to us here.\n\n                      AENEAS.\n\nBrother, I would thy wit were like thy spear!\nBut Nature wills not one man should be wise\nIn all things; each must seek his separate prize.\nAnd thine is battle pure. There comes this word\nOf beacons, on the touch thy soul is stirred:                      [vv. 110-136]\n\"They fly! Out horse and chariots!\"--Out withal\nPast stake and trench, while night hangs like a pall!\nSay, when we cross that coiling depth of dyke,\nWe find the foe not fled, but turned to strike;\nOne check there, and all hope of good return\nIs gone. How can our men, returning, learn\nThe tricks of the palisade? The chariots how\nKeep to the bridges on the trenches' brow,\nSave with jammed wheels and broken axles? Aye,\nAnd say thou conquer: other wars yet lie\nBefore thee. Peleus' son, for all his ire,\nWill never let thee touch the ships with fire\nOr pounce on his Greek lambs. The man will bide\nNo wrong and standeth on a tower of pride.\n  Nay, brother, let the army, head on shield,\nSleep off its long day's labour in the field:\nThen, send a spy; find someone who will dare\nCreep to yon Argive camp. Then, if 'tis clear\nThey mean flight, on and smite them as they fly.\nElse, if the beacons hide some strategy,\nThe spy will read it out, and we can call\nA council.--Thus speak I, my general.\n\n                      CHORUS.                    [_Strophe._\n\n    'Tis good! 'Tis wisdom! Prince, give heed\n    And change the word thy passion gave.\n    No soldier loveth, in his need,\n    The glory of a chief too brave.\n    A spy is best: a spy, to learn\n    For what strange work those beacons burn\n    All night beside the guarded wave.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 137-157]\n\nYe all so wish it?--Well, ye conquer me.\n(_To_ AENEAS) Go thou and calm the allies. There will be\nSome stir among them, hearing of these high\nAnd midnight councils.--I will seek the spy\nTo send to the Greek camp. If there we learn\nOf some plot hatching, on the man's return\nI straight will call thee and share counsels. So.\nBut wait attentive. If he says they go\nShipward and plan to escape, one trumpet call\nShall warn thee, and I wait no more, but fall\nOn camp and hulls, or ever dawn can rise.\n\n                      AENEAS.\n\nAye, haste and send him. Now thy plans are wise,\nAnd when need comes I am with thee, sword by sword.\n                                             [_Exit_ AENEAS.\n\n  HECTOR (_turning to the Guards and other soldiers_).\n\nYe gathered Trojans, sharers of my word,\nWho dares to creep through the Greek lines alone?\nWho will so help his fatherland?\n                                 Doth none\nOffer? Must I do everything, one hand\nAlone, to save our allies and our land?\n\n            [_A lean dark man pushes forward from the back._\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nI, Prince!--I offer for our City's sake\nTo go disguised to the Greek ships, to make\nTheir counsels mine, and here bring word to thee.\nIf that be thy full service, I agree.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 158-171]\n\nDolon the Wolf! A wise wolf and a true!\nThy father's house was praised when first I knew\nTroy: this shall raise it twofold in our eyes.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\n'Tis wise to do good work, but also wise\nTo pay the worker. Aye, and fair reward\nMakes twofold pleasure, though the work be hard.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nSo be it: an honest rule. Do thou lay down\nWhat guerdon likes thee best--short of my crown.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nI care not for thy crowned and care-fraught life.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWouldst have a daughter of the King to wife?\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nI seek no mate that might look down on me.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nGood gold is ready, if that tempteth thee.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nWe live at ease and have no care for gold.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWell, Troy hath other treasures manifold.\n\n                      DOLON.                                       [vv. 172-183]\n\nPay me not now, but when the Greeks are ta'en.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nThe Greeks! . . . Choose any save the Atridae twain.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nKill both, an it please thee. I make prayer for none.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nThou wilt not ask for Ajax, Ileus' son?\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nA princely hand is skilless at the plough.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\n'Tis ransom, then? . . . What prisoner cravest thou?\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nI said before, of gold we have our fill.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nFor spoils and armour . . . thou shalt choose at will.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nNail them for trophies on some temple wall.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWhat seeks the man? What prize more rich than all?\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nAchilles' horses!                    [_Murmurs of surprise._\n                  Yes, I need a great\nPrize. I am dicing for my life with Fate.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 184-203]\n\n'Fore God, I am thy rival, if thy love\nLies there. Undying was the breed thereof,\nAnd these shall never die, who bear to war\nGreat Peleus' son, swift gleaming like a star.\nPoseidon, rider of the wild sea-drift,\nTamed them, men say, and gave them for his gift\nTo Peleus.--None the less, since I have stirred\nHopes, I will baulk them not. I pledge my word,\nAchilles' steeds, a rare prize, shall be thine.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nI thank thee.--'Tis indeed a prize more fine\nThan all in Troy.--Grudge me not that; there be\nGuerdons abundant for a Prince like thee.\n                                             [_Exit_ HECTOR.\n\n                      CHORUS.                    [_Antistr._\n\n    O peril strange, O fearful prize!\n    Yet win it and thy life hath wings:\n    A deed of glory in men's eyes,\n    And greatness, to be wooed of kings.\n    If God but hearken to the right,\n    Thou drinkest to the full this night\n    The cup of man's imaginings.\n\n                      DOLON.\n\n    [_He stands waiting a moment looking out into the dark._\n\nThere lies the way.--But first I must go find\nAt home some body-shelter to my mind;\nThen, forward to the ships of Argolis!\n\n                      LEADER.                                      [vv. 204-223]\n\nWhat other raiment wilt thou need than this?\n\n                      DOLON.\n\nA garb for work, for night; a thieving guise.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\n'Tis good to learn the wisdoms of the wise.\nWhat will thy wrapping be?\n\n                      DOLON.\n\n                               A grey wolf's hide\nShall wrap my body close on either side;\nMy head shall be the mask of gleaming teeth,\nMy arms fit in the forepaws, like a sheath,\nMy thighs in the hinder parts. No Greek shall tell\n'Tis not a wolf that walks, half visible,\nOn four feet by the trenches and around\nThe ship-screen. When it comes to empty ground\nIt stands on two.--That is the plan, my friend!\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nNow Maian Hermes guide thee to thy end\nAnd home safe! Well he loves all counterfeit . . .\nGood work is there; may good luck go with it!\n\n   DOLON (_to himself gazing out toward the Greek camp_).\n\nThere, and then back! . . . And on this belt shall bleed\nOdysseus' head--or why not Diomede?--\nTo prove my truth. Ere dawn can touch the land\nI shall be here, and blood upon my hand.\n                                              [_Exit_ DOLON.\n\n                      CHORUS.                                      [vv. 224-255]\n\n    Thymbraean, Delian, Birth divine,\n    That walkest Lycia's inmost shrine,\n      Come, strong to guard, to guide, to follow,\n        Come, bow in hand and girt with night,\n    To help thy Dardans as of old,\n    When stone by stone thy music rolled--\n      O conquering Strength, O Sire Apollo!--\n        Young Ilion into towers of light.\n\n    Grant that he reach the shipyard, creep\n    Keen-eyed through all that host asleep,\n      Then back to home and hearth, yet living,\n        Where now his father prays alone:\n    Yea, grant that, when the Greeks are slain,\n    Our wolf shall mount with scourge and rein\n      Those coursers of the sea-god's giving,\n        Whom Peleus drove in days foregone.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Alone in those Greek ships to stake\n    His life, for home and country's sake:\n      'Tis wondrous! Few be hearts so true\n    When seas across the bulwark break,\n      And sunlight sickens o'er the crew.\n    Ah, Phrygia still hath hearts of rock!\n    The Phrygian spear flies fast and far!\n    Where shall ye find the fool to mock\n        Our works in war?\n\n    Whom will he stab a-sleeping, whom,\n    The quick grey wolf, the crawling doom?\n      Grant that he slay the Spartan! Nay,\n    Or Agamemnon's head and plume                                  [vv. 256-272]\n      To Helen bear at dawn of day!\n    A lightsome dawn to hear her wail\n    Her brother sworn, her King who came\n      To Ilion with his thousand sail,\n        And swords, and flame!\n\n[_As the song ends_ DOLON _reappears, in the disguise of a wolf. The\n    Guards gather round him, bidding him godspeed as he crawls off in\n    the dark towards the Greek camp. Meantime from the direction of\n    Mount Ida has entered a_ SHEPHERD _who goes to_ HECTOR's _door and\n    calls. The Guards seeing him return to their places._\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\nHo, Master!\n                                [_Enter_ HECTOR _from tent_.\nI would it ofttimes were my luck to share\nAs goodly news with thee as now I bear.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWhat dulness hangs about these shepherds! Block,\nCom'st thou to us with tidings of thy flock\nHere in the field in arms? Who wants thee here?\nThou know'st my house; thou know'st my father's.\n    There\nTell all about thy lucky lambs.--Now go.\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\nDull wits, we shepherds! Aye, 'twas alway so.\nYet still, there is some good news to be told.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 273-288]\n\nA truce there to thy gossip of the fold!\nOur dealings are of war, of sword and spear.\n                                          [_He turns to go._\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\nAye; so were mine. That is what brought me here.\n                                 [HECTOR's _manner changes_.\nA chief comes yonder, leading a great band\nOf spears, with help to thee and all the land.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nFrom whence? How do his name and lineage run?\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\nHe comes from Thrace, the River Strymon's son.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nRhesus! Not Rhesus, here on Trojan soil?\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\nThou hast guessed. That eases me of half my toil.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWhat makes he there towards Ida? All astray\nThus from the plain and the broad waggon-way!\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\nI know not rightly, though one well may guess.\n'Tis hard to land at night, with such a press\nOf spears, on a strange coast, where rumours tell\nOf foes through all the plain-land. We that dwell\nOn Ida, in the rock, Troy's ancient root\nAnd hearth-stone, were well frighted, through the mute             [vv. 289-316]\nAnd wolfish thickets thus to hear him break.\nA great and rushing noise those Thracians make,\nMarching. We, all astonied, ran to drive\nOur sheep to the upmost heights. 'Twas some Argive,\nWe thought, who came to sweep the mountain clear\nAnd waste thy folds; till suddenly our ear\nCaught at their speech, and knew 'twas nothing Greek.\nThen all our terror fled. I ran to seek\nSome scout or pioneer who led the van\nAnd called in Thracian: \"Ho, what child of man\nDoth lead you? From what nation do ye bring\nThis host with aid to Ilion and her king?\"\n  He told me what I sought, and there I stood\nWatching; and saw one gleaming like a God,\nTall in the darkness on a Thracian car.\nA plate of red gold mated, like a bar,\nHis coursers' necks, white, white as fallen snow.\nA carven targe, with golden shapes aglow,\nHung o'er his back. Before each courser's head\nA Gorgon, to the frontlet riveted,\nWith bells set round--like stories that they tell\nOf Pallas' shield--made music terrible.\nThe numbers of that host no pen could write\nNor reckon; 'tis a multitudinous sight,\nLong lines of horsemen, lines of targeteers,\nArchers abundant; and behind them veers\nA wavering horde, light-armed, in Thracian weed.\n  A friend is come to Ilion in her need\n'Gainst whom no Argive, let him fly or stand,\nShall aught avail nor 'scape his conquering hand.\n\n                      LEADER.                                      [vv. 317-331]\n\nLo, when the Gods breathe gently o'er a town,\nAll runs to good, as water-streams run down.\n\n                HECTOR (_bitterly_).\n\nAye, when my spear hath fortune, when God sends\nHis favour, I shall find abundant friends.\nI need them not; who never came of yore\nTo help us, when we rolled to death before\nThe war-swell, and the wind had ripped our sail.\nThen Rhesus taught us Trojans what avail\nHis words are.--He comes early to the feast;\nWhere was he when the hunters met the beast?\nWhere, when we sank beneath the Argive spear?\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nWell may'st thou mock and blame thy friend. Yet here\nHe comes with help for Troy. Accept him thou.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWe are enough, who have held the wall till now.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nMaster, dost think already that our foe\nIs ta'en?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\n             I do. To-morrow's light will show.\n\n                      LEADER.                                      [vv. 332-345]\n\nHave care. Fate often flings a backward cast.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nI hate the help that comes when need is past . . .\nHowbeit, once come, I bid him welcome here\nAs guest--not war-friend; guest to share our cheer.\nThe thanks are lost, he might have won from us.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nMy general, to reject an ally thus\nMust needs make hatred.\n\n                     SHEPHERD.\n\n                           The mere sight of those\nI saw would sure cast fear upon our foes.\n\n    HECTOR (_yielding reluctantly, with a laugh_).\n\nAh, well; thy words are prudent; and (_To_ SHEPHERD) thine eyes\nSee glorious things. With all these panoplies\nOf gold that filled our Shepherd's heart with joy,\nBid Rhesus welcome, as war-friend to Troy.\n\n[_Exit_ SHEPHERD; HECTOR _returns to his tent, amid the joy of the\n    soldiers_.\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n    Now Adrasteia be near and guard\n    Our lips from sin, lest the end be hard!\n  But he cometh, he cometh, the Child of the River!\n    The pride of my heart it shall roll unbarred.\n\n    We craved thy coming; yea, need was strong                     [vv. 346-378]\n    In the Hall of thy lovers, O child of Song;\n  Thy mother the Muse and her fair-bridged River\n    They held thee from us so long, so long!\n\n    By Strymon's torrent alone she sang,\n    And Strymon shivered and coiled and sprang;\n  And her arms went wide to the wild sweet water,\n    And the love of the River around her rang.\n\n    We hail thee, Fruit of the River's seed,\n    Young Zeus of the Dawn, on thy starry steed!\n  O ancient City, O Ida's daughter,\n    Is God the Deliverer found indeed?\n\n    And men shall tell of thee, Ilion mine,\n    Once more a-harping at day's decline,\n  'Mid laughing of lovers and lays and dances\n    And challenge on challenge of circling wine?\n\n    When the Greek is smitten that day shall be,\n    And fled to Argolis over the sea:\n  O mighty of hand, O leader of lances,\n    Smite him, and heaven be good to thee!\n\n    Thou Rider golden and swift and sheer,\n    Achilles falters: appear! appear!\n  The car like flame where the red shield leapeth,\n    The fell white steeds and the burning spear!\n\n    No Greek shall boast he hath seen thy face\n    And danced again in the dancing place;\n  And the land shall laugh for the sheaves she reapeth,\n    Of spoilers dead by a sword from Thrace.\n\n_Enter_ RHESUS _in dazzling white armour, followed by his_         [vv. 379-395]\n    CHARIOTEER _and Attendants. The_ CHARIOTEER _carries\n    his golden shield. The_ CHORUS _break into a shout of\n    \"All Hail!\"_\n\n                      LEADER.\n\n      All hail, great King! A whelp indeed\n        Is born in Thracia's lion fold,\n      Whose leap shall make strong cities bleed.\n        Behold his body girt with gold,\n      And hark the pride of bells along\n        The frontlet of that targe's hold.\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n        A God, O Troy, a God and more!\n      'Tis Ares' self, this issue strong\n      Of Strymon and the Muse of song,\n        Whose breath is fragrant on thy shore!\n\n                _Re-enter_ HECTOR.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nLord Hector, Prince of Ilion, noble son\nOf noble sires, all hail! Long years have run\nSince last we greeted, and 'tis joy this day\nTo see thy fortunes firm and thine array\nCamped at the foe's gate. Here am I to tame\nThat foe for thee, and wrap his ships in flame.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nThou child of Music and the Thracian flood,\nStrymonian Rhesus, truth is alway good\nIn Hector's eyes. I wear no double heart.\n  Long, long ago thou shouldst have borne thy part                 [vv. 396-421]\nIn Ilion's labours, not have left us here,\nFor all thy help, to sink beneath the spear.\nWhy didst thou--not for lack of need made plain!--\nNot come, not send, not think of us again?\nWhat grave ambassadors prayed not before\nThy throne, what herald knelt not at thy door?\nWhat pride of gifts did Troy not send to thee?\nAnd thou, a lord of Barbary even as we,\nThou, brother of our blood, like one at sup\nWho quaffs his fill and flings away the cup,\nHast flung to the Greeks my city! Yet, long since,\n'Twas I that found thee but a little prince\nAnd made thee mighty, I and this right hand;\nWhen round Pangaion and the Paion's land,\nFront against front, I burst upon the brood\nOf Thrace and broke their targes, and subdued\nTheir power to thine. The grace whereof, not small,\nThou hast spurned, and when thy kinsmen, drowning, call,\nComest too late. Thou! Others there have been\nThese long years, not by nature of our kin . . .\nSome under yon rough barrows thou canst see\nLie buried; they were true to Troy and me;\nAnd others, yet here in the shielded line\nOr mid the chariots, parching in the shine\nOf noonday, starving in the winds that bite\nThrough Ilion's winter, still endure and fight\nOn at my side. 'Twas not their way, to lie\nOn a soft couch and, while the cups go by,\nPledge my good health, like thee, in Thracian wine.\n  I speak as a free man. With thee and thine\nHector is wroth, and tells thee to thy face.\n\n                      RHESUS.                                      [vv. 422-448]\n\nThy way is mine, friend. Straight I run my race\nIn word and deed, and bear no double tongue.\n  I tell thee, more than thine my heart was wrung,\nYea, angered past all durance, thus to stay\nBack from thy battles. 'Twas a folk that lay\nHard on my borders, Scythians of the north;\nJust when my host for Troy had started forth,\nThey fell upon our homes. I had reached the coast\nOf the Friendless Sea and purposed to have crossed\nMy Thracians there. We turned; and all that plain\nIs trampled in a mire of Scythian slain\nPloughed by our spears, and blood of Thrace withal\nNot stinted. This it was that drowned thy call\nFor help and held me back from Ilion's need.\nI broke their power; the princes of their breed\nI took to hostage, made their elders swear\nTo bring my house due tribute, year by year,\nThen, never lagging, crossed the Pontus mouth,\nMarched by long stages through Bithynia south\nAnd here am come . . . not drunken with the feast,\nAs thou wouldst have me be, not lulled to rest\nIn golden chambers. In this harness hard\nI have borne my nights of winter storm that starred\nThe Euxine into ice and scared the strong\nPaionians.\n            Long I have been, but not too long\nTo save thee yet. Friend, this is the tenth year\nThou labourest on unceasing, with no clear\nVantage; day creeps by day, and Ares throws\nThe same red dice for thee and for thy foes.\nNow, hear my vow. Before one day's eclipse\nI swear to break their wall, to burn their ships\nAnd slay their princes. On the second day                          [vv. 449-473]\nI leave this soil and take my homeward way,\nThy pains relieved. No Trojan of the land\nNeed move, nor turn the buckler in his hand.\nAlone my late-comers will turn the tide\nAnd smite your Greeks, for all their bitter pride.\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n[_The Trojan soldiers, who have been listening with delight, here break\n    out in irrepressible applause._\n\n    All hail!\n    Sweet words and faithful heart!\n    Only may Zeus avert\nFrom those proud lips the Wrath that none may bear!\n    Never a galleon bore,\n    Now, nor in days of yore,\nPrince like to thee, so valiant and so fair.\n    How shall Achilles, how\n    Shall Ajax bear him now,\nOr face thy lance? May I but stand that day\n    Watching to see him reel\n    Broken beneath thy steel,\nAnd once in blood his many murders pay!\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nYea, more atonement thou shalt take from me\nFor this slow help.--May Adrasteia see\nMy heart and pardon!--When we two have set\nTroy free from these who compass her with hate,\nSoon as the Gods have had their first-fruits, I\nWith thee will sail--so help me Zeus on high!--\nAnd sack all Hellas with the sword, till these\nDoers of deeds shall know what suffering is.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 474-491]\n\nBy heaven, could I once see this peril rolled\nPast us, and live in Ilion as of old,\nUntrembling, I would thank my gods! To seek\nArgos and sack the cities of the Greek--\n'Twere not such light work as thou fanciest.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nThese Greeks that face thee, are they not their best?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nWe seek not better. These do all we need.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nWhen these are beaten, then, we have done the deed.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nLose not thy path watching a distant view.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nThou seem'st content to suffer, not to do?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nI have a kingdom large by mine own right. . . .\n\n  What station will best please thee in this fight\nTo ground the targe and stablish thine array?\nRight, left, or midmost in the allies? Say.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\n'Twould please me best to fight these Greeks alone.\nYet, if 'twould irk thine honour not to have thrown\nOne firebrand on the ships with me, why, then\nSet us to face Achilles and his men.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 492-509]\n\nAchilles? Nay, his spear ye cannot meet.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nHow so? Fame said he sailed here with the fleet.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nHe sailed, and he is here. But some despite\n'Gainst the great King now keeps him from the fight.\n\n                      RHESUS.\n\nWho next to him hath honour in their host?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nNext, to my seeming, Ajax hath the most,\nOr Diomede.--But Odysseus is a tough\nAnd subtle fox, and brave; aye, brave enough.\nNo man of them hath harmed us more than he.\nHe climbed here to Athena's sanctuary\nOne night, and stole her image clean away\nTo the Argive ships. Yes, and another day,\nGuised as a wandering priest, in rags, he came\nAnd walked straight through the Gates, made loud acclaim\nOf curses on the Greek, spied out alone\nAll that he sought in Ilion, and was gone--\nGone, and the watch and helpers of the Gate\nDead! And in every ambush they have set\nBy the old Altar, close to Troy, we know\nHe sits--a murderous reptile of a foe!\n\n                      RHESUS.                                      [vv. 510-529]\n\nNo brave man seeks so dastardly to harm\nHis battle-foes; he meets them arm to arm.\nThis Greek of thine, this sitter like a thief\nIn ambush, I will make of him my chief\nCare. I will take him living, drive a straight\nStake through him, and so star him at the Gate\nTo feed your wide-winged vultures. 'Tis the death\nMost meet for a lewd thief, who pillageth\nGod's sanctuary, or so we hold in Thrace.\n\n           HECTOR (_making no answer_).\n\nSeek first some sleep. There still remains a space\nOf darkness.--I will show the spot that best\nMay suit you, somewhat sundered from the rest.\nShould need arise, the password of the night\nIs Phoebus: see your Thracians have it right.\n                    [_Turning to the Guards before he goes._\nAdvance beyond your stations, men, at some\nDistance, and stay on watch till Dolon come\nWith word of the Argives' counsel. If his vow\nProsper, he should be nearing us by now.\n\n[_Exeunt_ HECTOR _and_ RHESUS _and Attendants. The Guards, who\n    have been below, come forward sleepily from the camp fire,\n    and sit watching by_ HECTOR's _tent_.\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n    Say, whose is the watch? Who exchanges\n      With us? The first planets to rise\n    Are setting; the Pleiades seven                                [vv. 530-545]\n    Move low on the margin of heaven,\n    And the Eagle is risen and ranges\n        The mid-vault of the skies.\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n    No sleeping yet! Up from your couches\n      And watch on, the sluggards ye are!\n    The moon-maiden's lamp is yet burning.\n\n                   THIRD GUARD.\n\n    Oh, the morning is near us, the morning!\n    Even now his fore-runner approaches,\n        Yon dim-shining star.\n\n             DIVERS GUARDS (_talking_).\n\n    Who drew the first night-watch?\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n                                      'Twas one\n    Koroibos, called the Mygdon's Son.\n\n                    THE GUARD.\n\n    And after?\n\n                    THE OTHER.\n\n                 The Mount Taurus men\n    Had second watch: from them again\n    The Mysians took it. We came then.\n\n                     A GUARD.\n\n    'Tis surely time. Who will go tell\n    The fifth watch? 'Tis the Lycians' spell\n    By now; 'twas thus the portions fell.\n\n                     ANOTHER.                                      [vv. 546-561]\n\n    Nay, hearken! Again she is crying\n      Where death-laden Simois falls,\n    Of the face of dead Itys that stunned her,\n    Of grief grown to music and wonder:\n    Most changeful and old and undying\n      The nightingale calls.\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n    And on Ida the shepherds are waking\n      Their flocks for the upland. I hear\n    The skirl of a pipe very distant.\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n    And sleep, it falls slow and insistent.\n    'Tis perilous sweet when the breaking\n           Of dawn is so near.\n\n             DIVERS GUARDS (_talking_).\n\n    Why have we still no word nor sign\n    Of that scout in the Argive line?\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n    I know not; he is long delayed.\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n    God send he trip not on the blade\n    Of some Greek in an ambuscade!\n\n                     ANOTHER.\n\n    It may be. I am half afraid.\n\n                      LEADER.                                      [vv. 562-572]\n\n    Our time is past! Up, men, and tell\n    The fifth watch. 'Tis the Lycians' spell\n    Now, as the portions fairly fell.\n\n[_The Guards pass out to waken the Lycians. The stage is empty\n    and dark except for the firelight, when a whisper is heard\n    at the back. Presently enter_ ODYSSEUS _and_ DIOMEDE _in\n    dull leather armour_, DIOMEDE _carrying at his belt_ DOLON's\n    _wolf-skin and mask_.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nDiomede, hist!--A little sound of arms\nClanking. . . or am I full of void alarms?\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nNo. 'Tis some horse tied to the chariot rail\nThat clanks his chain.--My heart began to fail\nA moment, till I heard the horse's champ.\n\n            [_They steal on further, keeping in the shadow._\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nMind--in that shade--the watchers of the camp.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nI keep in shadow, but I am staring hard.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nThou know'st the watchword, if we stir some guard?\n\n                     DIOMEDE.                                      [vv. 573-584]\n\nPhoebus. 'Twas the last sign that Dolon gave.\n\n[_They creep forward in silence to the entrance of_ HECTOR's\n    _tent_.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nNow, forward!\n\n      [_They dash into the tent, swords drawn; then return._\n\n                God! All empty as the grave!\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nYet Dolon told us Hector's couch was made\nJust here. For none but him I drew this blade.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nWhat means it? To some ambush is he gone?\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nMaybe, to work some craft on us at dawn.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nHe is hot with courage when he is winning, hot.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nWhat must we do, Odysseus?--He was not\nLaid where we thought him, and our hopes are lost.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nBack to our own ship-rampart at all cost!\nThe God who gave him victory saves him still.\nWe cannot force Fortune against her will.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.                                      [vv. 585-598]\n\nCould we not find Aeneas? Or the bed\nOf Paris the accurst, and have his head?\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nGo by night searching through these lines of men\nFor chiefs to kill? 'Twere death and death again.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nBut to go empty back--what shame 'twill be!--\nAnd not one blow struck home at the enemy!\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nHow not one blow? Did we not baulk and kill\nDolon, their spy, and bear his tokens still?\nDost think the whole camp should be thine to quell?\n\n[DIOMEDE _takes_ DOLON's _wolf-mask off his belt and hangs\n    it in_ HECTOR's _tent, then turns_.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nGood. Now for home! And may the end be well!\n\n[_As they turn there appears at the back a luminous and\n    gigantic shape, the Goddess_ ATHENA.\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\nWhat make ye, from these sleepers thus to part\nDesponding and with sorrow-wounded heart\nIf Hector be not granted you to slay\nNor Paris? Little know ye what great stay\nOf help is found for Troy. This very night                         [vv. 599-623]\nRhesus is come; who, if he see the light\nOf morning, not Achilles nor the rack\nOf Ajax' spear hath power to hold him back,\nEre wall and gate be shattered and inside\nYour camp a spear-swept causeway builded wide\nTo where beached galleys flame above the dead.\nHim slay, and all is won. Let Hector's head\nSleep where it lies and draw unvexed breath;\nAnother's work, not thine, is Hector's death.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nMost high Athena, well I know the sound\nOf that immortal voice. 'Tis ever found\nMy helper in great perils.--Where doth lie\nRhesus, mid all this host of Barbary?\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\nFull near he lies, not mingled with the host\nOf Troy, but here beyond the lines--a post\nOf quiet till the dawn, that Hector found.\nAnd near him, by his Thracian chariot bound,\nTwo snow-white coursers gleam against the wan\nMoon, like the white wing of a river swan.\nTheir master slain, take these to thine own hearth,\nA wondrous spoil; there hides not upon earth\nA chariot-team of war so swift and fair.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nSay, Diomede, wilt make the men thy share,\nOr catch the steeds and leave the fight to me?\n\n                     DIOMEDE.                                      [vv. 624-638]\n\nI take the killing, thou the stablery:\nIt needs keen wit and a neat hand. The post\nA man should take is where he helpeth most.\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\nBehold, 'tis Paris, hasting there toward\nThis tent. Methinks he knoweth from the guard\nSome noise of prowling Argives hither blown.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nComes he alone or with his guards?\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\n                                       Alone;\nToward Hector's quarters, as I deem, he plies\nHis message. He hath heard some tale of spies.\n\n                     DIOMEDE.\n\nThen he shall be the first dead Trojan!\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\n                                           No;\nBeyond the ordained end thou canst not go.\nFate hath not willed that Paris by thy deed\nShall die; it is another who must bleed\nTo-night. Therefore be swift!\n                      [_Exeunt_ ODYSSEUS _and_ DIOMEDE.\n                                For me, my guise\nShall melt and change in Alexander's eyes,\nYea, till he dream 'tis Cypris, his delight\nAnd help in need, that meets him in the night,\nAnd soft shall be my words to him I hate.                          [vv. 639-658]\nSo speak I; but on whom my spell is set\nHe hears not, sees not, though so near I stand.\n                  [_She becomes invisible where she stands._\n\n                  _Enter_ PARIS.\n\n                      PARIS.\n\nHo, Hector! Brother! General of the land!\nSleepest thou still? We need thy waking sight.\nOur guards have marked some prowler of the night,\nWe know not if a mere thief or a spy.\n\n           [ATHENA _becomes visible again, but seems changed\n                and her voice softer_.\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\nHave comfort thou! Doth not the Cyprian's eye\nMark all thy peril and keep watch above\nThy battles? How shall I forget the love\nI owe thee, and thy faithful offices?\nTo crown this day and all its victories,\nLo, I have guided here to Troy a strong\nHelper, the scion of the Muse of song\nAnd Strymon's flood, the crowned stream of Thrace.\n\n        PARIS (_standing like one in a dream_).\n\nIndeed thy love is steadfast, and thy grace\nBounteous to Troy and me. Thou art the joy\nAnd jewel of my days, which I to Troy\nHave brought, and made thee hers.--O Cyprian,\nI heard, not clearly,--'twas some talk that ran\nAmong the pickets--spies had passed some spot\nClose by the camp. The men who saw them not\nTalk much, and they who saw, or might have seen,                   [vv. 659-676]\nCan give no sign nor token. It had been\nMy purpose to find Hector where he lay.\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\nFear nothing. All is well in Troy's array.\nHector is gone to help those Thracians sleep.\n\n                      PARIS.\n\nThy word doth rule me, Goddess. Yea, so deep\nMy trust is, that all thought of fear is lost\nIn comfort, and I turn me to my post.\n\n                      ATHENA.\n\nGo. And remember that thy fortunes still\nAre watched by me, and they who do my will\nProsper in all their ways. Aye, thou shalt prove\nEre long, if I can care for those I love.\n                      [_Exit_ PARIS. _She raises her voice._\nBack, back, ye twain! Are ye in love with death?\nLaertes' son, thy sword into the sheath!\nOur golden Thracian gaspeth in his blood;\nThe steeds are ours; the foe hath understood\nAnd crowds against you. Haste ye! haste to fly,--\nEre yet the lightning falleth, and ye die!\n\n      [ATHENA _vanishes; a noise of tumult is heard_.\n\n_Enter a crowd of Thracians running in confusion, in the midst\n    of them_ ODYSSEUS _and_ DIOMEDE.\n\n            VOICES (_amid the tumult_).\n\nHa! Ha!--At them! At them! After them! Down with them!--Where are they?\n\n                     CAPTAIN.                                      [vv. 677-685]\n\nWho is that fellow? Look! That yonder!\n\n                      A MAN.\n\n                  Rascal thieves, the sort that crawl\nAnd vex an army in the dark!\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\n           Ho, this way! Follow! This way all!\n\n               [_They pursue_ ODYSSEUS _and_ DIOMEDE; _catch\n                   them and bring them back_.\n\n                      A MAN.\n\n    I have them! I have caught them!\n\n             CAPTAIN (_to_ ODYSSEUS).\n\nWhence comest thou? What art thou? Say; what captain and what company?\n\n             ODYSSEUS (_indignantly_).\n\n'Tis not for thee to know. This day thou diest for thy knavery!\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\nStop! Give the watchword quick, before I have thy body on my pike.\n\n         ODYSSEUS (_in a tone of authority_).\n\nHalt every man and have no fear!\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\n            Come, gather round. Be quick to strike.\n\n              ODYSSEUS (_to_ CAPTAIN).                             [vv. 686-689]\n\n'Twas thou that killed King Rhesus!\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\n        No: 'tis I that kill the man that killed . . .\n\n        [_Flies at_ ODYSSEUS, _but other men hold him back_.\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\nHold back all!\n\n                      VOICES.\n\n                 No more holding back!\n\n          ODYSSEUS (_as they attack him_).\n\n                    What, strike an ally in the field?\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\nThen give the watchword!\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\n                            Phoebus.\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\n      Right. Ho, every man hold back his spear!--\nThen know'st thou where the men are gone?\n\n                     ODYSSEUS.\n\n           We saw them running, somewhere here.\n\n[_He makes off into the darkness._ DIOMEDE _follows, and some\n    Thracians_.\n\n                     CAPTAIN.                                      [vv. 690-703]\n\nOff every one upon their track!\n\n                      A MAN.\n\n                        Or should we rouse the army?\n\n                     CAPTAIN.\n\n                                                 No;\nTo stir the allies in the night and make more panic!\n     Let us go.\n\n[_The Thracians go off in pursuit. Meantime the original Guards who\n    form the Chorus have hastened back. The two Greeks are presently\n    seen crossing at the back in a different direction._\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n       Who was the man that passed?\n         Who, that, so madly bold.\n       Even as I held him fast,\n         Laughed, and I loosed my hold?\n       Where shall I find him now?\n         What shall I deem of him,\n       To steal thro' the guards a-row,\n         Quaking not, eye nor limb,\n         On thro' the starlight dim?\n       Is he of Thessaly,\n       Born by the Locrian sea,\nOr harvester of some starved island's corn?\n       What man hath seen his face?\n       What was his name or race,\nWhat the high God by whom his sires have sworn?\n\n              DIVERS GUARDS (_talking_).                           [vv. 704-724]\n\nThis night must be Odysseus' work, or whose?--\nOdysseus? Aye, to judge by ancient use.--\nOdysseus surely!--That is thy belief?--\n  What else? It seems he hath no fear\n  Of such as we!--Whom praise ye there?\n  Whose prowess? Say!--Odysseus.--Nay,\nPraise not the secret stabbing of a thief!\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n         He came once, of old,\n           Up thro' the city throng,\n         Foam on his lips, a-cold,\n           Huddled in rags that hung\n         Covering just the sword\n           Hid in his mantle's pleat;\n         His face grimed and scored,\n           A priest of wandering feet,\n           Who begged his bread in the street.\n         Many and evil things\n         He cast on the brother kings\n  Like one long hurt, who nurseth anger sore;\n         Would that a curse, yea, would\n         The uttermost wrath of God\n  Had held those feet from walking Ilion's shore!\n\n              DIVERS GUARDS (_talking_).\n\nOdysseus or another, 'tis the guard\nWill weep for this. Aye, Hector will be hard.--\nWhat will he say?--He will suspect.--Suspect?\n    What evil? What should make you fear?--                        [vv. 725-737]\n    'Twas we that left a passage clear.--\n    A passage?--Yea, for these men's way,\nWho came by night into the lines unchecked.\n\n[_A sound of moaning outside in the darkness, which has been\n    heard during the last few lines, now grows into articulate\n    words._\n\n                      VOICE.\n\n    Woe, woe!\n    The burden of the wrath of fate!\n\n                      GUARDS.\n\n    Ha, listen! Wait.\n    Crouch on the ground; it may be yet\n    Our man is drawing to the net.\n\n                      VOICE.\n\n    Woe, woe!\n    The burden of the hills of Thrace!\n\n                      LEADER.\n\n    An ally? None of Hellene race.\n\n                      VOICE.\n\n    Woe, woe!\n    Yea, woe to me and woe to thee,\n    My master! Once to set thine eye\n    On Ilion the accurst, and die!\n\n              LEADER (_calling aloud_).\n\nHo there! What ally passes? The dim night\nBlurreth mine eyes; I cannot see thee right.\n\n                      VOICE.                                       [vv. 738-756]\n\n    Ho, some one of the Trojan name!\n    Where sleeps your king beneath his shield,\n    Hector? What marshal of the field\n    Will hear our tale . . . the men who came\n    And struck us and were gone; and we,\n    We woke and there was nought to see,\n        But our own misery.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nI cannot hear him right; it sounds as if\nThe Thracians were surprised or in some grief.\n\n[_There enters a wounded man, walking with difficulty; he is the\n    Thracian Charioteer who came with_ RHESUS.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\n    The army lost and the king slain,\n    Stabbed in the dark! Ah, pain! pain!\n    This deep raw wound . . . Oh, let me die\n    By thy side, Master, by thy side!\n    In shame together let us lie\n    Who came to save, and failed and died.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nThis needs no surmise: 'tis disaster plain\nThat comes. He speaketh of some ally slain.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nDisaster, yea: and with disaster shame,\nWhich lights Disaster to a twofold flame\nOf evil. For to die in soldier's wise,                             [vv. 757-787]\nSince die we needs must . . . though the man who dies\nHath pain . . . to all his house 'tis praise and pride;\nBut we, like laggards and like fools we died!\n  When Hector's hand had showed us where to rest\nAnd told the watchword, down we lay, oppressed\nWith weariness of that long march, and slept\nJust as we fell. No further watch was kept,\nOur arms not laid beside us; by the horse\nNo yoke nor harness ordered. Hector's force\nHad victory, so my master heard, and lay\nSecure, just waiting for the dawn of day\nTo attack. So thought we all, and our lines broke\nAnd slept. After a little time I woke,\nThinking about my horses, that the morn\nMust see them yoked for war. I found the corn\nAnd gave them plenteously. Then in the deep\nShadow I saw two men who seemed to creep\nClose by our line, but swiftly, as I stirred,\nCrouched and were seeking to make off unheard.\nI shouted then, and bade them keep away:\nTwo thieves, I thought, from the great host that lay\nRound us. They never answered, and, for me,\nI said no more but turned and presently\nWas sleeping. In my sleep there came a dream.\nI seemed to see the horses--mine own team\nI had trained long since and drove at Rhesus' side--\nBut wolves were on their backs, wolves, couched astride,\nWho drove and scourged; I saw the horses rear\nAnd stagger with wide nostrils, stiff with fear,\nAnd, starting up to drive the beasts away,\nI woke.--A terror of great darkness lay                            [vv. 788-809]\nAbout me, but I lifted up my head\nAnd listened. There was moaning, like the dead\nThat moan at night, and over me there flowed,\nSo soft, so warm--it was my master's blood,\nWho writhed beside me, dying! With a bound\nI sprang up, empty-handed, groping round\nFor spear or sword, when, lo, a young strong man\nWas close to me and slashed, and the sword ran\nDeep through my flank. I felt its passage well,\nSo deep, so wide, so spreading . . . then I fell.\nAnd they, they got the bridles in their hand\nAnd fled. . . . Ah! Ah! This pain. I cannot stand.\n      [_The Guards catch him as he reels, and lay him on\n           the ground._\nI know, I saw, thus much. But why or how\nThose dead men went to death I cannot know,\nNor by whose work. But this I say; God send\n'Tis not foul wrong wrought on us by a friend.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nGood charioteer of that ill-fortuned king,\nSuspect us not. 'Tis Greeks have done this thing.\nBut yonder Hector comes. He hath been shown\nThe foul deed, and thy sorrows are his own.\n\n    _Enter_ HECTOR _in wrath, with a band of Guards_.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nYe workers of amazement! Have your eyes\nNo sight? Ye watch and let these Argive spies\nPass--and our friends are butchered in their sleep--               [vv. 810-834]\nAnd then pass back unwounded, laughing deep\nAmid the galleys at the news they bring\nOf Trojan sluggards and the fool their king?\nGreat God, ye never baulked them as they came,\nNor smote them as they went!\n                     [_His eye falls on the_ CAPTAIN.\n                             Who bears the blame\nOf this but thou? Thou wast the watcher set\nTo guard this host till morn. I tell thee yet\nFor this deed--I have sworn by Zeus our Lord!--\nThe scourge of torment or the headsman's sword\nAwaits thee. Else, be Hector in your thought\nWrit down a babbler and a man of nought.\n\n       LEADER (_grovelling before_ HECTOR).\n\n  Woe, woe! It was for thee, only for thee,\n  I must have gone, O Help and Majesty,\nThat time with message that the fires were burning.\n  Mine eye was keen; I swear by Simois river,\n  It never drooped nor slumbered, never, never,\n      From eve till morning!\n  My master, verily, I am innocent utterly,\nBuild not such wrath against me, Lord, nor harden\n  Thy heart; let Time be judge; and if in deed\n  Or word I have offended, let me bleed!\nBury me here alive! I ask no pardon.\n\n[HECTOR _is standing over him ready to strike when the_\n    CHARIOTEER _speaks_.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nWhy threaten them? Art thou a Greek to blind\nMy barbarous wit so nimbly, in a wind\nOf words? This work was thine. And no man's head                   [vv. 835-861]\nIs asked by us, the wounded and the dead,\nSave thine. It needs more play, and better feigned,\nTo hide from me that thou hast slain thy friend\nBy craft, to steal his horses.--That is why\nHe stabs his friends. He prays them earnestly,\nPrays them to come; they came and they are dead.\nA cleaner man was Paris, when he fled\nWith his host's wife. He was no murderer.\n  Profess not thou that any Greek was there\nTo fall on us. What Greek could pass the screen\nOf Trojan posts in front of us, unseen?\nThyself was stationed there, and all thy men.\nWhat man of yours was slain or wounded when\nYour Greek spies came? Not one; 'tis we, behind,\nAre wounded, and some worse than wounded, blind\nForever to the sunlight. When we seek\nOur vengeance, we shall go not to the Greek.\nWhat stranger in that darkness could have trod\nStraight to where Rhesus lay--unless some God\nPointed his path? They knew not, whispered not,\nRhesus had ever come. . . . 'Tis all a plot.\n\n       HECTOR (_steadied and courteous again_).\n\nGood allies I have had since first the Greek\nSet foot in Troy, and never heard them speak\nComplaint of Hector. Thou wilt be the first.\nI have not, by God's mercy, such a thirst\nFor horses as to murder for their sake.\n                                 [_He turns to his own men._\nOdysseus! Yet again Odysseus! Take\nAll the Greek armies, is there one but he\nCould have devised, or dared, this devilry?                        [vv. 862-876]\nI fear him; yea, fear in mine own despite,\nLest Dolon may have crossed him in the night\nAnd perished; 'tis so long he cometh not.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nI know not who Odysseus is, nor what.\nI know it was no Greek that wounded us.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nTo think thus pleasures thee? Well, have it thus.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nHome, home! To die at home and rest my head!\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nNay, die not, friend. We have enough of dead.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nHow can I live? Lost, and my master slain.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nMy house will shelter thee and heal thy pain.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nThy house? Will murderers' nursing give me peace?\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nStill the same tale! This man will never cease.\n\n                     THRACIAN.\n\nMy curse rest--not on Hector, but on those\nWho stabbed us, as thou say'st.--Ah, Justice knows!\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 877-891]\n\nThere, lift him.--Bear him to my house. Take pains,\nIf care can do it, that the man complains\nNo more of Troy.--Ye others, bear withal\nTo Priam and the Elders of the Wall\nMy charge, that, where the cart-road from the plain\nBranches, they make due burial for our slain.\n\n[_One party of Guards lifts carefully the wounded_ THRACIAN\n    _and goes off bearing him: another departs with the message\n    to Troy_.\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n      Back from the heights of happiness,\n      Back, back, to labour and distress\n      Some god that is not ours doth lead\n      Troy and her sons; He sows the seed,\n          Who knows the reaping?\n\n[_In the air at the back there appears a Vision of the_ MUSE\n    _holding the body of her dead son_ RHESUS.\n\n            Ah! Ah!\n      My king, what cometh? There appears\n      Some Spirit, like a mist of tears;\n      And in her arms a man lieth,\n      So young, so wearied unto death;\n      To see such vision presageth\n          Wrath and great weeping.\n\n            [_The Guards hide their heads in their mantles._\n\n                       MUSE.\n\nNay, look your fill, ye Trojans. It is I,\nThe many-sistered Muse, of worship high\nIn wise men's hearts, who come to mourn mine own                   [vv. 892-914]\nMost pitifully loved, most injured, son,\nFor whose shed blood Odysseus yet shall pay\nVengeance, who crawled and stabbed him where he lay.\n\n  With a dirge of the Thracian mountains,\n      I mourn for thee, O my son.\nFor a mother's weeping, for a galley's launching, for\n      the way to Troy;\nA sad going, and watched by spirits of evil.\nHis mother chid him to stay, but he rose and went.\nHis father besought him to stay, but he went in\n      anger.\n    Ah, woe is me for thee, thou dear face,\n        My beloved and my son!\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nGoddess, if tears for such as thee may run\nIn our low eyes, I weep for thy dead son.\n\n                       MUSE.\n\n  I say to thee: Curse Odysseus,\n      And cursed be Diomede!\nFor they made me childless, and forlorn for ever, of\n      the flower of sons.\nYea, curse Helen, who left the houses of Hellas.\nShe knew her lover, she feared not the ships and sea.\nShe called thee, called thee, to die for the sake of Paris,\n  Beloved, and a thousand cities\n      She made empty of good men.\nO conquered Thamyris, is this thy bane                             [vv. 915-941]\nReturned from death to pierce my heart again?\nThy pride it was, and bitter challenge cast\n'Gainst all the Muses, did my flesh abase\nTo bearing of this Child, what time I passed\nThrough the deep stream and looked on Strymon's face,\nAnd felt his great arms clasp me, when to old\nPangaion and the earth of hoarded gold\nWe Sisters came with lutes and psalteries,\nProvoked to meet in bitter strife of song\nThat mountain wizard, and made dark the eyes\nOf Thamyris, who wrought sweet music wrong.\nI bore thee, Child; and then, in shame before\nMy sisterhood, my dear virginity,\nI stood again upon thy Father's shore\nAnd cast thee to the deeps of him; and he\nReceived and to no mortal nursing gave\nHis child, but to the Maidens of the Wave.\nAnd well they nursed thee, and a king thou wast\nAnd first of Thrace in war; yea, far and near\nThrough thine own hills thy bloody chariot passed,\nThy battered helm flashed, and I had no fear;\nOnly to Troy I charged thee not to go:\nI knew the fated end: but Hector's cry,\nBorne overseas by embassies of woe,\nCalled thee to battle for thy friends and die.\n\nAnd thou, Athena--nothing was the deed\nOdysseus wrought this night nor Diomede--\n'Tis thine, all thine; dream not thy cruel hand\nIs hid from me! Yet ever on thy land\nThe Muse hath smiled; we gave it praise above\nAll cities, yea, fulfilled it with our love.                       [vv. 942-963]\nThe light of thy great Mysteries was shed\nBy Orpheus, very cousin of this dead\nWhom thou hast slain; and thine high citizen\nMusaeus, wisest of the tribes of men,\nWe and Apollo guided all his way:\nFor which long love behold the gift ye pay!\nI wreathe him in my arms; I wail his wrong\nAlone, and ask no other mourner's song.\n                           [_She weeps over_ RHESUS.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nHector, thou hearest. We were guiltless here,\nAnd falsely spake that Thracian charioteer.\n\n                      HECTOR.\n\nAlways I knew it. Had we any need\nOf seers to tell this was Odysseus' deed?\n  For me, what could I else, when I beheld\nThe hosts of Argos camped upon this field,\nWhat but with prayers and heralds bid my friend\nCome forth and fight for Ilion ere the end?\nHe owed me that.--Yet, now my friend is slain,\nHis sorrow is my sorrow. On this plain\nI will uplift a wondrous sepulchre,\nAnd burn about it gifts beyond compare\nOf robes and frankincense. To Troy's relief\nHe came in love and parteth in great grief.\n\n                       MUSE.\n\nMy son shall not be laid in any grave\nOf darkness; thus much guerdon will I crave\nOf Death's eternal bride, the heavenly-born                        [vv. 964-985]\nMaid of Demeter, Life of fruits and corn,\nTo set this one soul free. She owes me yet,\nFor Orpheus widowed, an abiding debt.\n  To me he still must be--that know I well--\nAs one in death, who sees not. Where I dwell\nHe must not come, nor see his mother's face.\nAlone for ever, in a caverned place\nOf silver-veined earth, hid from men's sight,\nA Man yet Spirit, he shall live in light:\nAs under far Pangaion Orpheus lies,\nPriest of great light and worshipped of the wise.\n  Howbeit an easier anguish even to me\nFalls than to Thetis in her azure sea;\nFor her son too shall die; and sorrowing,\nFirst on the hills our band for thee shall sing,\nThen for Achilles by the weeping wave.\nPallas could murder thee, but shall not save\nThy foe; too swift Apollo's bolt shall fly.\n  O fleshly loves of sad mortality,\nO bitter motherhood of these that die,\nShe that hath wisdom will endure her doom,\nThe days of emptiness, the fruitless womb;\nNot love, not bear love's children to the tomb.\n\n         [_The_ VISION _rises through the air and vanishes_.\n\n                      LEADER.\n\nThe dead man sleepeth in his mother's care;\nBut we who battle still--behold, the glare\nOf dawn that rises. Doth thy purpose hold,\nHector, our arms are ready as of old.\n\n                      HECTOR.                                      [vv. 986-996]\n\nMarch on; and bid the allies with all speed\nBe armed, bind fast the yoke upon the steed,\nThen wait with torches burning, till we sound\nThe Tuscan trump.--This day we shall confound,\nGod tells me, their Greek phalanx, break their high\nRampart and fire the galleys where they lie.\n                                    [_Pointing to the dawn._\nYon first red arrow of the Sun, that brings\nThe dawn to Troy, hath freedom on his wings.\n\n_During the following lines_ HECTOR _goes to his tent to get\n    his shield, and as he enters sees_ DOLON's _bloody wolf-skin\n    hanging. He takes it, looks at it, and throws it down without\n    a word. Then he puts on his helmet, takes his shield and spear,\n    and follows the Guards as they march off._\n\n                      CHORUS.\n\n    The Chief hath spoken: let his will\n      Be law, ye Trojans.--Raise the cry\n    To Arms! To Arms! and down the line\n    Of allies pass the battle-sign.\n    The God of Ilion liveth still;\n      And men may conquer ere they die.\n                                                  [_Exeunt._\n\n\n\n\n                                  NOTES\n\n\nThe play presupposes a knowledge of the Iliad in some form, if not\nexactly in the form which it now wears. We are not only supposed to know\nthat Hector, son of Priam, leads the Trojans and their allies (\"Trojans,\nand Lycians, and Dardans bold\": in tragedy they are also called\nPhrygians) in defence against the Greeks--Argives, Achaeans,\nHellenes--under Agamemnon, king of men, and his brother Menelaues,\nhusband of Helen. This sort of supposition is usual in all Greek\ntragedy. It merely means that the poet takes for granted the main\noutlines of the heroic saga. But in this play we are also supposed to\ntake up the story as it stands at the opening of the Doloneia or Tenth\nBook of the Iliad. Indeed one might almost say that the _Rhesus_ is\nsimply the Doloneia turned into drama and set in the Trojan camp. The\nonly other play that is taken straight from Homer is the Satyr-play,\n_Cyclops_, which tells the story of Odyssey IX., but it is likely enough\nthat if we possessed more of the earlier epic literature we should find\nmany other plays closely hugging their traditional sources.--The Trojans\nare camping out on the field of battle, close to the Greek lines.\nHector, always ready for danger, seems to have his tent or log-hut set\nup quite in the van, just behind the outposts. In Il. X. 415 ff. he is\nholding counsel with the other chieftains \"away from the throng\"; the\nallies are taking their sleep and trusting to the Trojans, who keep\nawake in groups round the camp fires; no watchword is mentioned.\n\nP. 5, l. 30, The priest.]--He would be needed to make the sacrifice\nbefore battle.\n\nP. 5, l. 36, The lash of trembling Pan.]--_i.e._, a panic.\n\nP. 5, l. 41, Great beacons in the Argive line.]--In the Iliad it is the\nTrojan watch-fires that are specially mentioned, especially VIII.\n553-end. There is no great disturbance in the Greek camp in the\nDoloneia; there is a gathering of the principal chiefs, a visit to the\nGuards, and the despatch of the two spies, but no general tumult such as\nthere is in Book II. One cannot help wondering whether our playwright\nfound in his version of the Doloneia a description of fires in the Greek\ncamp, such as our Eighth Book has of those in the Trojan camp. The\nobject might be merely protection against a night attack, or it might be\na wish to fly, as Hector thinks. If so, presumably the Assembly changed\nits mind--much as it does in our Book II.--and determined to send spies.\n\nP. 5, l. 43 ff., The shipyard timbers.]--The Greeks had their ships\ndrawn up on the beach and protected by some sort of wooden \"shipyard\";\nthen came the camp; then, outside the whole, a trench and a wall. The\nfires were in the camp.\n\nP. 8, l. 105, Brother! I would thy wit were like thy spear!]--In Homer\nHector is impulsive and over-daring, but still good in counsel. On the\nstage every quality that is characteristic is apt to be overemphasized,\nall that is not characteristic neglected. Hence on the Attic stage\nOdysseus is more crafty, Ajax and Diomedes more blunt, Menelaus more\nunwarlike and more uxorious than in Homer.\n\nThis speech of Aeneas, though not inapposite, is rather didactic--a\nfault which always remained a danger to Euripides.\n\nP. 10, l. 150 ff., Dolon.]--The name is derived from _dolos_, \"craft.\"\nIn our version of Homer Dolon merely wears, over his tunic, the skin of\na grey wolf. He has a leather cap and a bow. In the play he goes, as Red\nIndian spies used to go, actually disguised as a wolf, on all fours in a\ncomplete wolf-skin. The same version is found on the Munich cylix of the\nearly vase-painter Euphronius (about 500 B.C.), in which Dolon wears a\ntight-fitting hairy skin with a long tail. The plan can of course only\nsucceed in a country where wild animals are common enough to be thought\nunimportant. The playwright has evidently chosen a more primitive and\nromantic version of the story; the Homeric reviser has, as usual, cut\nout what might seem ridiculous. (See J. A. K. Thomson in _Classical\nReview_, xxv. pp. 238 f.)\n\nP. 12, l. 175, Ajax, Ileus' son.]--\"Ajax\" is mentioned here and at ll.\n463, 497, 601, as apparently next in importance to the two Atreidae or\nto Achilles. That is natural, but it is a shock to have him here\ndescribed as son of Ileus. In the Iliad we should have had \"Ajax son of\nTelamon.\" The son of Ileus is \"Ajax the less,\" a hero of the second\nrank. Scholars have conjectured on other grounds that in some older form\nof the Iliad-saga Ajax son of Ileus was of much greater importance. The\nfather \"Telamon\" and the connection with Aegina are neither of them\noriginal in the myth.\n\nP. 12, l. 182, Achilles' horses.]--They are as glorious in the Iliad as\nthey are here. Cf. especially the passages where they bear Automedon out\nof the battle (end of XVI.), and where Xanthos is given a human voice to\nwarn his master of the coming of death (end of XIX.). The heroic age of\nGreece delighted in horses. Cf. those of Aeneas, Diomedes, Eumelus, and\nRhesus himself.\n\nP. 15, ll. 225-263, Chorus.]--Apollo is appealed to as a God of Thymbra\nin the Troad, of Delos the Ionian island, and of Lycia in the South of\nAsia Minor; the god of Asiatics and _barbaroi_, the enemy of the\nAchaeans. This is also to a great extent the conception of Apollo in the\nIliad, where he fights for Troy and is Hector's special patron. The\nsudden ferocity towards Helen in the last strophe is quite in the manner\nof Euripides; cf. _Trojan Women_, 1107 ff. (p. 65), 766 ff. (p. 49), and\noften; also _Iph. Taur._ 438 ff. (p. 21), where her name comes somewhat\nas a surprise.\n\nThe stage directions here are of course conjectural: it does not seem\nlikely that the playwright, having made Dolon describe his wolf's\ndisguise in detail, would waste the opportunity of making him crawl off\nin it. Cf. on l. 594, p. 63, and at the end of the play.\n\nP. 16, l. 267. Hector is as bluff and hasty here as he is impulsively\nobstinate in l. 319 ff., p. 19, impulsively frank to Rhesus in l. 393\nff., p. 23, and splendidly courteous under the gibes of the wounded\ncharioteer, l. 856 ff., p. 47. A fine stage character, if not a very\nsubtle study.\n\nP. 17, l. 284 ff. The description of the march of the mountaineers, the\nvast crowd, the noise, the mixture of all arms, suggests personal\nobservation. A great many fifth-century Athenians had probably served\nsome time or other in Thrace.\n\nP. 20, l. 342, Adrasteia.]--She-from-whom-there-is-no-Running, is a\ngoddess identified with Nemesis, a requiter of sin, especially the sin\nof pride or overconfidence. In spite of the opening apology this whole\nchorus, with its boundless exultation, is an offence against her.--It is\ninteresting to notice that a town and a whole district in the north of\nthe Troad was called by her name; the poet is using local colour in\nmaking his Trojans here, and Rhesus in l. 468, speak of her. There seems\nalso to be something characteristically Thracian in the story of the\nMuse and the River, in the title \"Zeus of the Dawn\" given to Rhesus, in\nthe revelry to be held when Ilion is free, and in the conception of the\nking in his dazzling chariot, Sun-god-like.\n\nP. 23, ll. 394-453, Speeches of Hector and Rhesus.]--The scene reads to\nme like a rather crude and early form of the celebrated psychological\ncontroversies of Euripides. It is simple, but spirited and in character.\nThe description of Thracian fighting again suggests personal knowledge,\nand so does the boasting. The Thracians apparently bound themselves with\nheroic boasts before battle much as Irish and Highland chieftains\nsometimes did, or as the Franks did with their _gabs_. (See, _e.g., Le\nPelerinage de Charlemagne_, as described in Gaston Paris, _Litt. du\nMoyen Age_, I. p. 122 ff.) It was a disgrace if you did not fulfil your\n_gab_ afterwards.\n\nRhesus's defence is apparently true, though in a modern play one would\nhave expected some explanation of the rather different story that his\nmother tells, l. 933 ff., p. 51. Perhaps he did not realise how she was\nholding him back. In any case ancient technique prefers to leave such\ndetails unsettled: cf., for instance, Helen's speech in the _Trojan\nWomen_, in which the false is evidently mixed up with the true, and they\nare never separated afterwards.\n\nP. 25, ll. 454 ff. This little Chorus seems to represent--in due tragic\nconvention--an irrepressible outburst of applause from the Trojans,\ninterrupting Rhesus's speech. In spite of the words about possible\n\"wrath\" that may follow the Thracian's boasting, the applause excites\nhim at once to a yet bolder _gab_.\n\nP. 26, l. 480. It may be remarked that the play here uses a fairly\ncommon Homeric phrase in a sense which the scholars of our tradition\nknew but rejected.\n\nP. 27, l. 501 ff. These three achievements of Odysseus are all in the\ntraditional saga. The Rapt of the Palladium, or figure of Pallas, by\nOdysseus and Diomedes, was in an old lost epic, called The Little Iliad;\nthe Begging in Troy in the Little Iliad and also in Odyssey IV. 242 ff.;\nthe great ambuscades in Odyssey IV. 290 ff., VIII. 493 ff., and in\nOdysseus's own feigned story, XIV. 468 ff. According to our tradition\nthey belong to a later period of the war than the death of Rhesus, but\nperhaps the sequence was different, or not so definite, at the time of\nthis play.\n\nP. 28, l. 528. Rhesus shows the simple courage of a barbarian in his\ncontempt for the ruses of Odysseus, the brutality of a barbarian in the\nmethods of punishment he proposes. Such proposals would disgust a Greek;\nit looks as if they displeased Hector. In any case his abruptness here,\nand his careful indication of the place where the Thracians are to\nsleep, far from the rest of the camp, have some dramatic value for the\nsequel.\n\nPp. 28-30, ll. 527-564, Stars and Nightingale chorus.]--The beauty of\nthese lines in the Greek is quite magical, but the stage management of\nthe scene is difficult. Apparently Hector (l. 523) bids the Guards come\nforward from where they are and wait nearer the front for Dolon; obeying\nthis they come up from the orchestra, we may suppose, to the stage. Then\nwatching somewhere near Hector's tent they partly express, in the usual\nsong, the lyrical emotion of the night, partly they chat about Dolon and\nthe order of the watches. The scene is technically very interesting with\nits rather abrupt introduction of realism into the high convention of\ntragedy. Meantime the Trojans' time of watch is over and the Lycians,\nwho ought to watch next, have not come. In a modern army it would of\ncourse be the duty of the new watch to come and relieve the old; in an\nancient barbaric army--characteristically--the old watch had to go and\nwake the new. You could not, one must suppose, trust them to take their\nturn otherwise. At the end of the first strophe a Guard suggests that\nthey should rouse the Lycians; at the end of the second the Leader\ndefinitely gives the word to do so. The Guards go, and so the stage (and\norchestra) is left empty.\n\nThis is plain enough; but why were the Guards brought away from their\noriginal position--from the orchestra to the stage? Probably to allow\nthe Greek spies to pass on towards the Thracian camp by a different and\nunoccupied way, not by the way which the Guards had just taken.\n\nThe story of the Nightingale is well known: she was Philomela, or in the\nolder story Procne, an Athenian princess, wedded to the faithless\nThracian king, Tereus. In a fury of vengeance on her husband she slew\ntheir only son, Itys or Itylus, and now laments him broken-hearted for\never.\n\nP. 31, l. 567 ff., Odysseus and Diomedes.]--Observe how we are left\ngradually to discover that they have met and killed Dolon. They enter\ncarrying, as far as we can make out, a wolf-skin that looks like his:\nthey had evidently spoken to him, ll. 572, 575: it _is_ his and they\nhave killed him--l. 592 f.\n\nAll the Odysseus-Diomedes scenes have something unusual about them,\nsomething daring, turbulent, and perhaps lacking in dramatic tact. The\nsilent rush on Hector's empty tent is hard to parallel. The cruel Athena\nis Euripidean; but her appearance in the midst of the action is\nstartling, though it may be paralleled from Sophocles' Ajax. In\nEuripides Gods are generally kept for the prologue or epilogue, away\nfrom the ordinary action. (The vision of Iris and Lyssa in the middle of\nthe Heracles has at least the stage clear of mortals and the Chorus\napparently in a kind of dream.) Again the conception of Athena\npretending to be Cypris is curious. The disguised Athena is common in\nthe Odyssey, but she does not disguise herself as another goddess. (It\nis sometimes held that this scene requires four actors, which would be a\ndecisive mark of lateness; but this is not really so. The actor who took\nOdysseus could easily get round in time to take Paris also--especially\nif he made his exit at l. 626, before Athena sees Paris. And the Greek\nstage had no objection to such doubling.) Lastly, the scene of turmoil\nbetween the spies and the Guards is extraordinary in a tragedy, though\nit would suit well in a pro-satyric play. See Introduction.\n\nP. 33, l. 594, Stage direction.]--They bear Dolon's \"spoils\" or\n\"tokens\": probably his wolf-skin. If they bring it with them they must\nprobably do something with it, and to hang it where it may give Hector a\nviolent start seems the natural proceeding. Also, they can hardly be\ncarrying it in the scene with the Guards, l. 675 ff., p. 38 f. That\nwould be madness. They must have got rid of it before then, and this\nseems the obvious place for doing so.\n\nP. 36, ll. 637 ff., Athena as Cypris.]--It is not clear how this would\nbe represented on the Greek stage, though there is no reason to think\nthere would be any special difficulty. On a modern stage it could be\nworked as follows:--The Goddess will be behind a gauze, so that she is\ninvisible when only the lights in front of the gauze are lit, but\nvisible when a light goes up behind it. She will first appear with\nhelmet and spear in some hard light; then disappear and be rediscovered\nin the same place in a softer light, the helmet and spear gone and some\nemblems of Cypris--say a flower and a dove--in their place. Of course\nthe voice will change too.\n\nThe next scene, where the two spies are caught and let go, is clear\nenough in its general structure; the details must remain conjectural.\n\nP. 40, l. 703, What the High God.]--It would be unparalleled in\nclassical Greek to describe a man by his religion; but this phrase seems\nonly to mean: \"What is his tribal God?\" _i.e._ what is his tribe? Thus\nit could be said of Isagoras in Herodotus (v. 66) that his kinsmen\nsacrificed to Carian Zeus, suggesting, presumably, that he had Carian\nblood.\n\nP. 42, l. 728, Voice of the wounded man outside.]--The puzzled and\ndiscouraged talk of the Guards round the fire, the groaning in the\ndarkness without, the quick alarm among the men who had been careless\nbefore, and the slow realisation of disaster that follows--all these\nseem to me to be wonderfully indicated, though the severe poetic\nconvention excludes any approach to what we, by modern prose standards,\nwould call effective realism.\n\nP. 44, ll. 756-803. This fine vivid speech has something of the famous\nEuripidean Messenger-Speeches in it; though they are apt to be much\nlonger and also are practically never spoken by a principal in the\naction, always by a subordinate or an onlooker. Cf. the speech of the\nMessenger-Shepherd above, p. 17 f. An extreme sharpness of articulation\nis characteristic of Euripides' later work: each speech, each scene,\neach effect is isolated and made complete in itself. The Messenger\nprepares his message, relates his message and goes, not mixing himself\nup in the further fortunes of the drama. But this extreme pursuit of\nlucidity and clear outlines is not nearly so marked in the early plays:\nin the _Cyclops_ the Messenger's speech is actually spoken by Odysseus,\nll. 382-436, and the Serving Man and Serving Maid in the _Alcestis_ are\nnot mere abstract Messengers.\n\nP. 46, ll. 810-830, Hector and the Guard.]--There is intentional colour\nhere--the impulsive half-barbaric rage of Hector, the oriental\ngrovelling of the Guard, and of course the quick return to courteous\nself-mastery with which Hector receives the taunts of the wounded man.\n\nP. 46, l. 819. The Guard seems to think that the spies got past him when\nhe came to Hector's tent at the beginning of the play. It was really\nlater, when he made his men leave their post to wake the Lycians.\nPerhaps he is lying.\n\nP. 48, l. 876, Justice knows.]--It is a clever touch to leave the\nThracian still only half-convinced and grumbling.\n\nP. 49, l. 882, Appearance of the Muse.]--A beautiful scene. It has been\nthought to come abruptly and, as it were, unskilfully on top of the\nfamiliar dialogue between Hector and the Thracian. But the movements,\nfirst of soldiers lifting and carrying the wounded man, and then of\nmessengers taking word to Priam for burial of the men slain, make the\ntransition much easier.\n\nP. 50, l. 895 ff. and l. 906 ff., A dirge of the Thracian\nmountains.]--Such dirges must have struck the Greeks as the fragments of\nOssian struck the Lowlanders among us. I have found that the dirge here\ngoes naturally into a sort of Ossianic rhythm.\n\nP. 51, l. 915. The speech of the Muse seems like the writing of a poet\nwho is, for the moment, tired of mere drama, and wishes to get back into\nhis own element. Such passages are characteristic of Euripides.--The\ndeath of Rhesus seems to the Muse like an act of vengeance from the dead\nThamyris, the Thracian bard who had blasphemed the Muses and challenged\nthem to a contest of song. They conquered him and left him blind, but\nstill a poet. The story in Homer is more terrible, though more\ncivilised: \"They in wrath made him a maimed man, they took away his\nheavenly song and made him forget his harping.\"\n\nThamyris, the bard who defied Heaven; Orpheus, the bard, saint, lover,\nwhose severed head still cried for his lost Eurydice; Musaeus, the bard\nof mystic wisdom and initiations--are the three great legendary figures\nof this Northern mountain minstrelsy.\n\nP. 52, l. 950. These short speeches between Hector and the Leader of the\nGuard make a jarring note in the midst of the Muse's lament. Perhaps it\nwould not be so if we knew how the play was produced, but at present\nthis seems like one of several marks of comparative crudity in technique\nwhich mark the play, amid all its daring and inventiveness.\n\nP. 52, l. 962 ff., My son shall not be laid in any grave.]--Like other\nNorthern barbaric princes, such as Orpheus (l. 972 below) and Zalmoxis\n(Herodotus, iv. 95) and Holgar the Dane, Rhesus lies in a hidden chamber\nbeneath the earth, watching, apparently, for the day of uttermost need\nwhen he must rise to help his people. There is no other passage in Greek\ntragedy where such a fate is attributed to a hero, though the position\nof Darius in the _Persae_ and Agamemnon in the _Choephori_ or the\n_Electra_ is in some ways analogous.\n\nThe last lines of the Muse have a very Euripidean ring: cf. _Medea_, l.\n1090 (p. 61, \"My thoughts have roamed a cloudy land\"), _Alcestis_, l.\n882.\n\nP. 54, ll. 983-end. This curious and moving end--not in death or peace\nbut in a girding of tired men to greater toil--reminds one of the last\nwords of _The Trojan Women_: \"Forth to the long Greek ships And the\nsea's foaming,\" and the last words of the _Chanson de Roland_ there\nquoted.\n\nThe Trojans evidently go forth under the shadow of disaster, though with\nfirmness and courage. The stage direction is of course purely\nconjectural. If Diomedes left some sign of Dolon's death for Hector to\nsee, as he probably must have done, then Hector must at some time or\nother see it. If so, this seems to be the place.\n\n\n                            THE END\n\n\nPrinted by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.\nEdinburgh & London\n\n\n\n\n_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\n\nPUBLISHED BY WILLIAM HEINEMANN\n\nHISTORY OF ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE. 1897. 6s.\n\nCARLYON SAHIB: A Play. 1899. 1s. 6d.\n\nANDROMACHE: A Play. 1900. 1s. 6d.\n\n\nPublished by the Clarendon Press\n\nEURIPIDIS FABULAE: Brevi Adnotatione Critica Instructae, Vols. I. II.\n    and III. 1901-1909. Third Edition. From 3s. each.\n\nTHE RISE OF THE GREEK EPIC. Second Edition. 1911. 7s. 6d. net.\n\nFOUR STAGES OF GREEK RELIGION. 1913. 6s.\n\nNEFREKEPTA: An Egyptian Story Done into Verse. 1910. 4s. 6d. net.\n\n\nPublished by George Allen & Co., Ltd.\n\nEURIPIDES: Hippolytus; Bacchae; Aristophanes' 'Frogs.' With an Appendix\non _The Lost Tragedies of Euripides_ and an Introduction on _The\nSignificance of the Bacchae in Athenian History_, and 12 Illustrations.\nCrown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 7s. 6d. net.\n\n\n_Also separately_\n\nPLAYS: Translated into English Rhyming Verse, with Explanatory Notes.\n\nHIPPOLYTUS.                    }\nBACCHAE.                       }\nTHE TROJAN WOMEN.              }\nELECTRA.                       } Paper Covers, 1s. each net.\nMEDEA.                         } Also crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top,\nIPHIGENIA IN TAURIS.           }     2s. each net.\nTHE FROGS OF ARISTOPHANES.     }\nOEDIPUS TYRANNUS OF SOPHOCLES. }\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE\n\nThe line numbers refer to the lines in the original Greek text, not to\nthe lines as translated.\n\nThe following change was made to the original text:\nPage 26: changed whv to why\n\nOther than the addition of missing periods, minor variations in spelling\nand punctuation have been preserved.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The Rhesus of Euripides","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":15879}