Chorus
Joy, joy! sweet champion sent by Zeus! Only may Zeus, throned on high, keep jealousy, resistless foe, from you for your words! That fleet of ships from Argos never brought, neither formerly nor now, among all its warriors a braver than you. How I wonder will Achilles, how will Aias stand the onset of your spear? Oh! that I might see that day, my prince, on which you may wreak vengeance on them, gripping your lance in your death-dealing hand!
Rhesus Such exploits am I ready to achieve to atone for my long absence; (with due submission to Nemesis I say this); then when we have cleared this city of its foes and you have chosen out first-fruits for the gods, I wish to march with you against the Argives’ country and at my coming lay Hellas waste with war, that they in turn may know the taste of ill.
Hector If I could rid the city of this present curse and restore it to its old security, I should indeed feel deep gratitude towards the gods. But, as for sacking Argos and the pasture-lands of Hellas with the spear, it is no such easy task as you say.
Rhesus Do they not say that here came the greatest chiefs of Hellas?
Hector Yes, and I do not scorn them; I have enough to do in driving them away.
Rhesus Well, when we slay these, is our task not fully done?
Hector Do not leave the present need to look to distant schemes.
Rhesus You are, it seems, content to suffer and make no return.
Hector Yes, for I rule a great empire, even though I am here. But on the left wing or the right or in the centre of the allies you may plant your shield and marshal your troops.
Rhesus Alone I will face the foe, Hector. But if you are ashamed, after all your previous toil, to have no share in firing their ships’ prows, place me face to face with Achilles and his army.
Hector Against that man you cannot range your eager spear.
Rhesus Why, it was surely said he sailed to Ilium.
Hector He sailed and he is here; but he is angry and takes no part with the other chieftains in the battle.
Rhesus Who next to him has won a name in their army?
Hector Aias and the son of Tydeus are, I take it, in no way his inferiors; there is Odysseus, a wheedling rascal, but bold enough indeed, and of all men he has wrought most outrage on this country. For he came by night to Athena’s shrine and stole her image and took it to the Argive ships; next he came inside our battlements, clad as a vagrant in a beggar’s garb, and loudly did he curse the Argives, sent as a spy to Ilium; and then went out again, when he had slain the sentinels and warders at the gate. He is always to be found lurking in ambush about the altar of Thymbrean Apollo near the city. In him we have a troubling pest to wrestle with.
Rhesus No brave man thinks it right to kill his foe in secret, but to meet him face to face. If I can catch this fellow alive, who, as you say, sits in stealthy ambush and plots his mischief, I will impale him at the outlet of the gates and set him up for winged vultures to make their meal upon. This is the death he ought to die, pirate and temple-robber that he is.
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