RHESUS

A monologue from the play by Euripides

TRANSLATED BY GILBERT MURRAY

MUSE: I say to thee: Curse Odysseus, and cursèd by Diomede!

For they made me childless, and forlorn for ever, of the flower of sons.

Yea, curse Helen, who left the house of Hellas.

She knew her lover, she feared not the ships and sea.

She called thee, called thee, to die for the sake of Paris,

Belovèd, and a thousand cities she made empty of good men.

O conquered Thamyris, is this thy bane

Returned from death to pierce my heart again?

Thy pride it was, and bitter challenge cast

'Gainst all the Muses, did my flesh abase

To bearing of this Child, what time I passed

Through the deep stream and looked on Strymon's face,

And felt his great arms clasp me, when to old

Pangaion and the earth of hoarded gold

We Sisters came with lutes and psalteries,

Provoked to meet in bitter strife of song

That mountain wizard, and made dark the eyes

Of Thamyris, who wrought sweet music wrong.

I bore the, Child; and then, in shame before

My sisterhood, my dear virginity,

I stood again upon thy Father's shore

And cast thee to the deeps of him; and he

Received and to no mortal nursing gave

His child, but to the Maidens of the Wave.

And well they nursed thee, and a king thou wast

And first of Thrace in war; yea, far and near

Through thine own hills thy bloody chariot passed,

Thy battered helm flashed, and I had no fear;

Only to Troy I charged thee not to go:

I knew the fated end: But Hector's cry,

Borne overseas by embassies of woe,

Called thee to battle for thy friends and die.

 

And thou, Athena -- nothing was the deed

Odysseus wrought this night nor Diomede--

'Tis thine, all thine; dram not thy cruel hand

Is hid from me! Yet ever on thy land

The Muse hath smiled; we give it praise above

All cities, yea, fulfilled it with out love.

The light of thy great Mysteries was shed

By Orpheus, very cousin of this dead

Whom thou has slain; and thine high citizen

Musaeus, wisest of the tribe of men,

We and Apollo guided all his way:

For which long love behold the gift ye pay!

I wreathe him in my arms; I wail his wrong

Alone, and ask no other mourner's song.

[She weeps over RHESUS.]

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