Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/485

Rh And home return to the altars that burn in his father's halls unto thee:

And, when Hector hath harried Achaia's array, may he drive the Phthian steeds,

The steeds that on Peleus, Aiakus' son, were bestowed by the Lord of the Sea.

Forasmuch as for home and for fatherland alone he hath dared to go

Thither, and gaze on the fencèd place, on the camp of the Hellene ships,

His hardihood I extol,—of such heroes but few shall be found, I trow,

When the sun in the sea sinks stormily, and the state's prow heavily dips.

There is, there is mid the Phrygians found a hero!—our prowess shall glow

Mid the clash of the spears:—at our help who sneers, save the envious Mysian lips?

What chieftain Achaian shall he, as with death in his hand he prowls to and fro,

As in shape of a brute of fourfold foot e'er the darkling earth he steals,

Stab mid the tents?—may he slay Menelaus, and lay Agamemnon low,

Yea, bear the head of the war-king dead, and, loud as her shriek outpeals,

Lay it in Helen's hands—the head of her kinsman who worked us woe,

Who sailed to the strand of Troy's fair land with array of a thousand keels.