Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/487

Rh

Rhesus! Doth he set foot in Troy, say'st thou?

Even so: thou lightenest half my speech's load.

Why journeyeth he to Ida's pasture-lands,

Swerving from yon broad highway o'er the plain?

I know not certainly: one may divine.

Wise strategy was his to march by night,

Hearing how foeman-bands beset the plains.

Yet us, the hinds who dwell on Ida's slopes,

The immemorial cradle of your race,

His night-faring through woods beast-haunted scared.

For with loud shouts the on-surging Thracian host

Marched; and in panic-struck amaze we drove

Our flocks to ridges, lest of the Argives some

Were drawing nigh, to harry and to spoil

Thy folds, till accents fell upon our ears

Of no Greek tongue, and so we ceased from dread.

Then, drawing nigh, their chieftain's vanward scouts

I questioned in the Thracian speech, and asked

Who and whose son their captain was, that marched

Troyward, as war-ally to Priam's sons.

And, having heard whate'er I craved to know,

I stood still, and saw Rhesus, like a God,