Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/502

474 That Fortune grants you not the life of Hector,

Nor Paris? Know ye not of this ally,

Rhesus, to Troy magnificently come?

If he live through this night until the dawn,

Him neither Aias' nor Achilles' spear

Shall stay from wasting all the Argive fleet,

Razing your ramparts, and within your gates

Making broad havoc of onslaught with his lance.

Slay him, and all is thine. But Hector's couch

Let be: spare thou to smite his head from him.

To him shall death come from another hand.

O Queen Athena—for I know the sound

Of thy familiar voice, since evermore

Beside me in my toils thou wardest me,—

Tell to us where this hero sleeping lies,

Where he is stationed in the alien host.

Here is he, nigh, not quartered with the host:

Hector to him assigned a resting-place

Without his lines, till night give place to day.

Hard by, his white steeds to his Thracian car

Are tethered: clear they gleam athwart the dark

As gleams the white wing of a river-swan.

These lead ye hence when ye have slain their lord,

Proud trophy for your halls: there is no land

That holdeth such a team of chariot-steeds.

Diomedes, either slay thou Thracia's folk,

Or leave to me, and thou the horses heed.