Rhesus (465-535)

on which you may wreak vengeance on them, gripping your lance in your death-dealing hand!

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.

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.

Do they not say that here came the greatest chiefs of Hellas?

Yes, and I do not scorn them; I have enough to do in driving them away.

Well, when we slay these, is our task not fully done?

Do not leave the present need to look to distant schemes.

You are, it seems, content to suffer and make no return.

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.

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.

Against that man you cannot range your eager spear.

Why, it was surely said he sailed to Ilium.

He sailed and he is here; but he is angry

and takes no part with the other chieftains in the battle.

Who next to him has won a name in their army?

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.

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.

To your quarters now, for it is night. For you I will myself point out a spot where your army

can watch this night apart from our array. Our password is Phoebus, if perhaps there should be need of it; hear and remember it, and tell it to the Thracian army. You must advance in front of our ranks and keep a watchful guard, and receive Dolon,

who went to spy on the ships, for he, if he is safe, is even now approaching the camp of Troy.