Rhesus (722-790)

Oh, oh! Cruel stroke of fate. Woe, woe!

Hush! be silent all, crouch low; for perhaps there comes someone into the snare.

Oh, oh! dire mishap to the Thracians.

It is one of the allies who is groaning.

Oh, oh! woe to me and to you, O king of Thrace, how cursed the sight of Troy to you!

what an end to your life!

Who are you? One of the allies? Night’s gloom has dulled these eyes and I cannot clearly recognize you.

Where can I find some Trojan chief? Where does Hector

take his rest under arms? To which of the captains of the army am I to tell my tale? What sufferings ours! what dark deeds someone has wrought on us and gone his way, when he had wound up a ball of sorrow manifest to every Thracian!

From what I gather of this man’s words, some calamity, it seems, is befalling the Thracian army.

Lost is all our army, our prince is dead, slain by a treacherous blow. Oh! Oh!

The cruel anguish of this bloody wound that racks my frame within! Would I were dead! Was it to die this inglorious death that Rhesus and I came bringing aid to Troy?

He does not declare the disaster in riddles;

no, he clearly asserts our allies’ destruction.

A sorry deed it was, and more than that a deed most shameful; yes, it is an evil doubly bad; to die with glory, if die one must, is bitterness enough I think to him who dies—how not?—

though to the living it may add dignity and honor for their house. But we have died foolishly and without glory. No sooner had great Hector given us our quarters and told us the password than we lay down to sleep upon the ground, overcome by weariness. No guard our army set

to watch by night, nor were our arms set in array, nor were the whips hung ready on the horses’ yokes, for our prince was told that you were masters now, and had encamped hard on their ships; so carelessly we threw ourselves down to sleep.

Now I with thoughtful mind awoke from my slumber, and with ungrudging hand measured out the horses’ feed, expecting to harness them at dawn for the fray; through the thick gloom two men I see roaming around our army. But when I roused myself

they crouched low and were gone once more; and I called out to them to keep away from the army, for I thought they might be thieves from our allies. Nothing from them, so I too said no more, but came back to my couch and slept again.

And as I slept a strange fancy came over me: those horses that I had reared and used to drive, stationed at Rhesus’ side, I saw, I thought as in a dream, with wolves mounted on their backs; and these with their tails lashed the horses’ flanks

and urged them on, while they snorted and breathed fury from their nostrils, striving in terror to unseat their riders. Up I sprang to defend the horses from the brutes, for the horror of the night scared me. Then as I raised my head I heard the groans of dying men,

and a warm stream of new-shed blood bespattered me, beside my murdered master as he died. To my feet I start, but all unarmed; and as I peer about and grope to find my sword, a stalwart hand from somewhere near struck me with a sword