Stasimon 5
[Episode]
Woe, woe! It was for thee, only for thee,
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LEADER
I must have gone, O Help and Majesty,
That time with message that the fires were burning.
Mine eye was keen; I swear by Simois river,
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It never drooped nor slumbered, never, never,
My master, verily, I am innocent utterly,
Build not such wrath against me, Lord, nor harden
Thy heart; let Time be judge; and if in deed
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Or word I have offended, let me bleed!
Bury me here alive! I ask no pardon.
THRACIAN.
Why threaten them? Art thou a Greek to blind
My barbarous wit so nimbly, in a wind
Of words? This work was thine. And no man’s head
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Is asked by us, the wounded and the dead,
Save thine. It needs more play, and better feigned,
To hide from me that thou hast slain thy friend
By craft, to steal his horses.—That is why
He stabs his friends. He prays them earnestly,
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Prays them to come; they came and they are dead.
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A cleaner man was Paris, when he fled
With his host’s wife. He was no murderer.
Profess not thou that any Greek was there
To fall on us. What Greek could pass the screen
Of Trojan posts in front of us, unseen?
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Thyself was stationed there, and all thy men.
What man of yours was slain or wounded when
Your Greek spies came? Not one; ’tis we, behind,
Are wounded, and some worse than wounded, blind
Forever to the sunlight. When we seek
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