Prologos
LEADER.
God knows! And, for my part, I like it not.
HECTOR.
What, feared? Thou wouldst be feared of everything!
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LEADER.
They never lit such light before, O King.
HECTOR.
They never fled, man, in such wild dismay.
LEADER
’Twas all thy work.—Judge thou, and we obey.
HECTOR.
My word is simple. Arm and face the foe.
LEADER.
Who comes? Aeneas, and in haste, as though
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Fraught with some sudden tiding of the night.
AENEAS.
Hector, what means it? Watchers in affright
Who gather shouting at thy doors, and then
Hold midnight council, shaking all our men?
HECTOR.
To arms, Aeneas! Arm from head to heel!
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AENEAS.
What is it? Tidings? Doth the Argive steal
Some march, some ambush in the day’s eclipse?
HECTOR.
’Tis flight, man! They are marching to the ships.
AENEAS.
How know’st thou?—Have we proof that it is flight?
HECTOR.
They are burning beacon-fires the livelong night.
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They never mean to wait till dawn. Behind
That screen of light they are climbing in the blind
Dark to their ships—unmooring from our coast.
AENEAS.
God guide them!—Why then do you arm the host?
HECTOR.
I mean to lame them in their climbing, I
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And my good spear, and break them as they fly.
Black shame it were, and folly worse than shame,
To let these spoilers go the road they came
Unpunished, when God gives them to us here.
AENEAS.
Brother, I would thy wit were like thy spear!P. 8, 1. 105, Brother! I would thy wit were like thy spear!]—In Homer Hector is impulsive and over-daring, but still good in counsel. On the stage every quality that is characteristic is apt to be over-emphasized, all that is not characteristic neglected. Hence on the Attic stage Odysseus is more crafty, Ajax and Diomedes more blunt, Menelaus more unwarlike and more uxorious than in Homer. This speech of Aeneas, though not inapposite, is rather didactic—a fault which always remained a danger to Euripides.
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But Nature wills not one man should be wise
In all things; each must seek his separate prize.
And thine is battle pure. There comes this word
