Stasimon 3
[Episode]
Thou seem’st content to suffer, not to do?
HECTOR.
I have a kingdom large by mine own right ..
What station will best please thee in this fight
485
To ground the targe and stablish thine array?
Right, left, or midmost in the allies? Say.
RHESUS.
’Twould please me best to fight these Greeks alone.
Yet, if ’twould irk thine honour not to have thrown
One firebrand on the ships with me, why, then
490
Set us to face Achilles and his men.
HECTOR.
Achilles? Nay, his spear ye cannot meet.
RHESUS.
How so? Fame said he sailed here with the fleet.
HECTOR.
He sailed, and he is here. But some despite
’Gainst the great King now keeps him from the fight.
495
RHESUS.
Who next to him hath honour in their host?
HECTOR.
Next, to my seeming, Ajax hath the most,
Or Diomede.—But Odysseus is a tough
And subtle fox, and brave; aye, brave enough.
No man of them hath harmed us more than he.
500
He climbed here to Athena’s sanctuaryP. 27, l. 501 ff. These three achievements of Odysseus are all in the traditional saga. The Rapt of the Palladium, or figure of Pallas, by Odysseus and Diomedes, was in an old lost epic, called The Little Iliad; the Begging in Troy in the Little Iliad and also in Odyssey IV. 242 ff.; the great ambuscades in Odyssey IV. 290 ff., VIII. 493 ff., and in Odysseus’s own feigned story, XIV. 468 ff. According to our tradition they belong to a later period of the war than the death of Rhesus, but perhaps the sequence was different, or not so definite, at the time of this play.
One night, and stole her image clean away
To the Argive ships. Yes, and another day,
Guised as a wandering priest, in rags, he came
And walked straight through the Gates, made loud acclaim
Of curses on the Greek, spied out alone
All that he sought in Ilion, and was gone—
505
Gone, and the watch and helpers of the Gate
Dead! And in every ambush they have set
By the old Altar, close to Troy, we know
He sits—a murderous reptile of a foe!
RHESUS.
No brave man seeks so dastardly to harm
510
