Rhesus   

HECTOR Die! No! Enough are those already dead.
CHARIOTEER Where am I to turn, I ask thee, reft of my master now?
HECTOR My house shall shelter thee and cure thee of thy hurt.
CHARIOTEER How shall murderers' hands care for me?
HECTOR This fellow will never have done repeating the same story.
CHARIOTEER Curses on the doer of this deed! On thee my tongue doth
fix no charge, as thou complainest; but justice is over all.
HECTOR Ho! him hence! Carry him to my palace and tend him carefully,
that he may have no fault to find. And you must go to those upon the
walls, to Priam and his aged councillors, and tell them to give orders
for the burial of the dead at the place where folk turn from the road
to rest. (CHARIOTEER is carried off.)
CHORUS Why, with what intent doth fortune change and bring Troy once
again to mourning after her famous victory? See, see! O look! What
goddess, O king, is hovering o'er our heads, bearing in her hands
as on a bier the warrior slain but now? I shudder at this sight of
woe. (THE MUSE appears.)
THE MUSE Behold me, sons of Troy! Lo! I the Muse, one of the sisters
nine, that have honour among the wise, am here, having seen the piteous
death his foes have dealt my darling son. Yet shall the crafty Odysseus,
that slew him, one day hereafter pay a fitting penalty. O my son,
thy mother's grief, I mourn for thee in self-taught strains of woe!
What a journey thou didst make to Troy, a very path of woe and sorrow!
starting, spite of all my warnings and thy father's earnest prayers,
in defiance of us. Woe is me for thee, my dear, dear son! Ah, woe!
my son, my son!
CHORUS I, too, bewail and mourn thy son, as far as one can who hath
no common tie of kin.
THE MUSE Curses on the son of Oeneus! Curses on Laertes' child! who
hath reft me of my fair son and made me childless! and on that woman,
too, that left her home in Hellas, and sailed hither with her Phrygian
paramour, bringing death to thee, my dearest son, 'neath Ilium's walls,
and stripping countless cities of their heroes brave. Deep, deep the
wounds, son of Philammon, hast thou inflicted on my heart, in life,
nor less in Hades' halls. Yea, for 'twas thy pride, thy own undoing,
and thy rivalry with us Muses that made me mother of this poor son
of mine. For as I crossed the river's streams I came too nigh to Strymon's
fruitful couch, that day we Muses came unto the brow of Mount Pangaeus
with its soil of gold, with all our music furnished forth for one
great trial of minstrel skill with that clever Thracian bard, and
him we reft of sight, even Thamyris, the man who oft reviled our craft.
Anon, when I gave birth to thee, because I felt shame of my sisters
and my maiden years, I sent thee to the swirling stream of thy sire,
the water-god; and Strymon did not entrust thy nurture to mortal hands,
but to the fountain nymphs. There wert thou reared most fairly by
the maiden nymphs, and didst rule o'er Thrace, a leader amongst men,
my child. So long as thou didst range thy native land in quest of
bloody deeds of prowess I feared not for thy death, but I bade thee
ne'er set out for Troy-town, for well I knew thy doom; but Hector's
messages and those countless embassies urged thee to go and help thy
friends. This was thy doing, Athena; thou alone art to blame for his
death (neither Odysseus nor the son of Tydeus had aught to do with
it); think not it hath escaped mine eye. And yet we sister Muses do
special honour to thy city, thy land we chiefly haunt; yea, and Orpheus,
own cousin of the dead whom thou hast slain, did for thee unfold those
dark mysteries with their torch processions. Musaeus, too, thy holy
citizen, of all men most advanced in lore, him did Phoebus with us
sisters train. And here is my reward for this; dead in my arms I hold
my child and mourn for him. Henceforth no other learned man I'll bring
to thee.
CHORUS Vainly it seems the Thracian charioteer reviled us with plotting
this man's murder, Hector.
HECTOR I knew it; it needed no seer to say that he had perished by
the arts of Odysseus. Now I, when I saw the Hellene host camped in