Rhesos Quotes

“Thracian. The army lost and the king slain,
Stabbed in the dark! Ah, pain! pain!
This deep raw wound . . . Oh, let me die
By thy side, Master, by thy side!
In shame together let us lie
Who came to save, and failed and died.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“We cannot force Fortune against her will.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Rhesus. Thy way is mine, friend. Straight I run my race
In word and deed, and bear no double tongue.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“P. 51, l. 915. The speech of the Muse seems like the writing of a poet who is, for the moment, tired of mere drama, and wishes to get back into his own element. Such passages are characteristic of Euripides.—The death of Rhesus seems to the Muse like an act of vengeance from the dead Thamyris, the Thracian bard who had blasphemed the Muses and challenged them to a contest of song. They conquered him and left him blind, but still a poet. The story in Homer is more terrible, though more civilised: "They in wrath made him a maimed man, they took away his heavenly song and made him forget his harping." Thamyris, the bard who defied Heaven; Orpheus, the bard, saint, lover, whose severed head still cried for his lost Eurydice; Musaeus, the bard of mystic wisdom and initiations—are the three great legendary figures of this Northern mountain minstrelsy.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Muse. I say to thee: Curse Odysseus,
And cursèd be Diomede!
For they made me childless, and forlorn for ever, of
the flower of sons.
Yea, curse Helen, who left the houses of Hellas.
She knew her lover, she feared not the ships and sea.
She called thee, called thee, to die for the sake of Paris,
Belovèd, and a thousand cities
She made empty of good men.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Hector. To think thus pleasures thee? Well, have it thus.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“I sprang up, empty-handed, groping round
For spear or sword, when, lo, a young strong man
Was close to me and slashed, and the sword ran
Deep through my flank. I felt its passage well,
So deep, so wide, so spreading . . . then I fell.
And they, they got the bridles in their hand
And fled. . . . Ah! Ah! This pain. I cannot stand.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Odysseus. Say, Diomede, wilt make the men thy share,
Or catch the steeds and leave the fight to me?
Diomede. I take the killing, thou the stablery:
It needs keen wit and a neat hand.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“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.
He climbed here to Athena's sanctuary
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—
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!”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Tis wise to do good work, but also wise
To pay the worker. Aye, and fair reward
Makes twofold pleasure, though the work be hard.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Brother, I would thy wit were like thy spear!
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”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Hector. My word is simple. Arm and face the foe.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“The ordinary style of Euripides is full, flexible, lucid, antithetic, studiously simple in vocabulary and charged with philosophic reflection. If we look in his extant remains for any trace of a style, like that of the Rhesus, which is comparatively terse, rich, romantic, not shrinking from rare words and strong colour and generally untinged by philosophy, we shall find the nearest approach to it in the Cyclops. Next to the Cyclops I am not sure what play would come, but the Alcestis would not be far off. It has especially several Epic forms which cannot be paralleled in tragedy. Now the conjunction of these two plays with the Rhesus is significant. The three seem to be three earliest of the extant plays;”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides

“Twould please me best to fight these Greeks alone.”
― Euripides, The Rhesus of Euripides