Hector.
Rhesus! Doth he set foot in Troy, say'st thou? 280
Shepherd.
Even so: thou lightenest half my speech's load.
Hector.
Why journeyeth he to Ida's pasture-lands,
Swerving from yon broad highway o'er the plain?
Shepherd.
I know not certainly: one may divine.
Wise strategy was his to march by night, 285
Hearing how foeman-bands beset the plains.
Yet us, the hinds who dwell on Ida's slopes,
The immemorial cradle of your race,[1]
His night-faring through woods beast-haunted scared.
For with loud shouts the on-surging Thracian host 290
Marched; and in panic-struck amaze we drove
Our flocks to ridges, lest of the Argives some
Were drawing nigh, to harry and to spoil
Thy folds, till accents fell upon our ears
Of no Greek tongue, and so we ceased from dread. 295
Then, drawing nigh, their chieftain's vanward scouts
I questioned in the Thracian speech, and asked
Who and whose son their captain was, that marched
Troyward, as war-ally to Priam's sons.
And, having heard whate'er I craved to know, 300
I stood still, and saw Rhesus, like a God,
