Ye workers of amazement! Have your eyes No sight? Ye watch and let these Argive spies Pass--and our friends are butchered in their sleep-- [vv. 810-834] And then pass back unwounded, laughing deep Amid the galleys at the news they bring Of Trojan sluggards and the fool their king? Great God, ye never baulked them as they came, Nor smote them as they went! [_His eye falls on the_ CAPTAIN. Who bears the blame Of this but thou? Thou wast the watcher set To guard this host till morn. I tell thee yet For this deed--I have sworn by Zeus our Lord!-- The scourge of torment or the headsman's sword Awaits thee. Else, be Hector in your thought Writ down a babbler and a man of nought. LEADER (_grovelling before_ HECTOR). Woe, woe! It was for thee, only for thee, I must have gone, O Help and Majesty, That time with message that the fires were burning. Mine eye was keen; I swear by Simoïs river, It never drooped nor slumbered, never, never, From eve till morning! My master, verily, I am innocent utterly, Build not such wrath against me, Lord, nor harden Thy heart; let Time be judge; and if in deed Or word I have offended, let me bleed! Bury me here alive! I ask no pardon. [HECTOR _is standing over him ready to strike when the_ CHARIOTEER _speaks_. THRACIAN. Why threaten them? Art thou a Greek to blind My barbarous wit so nimbly, in a wind Of words? This work was thine. And no man's head [vv. 835-861] Is asked by us, the wounded and the dead, Save thine. It needs more play, and better feigned, To hide from me that thou hast slain thy friend By craft, to steal his horses.--That is why He stabs his friends. He prays them earnestly, Prays them to come; they came and they are dead. A cleaner man was Paris, when he fled With his host's wife. He was no murderer. Profess not thou that any Greek was there To fall on us. What Greek could pass the screen Of Trojan posts in front of us, unseen? Thyself was stationed there, and all thy men. What man of yours was slain or wounded when Your Greek spies came? Not one; 'tis we, behind, Are wounded, and some worse than wounded, blind Forever to the sunlight. When we seek Our vengeance, we shall go not to the Greek. What stranger in that darkness could have trod Straight to where Rhesus lay--unless some God Pointed his path? They knew not, whispered not, Rhesus had ever come. . . . 'Tis all a plot. HECTOR (_steadied and courteous again_).