Ajax
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Chorus
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The time has come for each of us to veil his head and steal away on foot, or to sit and take on the swift yoke of rowing,
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giving her way to the sea-faring ship. So angry are the threats which the brother-kings, the sons of Atreus, speed against us! I fear to share in bitter death beneath an onslaught of stones,
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crushed at this man’s side, whom an untouchable fate holds in its grasp.
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Tecmessa
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It grips him no longer. For like a southerly wind after it has started up sharply without bright lightning he grows calm. And now in his right mind he has new pain.
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To look on self-made suffering, when no other has had a hand in it—this induces sharp pains.
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Chorus
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But if he has stopped his madness, I have good hope that all may yet be well, since the trouble is of less account once it has passed.
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Tecmessa
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And which, if the choice were given you, would you choose—to distress your friends, and have joy yourself, or to share the grief of friends who grieve?
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Chorus
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The twofold sorrow, lady, is certainly the greater evil.
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Tecmessa
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Then we are ruined now, although the plague is past.
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Chorus
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What do you mean? I do not understand what you say.
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Tecmessa
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That man, while afflicted, found joy for himself in the dire fantasies that held him, though his presence distressed us who were sane. But now, since he has had pause and rest from the plague,
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he has been utterly subjected to lowly anguish, and we similarly grieve no less than before. Surely, then, these are two sorrows, instead of one?
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Chorus
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Indeed, I agree, and so I fear that a blow sent by a god has hit him. How could it be otherwise, if his spirit is no lighter
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than when he was plagued, now that he is released?
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Tecmessa
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This, you must know, is how matters stand.
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Chorus
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In what way did the plague first swoop down on him? Tell us who share your pain how it happened.
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Tecmessa
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You will hear all that took place, since you are involved.
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In the dead of night when the evening lamps were no longer aflame, he seized a two-edged sword and wanted to leave on an aimless foray. Then I admonished him and said, What are you doing, Ajax? Why do you set out unsummoned on this expedition,
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neither called by messenger, nor warned by trumpet? In fact the whole army is sleeping now. But he answered me curtly with that trite jingle: Woman, silence graces woman. And I, taking his meaning, desisted, but he rushed out alone.
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What happened out there, I cannot tell. But he came in with his captives hobbled together—bulls, herding dogs, and his fleecy quarry. Some he beheaded; of some he cut the twisted throat or broke the spine; others
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he abused in their bonds as though they were men, though falling only upon cattle. At last he darted out through the door, and dragged up words to speak to some shadow—now against the Atreidae, now about Odysseus—with many a mocking boast of all the abuse that in vengeance he had fully repaid them during his raid.
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After that he rushed back again into the house, and somehow by slow, painful steps he regained his reason. And as he scanned the room full of his disastrous madness, he struck his head and howled; he fell down, a wreck amid the wrecked corpses of the slaughtered sheep, and there he sat
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with clenched nails tightly clutching his hair. At first, and for a long while, he sat without a sound. But then he threatened me with those dreadful threats, if I did not declare all that had happened, and he demanded to know what on earth was the business he found himself in.
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And in my fear, friends, I told him all that had been done, as far as I knew it for certain. But he immediately groaned mournful groans, such as I had never heard from him before. For he had always taught that such wailing
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was for cowardly and low-hearted men. He used to grieve quietly without the sound of loud weeping, but instead moaned low like a bull. And now, prostrate in such miserable fortune, tasting no food, no drink,
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the man sits idly where he has fallen in the middle of the iron-slain cattle. And plainly he plans to do something terrible. Somehow his words and his laments say as much. Ah, my friends—for it was my errand to ask you this—come in and help him, if in any way you can.
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Men of his kind can be won over by the words of friends.
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Chorus
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Tecmessa, daughter of Teleutas, terrible is your news that our lord has been possessed by his sorrows.
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Ajax
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Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!
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Tecmessa
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Soon there will be more sorrow, it seems. Did you not hear
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Ajax, did you not hear his resounding howl?
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Ajax
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Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!
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Chorus
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The man seems to be sick, or else to be still pained by the disease which was recently with him, since he sees its traces.
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Ajax
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Oh my son, my son!
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Tecmessa
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Ah, miserable me! Eurysaces, it is for you he calls! What can his purpose be? Where are you? I am miserable!
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Ajax
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Teucer! Where is Teucer? Will his raid last for ever? While I perish?
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Chorus
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He seems to be sane—open the door!
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Perhaps merely at the sight of me he will come to a more respectable mood.
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Tecmessa
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There, it is open. Now you can look on this man’s deeds, and his true condition.
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Ajax
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Ah, good sailors, you alone of my friends
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who alone still abide by the true bond of friendship, see how great a wave has just now crested over and broken around me, set on by a murderous storm!
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Chorus
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Ah, lady, too true, it seems, was your testimony!
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The fact proves that he is not sane.
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Ajax
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Ah, you clan staunch in maritime skill, who embarked and stroked the oar-blade upon the brine, in you, in you alone
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I see a defense against suffering. Come, slay me on top of these!
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Chorus
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Hush! Speak words of better omen! Do not cure evil by prescribing evil; do not increase the anguish of your mad disaster.
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Ajax
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Aiai! Who would ever have thought that my name would so descriptively suit my troubles? For well now may Ajax cry Aiai—yes, twice and three times. Such are the harsh troubles with which I have met. Look, I am one whose father’s
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prowess won him the fairest prize of all the army, whose father brought every glory home from this same land of Ida; but I, his son, who came after him to this same ground of Troy with no less might and proved the service of my hand in no meaner deeds,
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I am ruined as you see by dishonor from the Greeks. And yet of this much I feel sure: if Achilles lived, and had been called to award the first place in valor to any claimant of his arms, no one would have grasped them before me.
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But now the Atreidae have made away with them to a man without scruples and thrust away the triumphs of Ajax. And if these eyes and this warped mind had not swerved from the purpose that was mine, they would have never in this way procured votes in judgment against another man.
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As it was, the daughter of Zeus, the grim-eyed, unconquerable goddess, tripped me up at the instant when I was readying my hand against them, and shot me with a plague of frenzy so that I might bloody my hands in these grazers. And those men exult to have escaped me—
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not that I wanted their escape. But if a god sends harm, it is true that even the base man can elude the worthier. And now what shall I do, when I am plainly hated by the gods, abhorred by the Greek forces and detested by all Troy and all these plains?
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Shall I leave my station at the ships and the Atreidae to their own devices in order to go home across the Aegean? And how shall I face my father Telamon, when I arrive? How will he bear to look on me, when I stand before him stripped, without that supreme prize of valor
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for which he himself won a great crown of fame? No, I could not bear to do it! But then shall I go against the bulwark of the Trojans, attacking alone in single combats and doing some valuable service, and finally die? But, in so doing I might, I think, gladden the Atreidae.
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That must not happen. Some enterprise must be sought whereby I may prove to my aged father that in nature, at least, his son is not gutless. It is a stain upon a man to crave the full term of life, when he finds no variation from his ignominious troubles.
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What joy is there in day following day, now advancing us towards, now drawing us back from the verge of death? I would not buy at any price the man who feels the glow of empty hopes.
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The options for a noble man are only two: either live with honor, or make a quick and honorable death. You have heard all.
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Chorus
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No man shall say that you have spoken a bastard word, Ajax, or one not bred of your own heart. Yet at least pause; dismiss these thoughts, and grant friends the power to rule your purpose.
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Tecmessa
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Ajax, my lord, the fortune that humans are compelled to endure is their gravest evil. I was the daughter of a free-born father mighty in wealth, if any Phrygian was. Now I am a slave, for somehow the gods so ordained,
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and even more so did your strong hand. Therefore, since I have come into your bed, I wish you well, and I do beg you, by the Zeus of our hearth, by your marriage-bed in which you coupled with me, do not condemn me to the cruel talk
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of your enemies, do not leave me to the hand of a stranger! On whatever day you die and widow me by your death, on that same day, be sure, I shall also be seized forcibly by the Greeks and, with your son, shall obtain a slave’s portion.
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Then one of my masters will name me bitterly, shooting me with taunts: See the concubine of Ajax, who was the mightiest man in the army. See what menial tasks she tends to, in place of such an enviable existence! Such things will men say, and so will destiny afflict me
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while the shame of these words will stain you and your family. Show respect to your father, whom you abandon in miserable old age, and respect your mother with her share of many years, who often prays to the gods that you may come home alive.
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Pity, too, my king, your son. Pity him the great sorrow which at your death you will bequeath both to him and to me, if robbed of nurturing care he must spend his days apart from you, an orphan tended by guardians who are neither family nor friends. I have nothing left to which I can look,
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save you, and you are the reason. Your spear ravaged my country to nothingness, and another fate has brought down my mother and father, giving them a home in Hades in their death. What homeland, then, could I have without you? What wealth? My welfare is entirely in your hands.
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So remember me, too. A true man should cherish remembrance, if anywhere he takes some pleasure. It is kindness that always begets kindness. But whoever lets the memory of benefits seep from him, he can no longer be a noble man.
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Chorus
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Ajax, I wish that pity touched your heart as it does mine. Then you would approve her words.
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Ajax
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She will have approval as far as I am concerned, if only she takes heart and graciously does my bidding.
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Tecmessa
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Dear Ajax, I will obey you in everything.
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Ajax
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Then bring me my son, so that I may see him.
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Tecmessa
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But in my fear I released him from my keeping.
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Ajax
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Because of these troubles of mine? Or what do you mean?
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Tecmessa
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Yes, for fear that somehow the poor child would get in your way, and die.
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Ajax
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Yes, that would have been truly worthy of my destiny.
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Tecmessa
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Well, at least I took care to avert that disaster.
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Ajax
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I approve of your action and of your foresight.
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Tecmessa
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How, then, can I serve you, as things stand now?
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Ajax
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Let me speak to him and see him face to face.
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Tecmessa
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Oh, yes—he is close by, watched by our servants.
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Ajax
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Then why is his presence delayed?
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Tecmessa
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My child, your father calls you. Bring him here, servant, whichever of you is guiding his steps.
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Ajax
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Is the man coming? Or has he missed your call?
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Tecmessa
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Here now one of the servants approaches with him.
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Ajax
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Lift him; lift him up here. Doubtless he will not shrink to look on this newly-shed blood, if he is indeed my true-born son and heir to his father’s manners. But he must at once be broken into his father’s harsh ways and moulded to the likeness of my nature.
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Ah, son, may you prove luckier than your father, but in all else like him. Then you would not prove base. Yet even now I may well envy you on this account, that you have no perception of these evils about us. Yes, life is sweetest when one lacks sense, for lack of sensation is a painless evil
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that is, until one learns to know joy or pain. But when you come to that knowledge, then you must be sure to prove among your father’s enemies of what mettle and of what lineage you are. Meanwhile feed on light breezes, and nurse your tender life for your mother’s joy.
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There is no Greek—I know it for certain—who will do violence to you with hard outrages, even when you are without me. So trusty is the guard, Teucer himself, whom I will leave at your gates. He will not falter in his care for you, although now he walks a far path, busied with the hunt of enemies.
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O my warriors, my seafaring comrades! On you as on him, I lay this shared task of love: give my command to Teucer! Let him take this child to my home and set him before the face of Telamon, and of my mother, Eriboea,
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so that he may become the comfort of their age into eternity until they come to the deep hollows of the god below. And order him that no commissioners of games, nor he who is my destroyer, should make my arms a prize for the Greeks. No, you take this for my sake, Son, my broad shield from which you have your name.
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Hold it and wield it by the sturdy thong, this sevenfold, spear-proof shield! But the rest of my arms shall be my gravemates.
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Come, take the child right away, shut tight the doors and make no laments before the house.
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God, what a weepy thing is woman. Quick, close the house! It is not for a skilful doctor to moan incantations over a wound that craves the knife.
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Chorus
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I am afraid when I hear this eager haste. Your tongue’s sharp edge does not please me.
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Tecmessa
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Ajax, my lord, what can you have in mind?
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Ajax
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Do not keep asking me, do not keep questioning. Self-restraint is a virtue.
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Tecmessa
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Ah, how I despair! Now, by your child, by the gods, I implore you, do not betray us!
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Ajax
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You annoy me too much. Do you not know
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that I no longer owe any service to the gods?
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Tecmessa
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Hush, no impiety!
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Tecmessa
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You will not listen?