Ajax
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Athena
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Always, son of Laertes, have I observed you on the prowl to snatch some means of attack against your enemies. So now at the tent of Ajax by the ships where he has his post at the camp’s outer edge, I watch you
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for a long time as you hunt and scan his newly pressed tracks, in order to see whether he is inside or away. Your course leads you well to your goal, like that of a keen-scenting Laconian hound. For the man has just now gone in,
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with sweat dripping from his head and from his hands that have killed with the sword. There is no further need for you to peer inside these doors. Rather tell me what your goal is that you have shown such eagerness for, so that you may learn from her who holds the knowledge.
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Odysseus
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Voice of Athena, dearest to me of the gods,
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how clearly, though you are unseen, do I hear your call and snatch its meaning in my mind, just as I would the bronze tongue of the Tyrrhenian trumpet! And now you have discerned correctly that I am circling my path on the track of a man who hates me, Ajax the shield-bearer.
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It is he and no other that I have been tracking so long. For tonight he has done us a deed beyond comprehension—if he is indeed the doer. We know nothing for certain, but drift in doubt. And so I of my of accord took up the burden of this search.
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For we recently found all the cattle, our plunder, dead—yes, slaughtered by human hand—and with them the guardians of the flocks. Now, all men lay responsibility for this crime to him. And further, a scout who had seen him
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bounding alone over the plain with a newly-wet sword reported to me and declared what he saw. Then immediately I rush upon his track, and sometimes I follow his signs, but sometimes I am bewildered, and cannot read whose they are. Your arrival is timely, for truly in all matters, both those of the past
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and those of the future, it is your hand that steers me.
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Athena
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I know it, Odysseus, and some time ago I came on the path as a lookout friendly to your hunt.
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Odysseus
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And so, dear mistress, do I toil to good effect?
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Athena
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Know that that man is the doer of these deeds.
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Odysseus
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Then to what end did he thrust his hand so senselessly?
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Athena
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He was mad with anger over the arms of Achilles.
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Odysseus
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Why, then, his onslaught upon the flocks?
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Athena
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It was in your blood, he thought, that he was staining his hand.
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Odysseus
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Then was this a plot aimed against the Greeks?
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Athena
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Yes, and he would have accomplished it, too, had I not been attentive.
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Odysseus
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And what reckless boldness was in his mind that he dared this?
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Athena
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Under night’s cover he set out against you, by stealth and alone.
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Odysseus
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And did he get near us? Did he reach his goal?
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Athena
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He was already at the double doors of the two generals.
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Odysseus
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How, then, did he restrain his hand when it was eager for murder?
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Athena
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It was I who prevented him, by casting over his eyes oppressive notions of his fatal joy, and I who turned his fury aside on the flocks of sheep and the confused droves guarded by herdsmen, the spoil which you had not yet divided.
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Then he fell upon them and kept cutting out a slaughter of many horned beasts as he split their spines in a circle around him. At one time he thought that he was killing the two Atreidae, holding them in his very hand; at another time it was this commander, and at another that one which he attacked. And I, while the man ran about in diseased frenzy,
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I kept urging him on, kept hurling him into the snares of doom. Soon, when he rested from this toil, he bound together the living oxen along with with all the sheep and brought them home, as though his quarry were men, not well-horned cattle. And now he abuses them, bound together, in the house. But to you also will I show this madness openly, so that when you have seen it you may proclaim it to all the Argives. Be of good courage and stand your ground, and do not regard the man as a cause of disaster for you. I will turn away the beams of his eyes
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and keep them from landing on your face.
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You there, you who bind back your captive’s arms, I am calling you, come here! I am calling Ajax! Come out in front of the house!
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Odysseus
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What are you doing, Athena? Do not call him out.
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Athena
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Hold your peace! Do not earn a reputation for cowardice!
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Odysseus
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No, by the gods, let it content you that he stay inside.
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Athena
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What is the danger? Was he not a man before?
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Odysseus
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Yes, a man hostile to me in the past, and especially now.
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Athena
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And is not the sweetest mockery the mockery of enemies?
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Odysseus
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I am content that he stay within his tent.
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Athena
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Do you fear to see a madman right before your eyes?
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Odysseus
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I would not shrink from him in fear, if he were sane.
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Athena
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But he will not see you now, even though you stand nearby.
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Odysseus
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How could that be, if he still sees with the same eyes?
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Athena
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I shall darken them, though their sight is keen.
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Odysseus
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It is true: all is possible when a god contrives.
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Athena
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Stand silent, then, and stay where you are.
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Odysseus
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I must stay. But I would prefer to be far from here!
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Athena
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You there, Ajax, once again I call you! Why do you show so little regard for your ally?
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Ajax
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Welcome, Athena! Welcome, daughter sprung from Zeus! How well have you stood by me! I will crown you with trophies of pure gold in gratitude for this quarry!
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Athena
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A fine pledge. But tell me this—have you dyed your sword well in the Greek army?
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Ajax
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I can make that boast. I do not deny it.
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Athena
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And have you launched your armed hand against the Atreidae?
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Ajax
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Yes, so that never again will they dishonor Ajax.
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Athena
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The men are dead, as I interpret your words.
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Ajax
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Dead they are. Now let them rob me of my arms!
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Athena
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I see. And the son of Laertes, how does his fortune with respect to you? Has he escaped you?
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Ajax
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That blasted fox! You ask me where he is?
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Athena
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Yes, I do. I mean Odysseus, your adversary.
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Ajax
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My most pleasing prisoner, mistress, he sits inside. I do not wish him to die just yet.
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Athena
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Until you do what? Or win what greater advantage?
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Ajax
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Until he be bound to a pillar beneath my roof—
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Athena
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What evil, then, will you inflict on the poor man?
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Ajax
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—and have his back crimsoned by the lash, before he dies.
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Athena
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Do not abuse the poor man so cruelly!
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Ajax
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In all else, Athena, I bid you take your pleasure, but he will pay this penalty and no other.
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Athena
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Well, then, since it delights you to do so, put your arm to use; spare no portion of your plan.
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Ajax
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I go to my work. And I give you this commission: be always for me the close-standing ally that you have been for me today!
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Athena
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Do you see, Odysseus, how great is the strength of the gods? Whom could you have found more prudent than this man,
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or better able to do what the situation demanded?
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Odysseus
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I know of no one, but in his misery I pity him all the same, even though he hates me, because he is yoked beneath a ruinous delusion—I think of my own lot no less than his.
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For I see that all we who live are nothing more than phantoms or fleeting shadow.
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Athena
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Therefore since you witness his fate, see that you yourself never utter an arrogant word against the gods, nor assume any swelling pride, if in the scales of fate you are weightier
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than another in strength of hand or in depth of ample wealth. For a day can press down all human things, and a day can raise them up. But the gods embrace men of sense and abhor the evil.
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Chorus
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Son of Telamon, you who hold
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your throne on wave-washed Salamis near the open sea, when your fortune is fair, I rejoice with you. But whenever the stroke of Zeus, or the raging rumor of the Danaans with the clamor of their evil tongues attacks you, then I shrink with great fear and shudder in terror,
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like the fluttering eye of the winged dove. Just so with the passing of the night loud tumults oppressed us to our dishonor, telling how you visited the meadow wild with horses and destroyed
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the cattle of the Greeks, their spoil, prizes of the spear which had not yet been shared, how you killed them with flashing iron. Such are the whispered slanders that Odysseus moulds and breathes into the ears of all,
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and he wins much belief. For now he tells tales concerning you that easily win belief, and each hearer rejoices with spiteful scorn at your burdens more than he who told. Point your shaft at a noble spirit,
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and you could not miss; but if a man were to speak such things against me, he would win no belief. It is on the powerful that envy creeps. Yet the small without the great are a teetering tower of defence.
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For the lowly stand most upright and prosperous when allied with the great, and the great when served by less. But foolish men cannot learn good precepts in these matters beforehand. It is men of this sort that subject you to tumult, and
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we lack the power to repel these charges without you, O King. For when they have escaped your eye, they chatter like flocking birds. But, terrified by a mighty vulture,
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perhaps, if you should appear, they would quickly cower without voice in silence.
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Chorus
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Was it Artemis ruler of bulls, Zeus’s daughter, that drove you, O powerful Rumor, O mother of my shame,
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drove you against the herds of all our people? Was she exacting retribution, perhaps, for a victory that had paid her no tribute, whether it was because she had been cheated of the glory of captured arms, or because a stag had been slain without gifts for recompense? Or can the bronze-cuirassed Lord of War
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have had some cause for anger arising out of an alliance of spears, and taken vengeance for the outrage by contrivance shrouded in night?
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Chorus
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For never of your own heart alone, son of Telamon, would you have gone so far down the sinister path
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as to fall upon the flocks. When the gods send madness, it cannot but reach its target, but may Zeus and Phoebus avert the evil rumor of the Greeks! And if it is the great kings who slander you with their furtive stories,
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or if it is he born of the abject line of Sisyphus, do not, my king, do not win me an evil name by keeping your face still hidden in the tent by the sea.
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Chorus
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Come now, up from your seat, wherever you are settled in this long-lived pause from battle
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and are making the flame of disaster blaze up to the sky! The violent insolence of your enemies rushes fearlessly about in the breezy glens, while the tongues of all the army cackle out a load of grief.
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For me, sorrow stands firmly planted.
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Tecmessa
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Mates of the ship of Ajax, offspring of the race that springs from the Erechtheids, the soil’s sons, cries of grief are the portion of us who care from afar for the house of Telamon.
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Ajax, our terrible, mighty lord of untamed power, now lies plagued by a turbid storm of disease.
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Chorus
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And what is the heavy change from the fortune of yesterday which this night has produced?
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Daughter of Teleutas the Phrygian, speak, since for you his spear-won mate bold Ajax maintains his love, so that with some knowledge you could suggest an explanation.
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Tecmessa
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Oh, how am I to tell a tale too terrible for words?
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Grave as death is the suffering which you will hear. By madness our glorious Ajax was seized in the night, and he has been subjected to utter disgrace. All this you may see inside his dwelling—butchered victims bathed in blood,
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sacrifices of no hand but his.
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Chorus
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What report of the fiery warrior have you revealed to us, unbearable, nor yet escapable—
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a report which the great Danaans propound, which their powerful storytelling spreads! Ah, me, I shudder at the future’s advancing step. In public view the man will die
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because the dark sword in his frenzied hand massacred the herds and the horse-guiding herdsmen.
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Tecmessa
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Ah! Then it was from there, from there that he came to me with his captive flock!
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Of part, he cut the throats on the floor inside; some, striking their sides, he tore asunder. Then he caught up two white-footed rams and sheared off the head of one and its tongue-tip, and flung them away;
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the other he bound upright to a pillar, and seizing a heavy strap from a horse’s harness he flogged it with a whistling, doubled lash, while he cursed it with awful imprecations which a god, and no mortal, had taught him.