Ajax

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 264 sections

874
All the westward flank of the ships has been scoured for tracks.
875
And did you find anything?
876
Only an abundance of toil. There was nothing more to see.
877
Neither, as a matter of fact, has the man been seen along the path that faces the shafts of the morning sun.
1.879
Who, then, can guide me? What toiling
1.880
fisherman, busy about his sleepless hunt, what nymph of the Olympian heights or of the streams that flow toward
1.885
Bosporus, can say whether she has anywhere seen the wanderings of fierce-hearted Ajax? It is cruel that I, who have roamed with such great toil, cannot come near him with a fair course,
1.890
but fail to see where the enfeebled man is.
1.891
Ah, me, ah, me!
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Whose cry broke from that nearby grove?
1.893
Ah, misery!
1.894
There, I see his unfortunate young bride, who was the prize of his spear,
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Tecmessa, dissolved in that pitiful wailing.
1.896
I am lost, destroyed, razed to the ground, my friends!
1.897
What is it?
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Here is our Ajax—his blood newly shed, he lies folded around the sword, burying it.
1.900
Ah, no! Our homecoming is lost! Ah, my king, you have killed me, the comrade of your voyage! Unhappy man—broken-hearted woman!
1.904
His condition demands that we cry aiai.
1.905
But by whose hand can the ill-fated man have contrived this end?
1.906
He did it with his own hand; it is obvious. This sword which he planted in the ground and on which he fell convicts him.
1.908
Ah, what blind folly I have displayed! All alone, then, you bled, unguarded by your friends! And I took no care, so entirely dull was I, so totally stupid. Where, where lies inflexible Ajax, whose name means anguish?
1.915
No, he is not to be looked at! I will cover him over entirely with this enfolding shroud, since no one—no one, that is, who loves him—could bear to see him spurt the darkened gore of his self-inflicted slaughter up his nostrils and out of the bloody gash.
1.920
Ah, what shall I do? What loved one is there to lift you in his arms? Where is Teucer? How timely would be his arrival, if he would but come to compose the corpse of his brother here! Ah, unlucky Ajax, from so great a height you are fallen so low!
1.924
Even among your enemies you are worthy of mourning!
1.925
You were bound, poor man, with that unbending heart you were bound, it seems, to fulfill a harsh destiny of limitless toils! So wild to my ears
1.930
were the words of hatred which in your fierce mood you moaned against the Atreidae with such deadly passion. True it is that that moment was a potent source of sorrows,
1.935
when the arms were made the prize for a contest in the skills of warfare!
1.937
Ah! Ah!
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True anguish, I know, pierces your heart.
1.939
Ah! Ah, me!
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I do not wonder, lady, that you wail and wail again, when you have just lost one so loved.
1.942
It is for you to analyze my troubles, but for me to feel them too fully.
1.943
I must agree.
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Oh, my son, to what a heavy yoke of slavery
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we advance! What cruel task-masters stand over us!
1.946
Ah, the deeds of the two ruthless Atreidae which you name in our present grief would be unthinkable! May the gods hold them back!
1.950
These events that you see would not have happened as they have without the will of the gods.
1.951
Yes, they have brought upon us a burden too heavy to bear.
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Yet what suffering the divine daughter of Zeus, fierce Pallas, engenders for Odysseus’ sake!
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No doubt the much-enduring hero exults in his dark soul and mocks in loud laughter at these frenzied sorrows—what shame!—
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and with him, when they hear the news, will laugh the royal brothers, the Atreidae.
1163
A trial of this great discord will soon come about. But you, Teucer, with all the speed you can muster,
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be quick to seek a hollow grave for Ajax, where he shall establish his dank tomb, a constant memorial for mortals.
1168.1168
And now just in time his son and his wife approach
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to arrange the burial of the pitiable corpse. Come here, nephew. Take your place near him, and grasp in supplication your father, your begetter. Kneel and pray for help, with locks of hair in your hand from me, her, and thirdly you;
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they are the suppliant’s only resource. But if any soldier from the army should tear you by violence from this body, then for his wickedness may he be wickedly cast out of his country and get no burial, but be severed at the root with all his race, just as I shear this lock.
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Take it, Nephew, and keep it safe. Let no one move you, but kneel there and cling to the dead. And you there, do not stand idly by like women, not men. Help defend us until I return, when I have seen to a grave for him, though all the world forbids it.
1.1185
Which will be the last year? When will the sum of the years of our many wanderings stop bringing upon me the unending doom of toilful spear-battles
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throughout broad Troy, the cause of sorrow and of shame for Greece?
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If only that man had first passed into the depths of the sky or into Hades, the common home of all,
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before he taught the Greeks the shared plague of Ares’ detested arms! Ah, those toils of his invention, which produced so many more toils! Look how that man has ravaged humanity!
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No delight in garlands
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or deep wine-cups did that man provide me, no sweet din of flutes, that miserable man, or pleasing rest in the night.
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And from love—god!—from love he has totally barred me. Here I lie uncared for, while heavy dews constantly wet my hair,
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damp reminders of joyless Troy.
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In the past bold Ajax was always my bulwark against night’s terrors and flying missiles. But now he has become an offering consecrated
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to a malignant divinity. What joy, then, what delight awaits me anymore? O to be where the wooded wave-washed cape fences off the deep sea,
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to be beneath Sunium’s jutting plateau, so that we might salute sacred Athens!
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Enough. Already the interval has been long drawn out. Come, hurry some of you to dig the hollow grave; others erect the
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cauldron wrapped in fire on its high stand for prompt preparation of the ritual cleansing. Let another company bring from the tent the finery which he wore in battle beneath his shield. And you, too, child, with such strength as you have
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lay a loving hand upon your father and help me to lighten his body; for his channels are still warm and spray upwards the dark force of his spirit. Come, come everyone who claims to be our friend, start forward and move on,
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laboring in service to this man of perfect excellence. To a nobler man such service has never yet been rendered —nobler than Ajax when he lived, I mean.
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Many things, I tell you, can be known through mortal eyes; but before he sees it happening, no one can foretell
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the future, or what his fate will be.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0011.tlg003.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.