Make no big threats! Do you not see the trouble you are in?AjaxO Zeus, forefather of my forebears, if only I might destroy that deep dissembler, that hateful sneak, andthe two brother-kings, and finally die myself, also!TecmessaWhen you make that prayer, pray at the same time for me that I, too, may die. What reason is there for me to live when you are dead?

AjaxAh, Darkness, my light!O Gloom of the underworld, to my eyes brightest-shining, take me, take me to dwell with you—yes, take me. I am no longer worthy to look for help to the race of the gods,or for any good from men, creatures of a day. No, the daughter of Zeus, the valiant goddess, abuses me to my destruction. Where, then, can a man flee? Where can I go to find rest?If my past achievements go to ruin, my friends, along with such victims as these near me, and if I am inclined to foolish plunderings, then with sword driven by both hands all the army would murder me!TecmessaAh, what misery for me that a valuable man should speak words of a sort which he would never before now have endured to speak!

AjaxAh! You paths of the sounding sea, you tidal caves and wooded pastures by the shore, long, long, too long indeedhave you detained me here at Troy. But no more will you hold me, no more so long as I have the breath of life. Of that much let sane men be sure. O neighboring streams of Scamander,kindly to the Greeks, no more shall you look on Ajax, whose equal in the army—here I will boast—Troy has never seen come from the land of Hellas. But now deprived of honor I lie low here in the dust!ChorusIn truth I do not know how to restrain you, nor how to let you speak further, when you have fallen on such harsh troubles.

AjaxAiai! 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’sprowess 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,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.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.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—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?