I am afraid when I hear this eager haste. Your tongue’s sharp edge does not please me.TecmessaAjax, my lord, what can you have in mind?AjaxDo not keep asking me, do not keep questioning. Self-restraint is a virtue.TecmessaAh, how I despair! Now, by your child, by the gods, I implore you, do not betray us!AjaxYou annoy me too much. Do you not knowthat I no longer owe any service to the gods?TecmessaHush, no impiety!AjaxSpeak to those who hear.TecmessaYou will not listen?AjaxAlready your words have been too many.TecmessaYes, because I am afraid, my king!AjaxTo the Attendants.Close the doors this instant!TecmessaIn the name of the gods, be softened!AjaxYou have foolish hope, I think,if you plan so late to begin schooling my temper.Ajax is shut into the tent. Exit Tecmessa with Eurysaces.

ChorusO famous Salamis, you, I know, have your happy seat among the waves that beat your shore, eternally conspicuous in the eyes of all men.But I, miserable, have long been delayed here, still making my bed through countless months in the camp on the fields of Ida.I am worn by time and with anxious expectation still of a journey to Hades the abhorred, the unseen.

ChorusAnd now a new struggle awaits me, ah, me!—a match withAjax, hard to cure, sharing his tent with a madness of divine origin. It is he whom mighty in bold war you dispatched from you once far in the past. But now he is changed; he grazes his thoughts in isolated places