Ajax
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 7: The Ajax. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.
- 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!
- Ah, lady, too true, it seems, was your testimony!
- The fact proves that he is not sane.
- Ah, you clan staunch in maritime skill, who embarked and stroked the oar-blade upon the brine, in you, in you alone
- I see a defense against suffering. Come, slay me on top of these!
- Hush! Speak words of better omen! Do not cure evil by prescribing evil; do not increase the anguish of your mad disaster.
- Do you see the bold, the strong of heart,
- the dauntless in battles with the enemy—do you see me now, terrible in the force of my hands against beasts unformidable? Oh, the mockery! How I have been violated!
- Ajax, my lord, I beg you, do not talk this way!
- Away with you! Will you not take yourself outside!
- Ah, me! Ah, me!
- By the gods I plead, give way and acquire good sense!
- My rotten fortune!—I let slip from my grasp those men who were begging for punishment,
- and fell instead on cattle with twisted horns and fine goats, making their dark blood flow!
- Why grieve when the deed is past recall? These things can never be but as they are.
- Ah, you who spy out all things,
- you ready tool of every crime, ah, son of Laertes, you filthiest sneak in all the army, I am sure you laugh loud and long for joy!
- It is at the god’s dispensation that every man both laughs and mourns.
- Yet if only I could see him, even shattered as I am!
- Oh! Oh!