Ajax

Sophocles

Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 7: The Ajax. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.

  1. My rotten fortune!—I let slip from my grasp those men who were begging for punishment,
  2. and fell instead on cattle with twisted horns and fine goats, making their dark blood flow!
Chorus
  1. Why grieve when the deed is past recall? These things can never be but as they are.
Ajax
  1. Ah, you who spy out all things,
  2. 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!
Chorus
  1. It is at the god’s dispensation that every man both laughs and mourns.
Ajax
  1. Yet if only I could see him, even shattered as I am!
  2. Oh! Oh!