Ajax

Sophocles

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

  1. and has been found a heavy sorrow for his friends. His hands’ former achievements, deeds of prowess supreme,
  2. have fallen without friends, without friends, before the unfriendly, miserable Atreidae.
Chorus
  1. Surely his mother, companion of antiquity and
  2. grey with age, when she hears that he has been afflicted with the ruin of his mind will raise a loud cry of wailing. It is not the nightingale’s piteous lament
  3. that she, unhappy, will sing. Rather in shrill-toned odes the dirge will rise, while the hollow sound of beating hands and the shredding of grey hair will fall upon her breast.
Chorus
  1. Yes, better hid in Hades is the man plagued by foolishness, who by the lineage from where he springs is noblest of the enduring Achaeans, yet now is
  2. constant no more in his inbred temperament, but wanders outside himself. O Telamon, unhappy father, how heavy a curse upon your son awaits your hearing, a curse which never yet has
  3. any life-portion of the heirs of Aeacus nourished but his!