Then Aias saw those sheep upon the earth
Gasping in death; and sore amazed he stood,
For he divined that by the Blessed Ones
His senses had been cheated. All his limbs
Failed under him; his soul was anguished-thrilled:
He could not in his horror take one step
Forward nor backward. Like some towering rock
Fast-rooted mid the mountains, there he stood.
But when the wild rout of his thoughts had rallied,
He groaned in misery, and in anguish wailed:
“Ah me! why do the Gods abhor me so?
They have wrecked my mind, have with fell madness filled,
Making me slaughter all these innocent sheep!
Would God that on Odysseus’ pestilent heart
Mine hands had so avenged me! Miscreant, he
Brought on me a fell curse! O may his soul
Suffer all torments that the Avenging Fiends
Devise for villains! On all other Greeks
May they bring murderous battle, woeful griefs,
And chiefly on Agamemnon, Atreus’ son!
Not scatheless to the home may he return
So long desired! But why should I consort,
I, a brave man, with the abominable?
Perish the Argive host, perish my life,
Now unendurable! The brave no more
Hath his due guerdon, but the baser sort
Are honoured most and loved, as this Odysseus
Hath worship mid the Greeks: but utterly
Have they forgotten me and all my deeds,
All that I wrought and suffered in their cause.”
So spake the brave son of strong Telamon,
Then thrust the sword of Hector through his throat.
Forth rushed the blood in torrent: in the dust
Outstretched he lay, like Typhon, when the bolts
Of Zeus had blasted him. Around him groaned
The dark earth as he fell upon her breast.
Then thronging came the Danaans, when they saw
Low laid in dust the hero; but ere then
None dared draw nigh him, but in deadly fear
They watched him from afar. Now hasted they
And flung themselves upon the dead, outstretched
Upon their faces: on their heads they cast
Dust, and their wailing went up to the sky.
As when men drive away the tender lambs
Out of the fleecy flock, to feast thereon,
And round the desolate pens the mothers leap
Ceaselessly bleating, so o’er Aias rang
That day a very great and bitter cry.
Wild echoes pealed from Ida forest-palled,
And from the plain, the ships, the boundless sea.
Then Teucer clasping him was minded too
To rush on bitter doom: howbeit the rest
Held from the sword his hand. Anguished he fell
Upon the dead, outpouring many a tear
More comfortlessly than the orphan babe
That wails beside the hearth, with ashes strewn
On head and shoulders, wails bereavement’s day
That brings death to the mother who hath nursed
The fatherless child; so wailed he, ever wailed
His great death-stricken brother, creeping slow
Around the corpse, and uttering his lament:
“O Aias, mighty-souled, why was thine heart
Distraught, that thou shouldst deal unto thyself
Murder and bale? All, was it that the sons
Of Troy might win a breathing-space from woes,
Might come and slay the Greeks, now thou art not?
From these shall all the olden courage fail
When fast they fall in fight. Their shield from harm
Is broken now! For me, I have no will
To see mine home again, now thou art dead.
Nay, but I long here also now to die,
That so the earth may shroud me—me and thee
Not for my parents so much do I care,
If haply yet they live, if haply yet
Spared from the grave, in Salamis they dwell,
As for thee, O my glory and my crown!”
So cried he groaning sore; with answering moan
Queenly Tecmessa wailed, the princess-bride
Of noble Aias, captive of his spear,
Yet ta’en by him to wife, and household-queen
O’er all his substance, even all that wives
Won with a bride-price rule for wedded lords.
Clasped in his mighty arms, she bare to him
A son Eurysaces, in all things like
Unto his father, far as babe might be
Yet cradled in his tent. With bitter moan
Fell she on that dear corpse, all her fair form
Close-shrouded in her veil, and dust-defiled,
And from her anguished heart cried piteously:
“Alas for me, for me now thou art dead,
Not by the hands of foes in fight struck down,
But by thine own! On me is come a grief
Ever-abiding! Never had I looked
To see thy woeful death-day here by Troy.
Ah, visions shattered by rude hands of Fate!
Oh that the earth had yawned wide for my grave
Ere I beheld thy bitter doom! On me
No sharper, more heart-piercing pang hath come—
No, not when first from fatherland afar
And parents thou didst bear me, wailing sore
Mid other captives, when the day of bondage
Had come on me, a princess theretofore.
Not for that dear lost home so much I grieve,
Nor for my parents dead, as now for thee:
For all thine heart was kindness unto me
The hapless, and thou madest me thy wife,
One soul with thee; yea, and thou promisedst
To throne me queen of fair-towered Salamis,
When home we won from Troy. The Gods denied
Accomplishment thereof. And thou hast passed
Unto the Unseen Land: thou hast forgot
Me and thy child, who never shall make glad
His father’s heart, shall never mount thy throne.
But him shall strangers make a wretched thrall:
For when the father is no more, the babe
Is ward of meaner men. A weary life
The orphan knows, and suffering cometh in
From every side upon him like a flood.
To me too thraldom’s day shall doubtless come,
Now thou hast died, who wast my god on earth.”
Then in all kindness Agamemnon spake:
“Princess, no man on earth shall make thee thrall,
While Teucer liveth yet, while yet I live.
Thou shalt have worship of us evermore
And honour as a Goddess, with thy son,
As though yet living were that godlike man,
Aias, who was the Achaeans’ chiefest strength.
Ah that he had not laid this load of grief
On all, in dying by his own right hand!
For all the countless armies of his foes
Never availed to slay him in fair fight.”
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