Sophocles, Ajax 201–330: First episode: Tecmessa tells what happened in the night

Tecmessa Mates of the ship of Ajax, offspring of the race that springs from the Erechtheids, the soil’s sons, cries of grief are the portion of us who care from afar for the house of Telamon. Ajax, our terrible, mighty lord of untamed power, now lies plagued by a turbid storm of disease.

Chorus And what is the heavy change from the fortune of yesterday which this night has produced? Daughter of Teleutas the Phrygian, speak, since for you his spear-won mate bold Ajax maintains his love, so that with some knowledge you could suggest an explanation.

Tecmessa Oh, how am I to tell a tale too terrible for words? Grave as death is the suffering which you will hear. By madness our glorious Ajax was seized in the night, and he has been subjected to utter disgrace. All this you may see inside his dwelling—butchered victims bathed in blood, sacrifices of no hand but his.

Chorus What report of the fiery warrior have you revealed to us, unbearable, nor yet escapable— a report which the great Danaans propound, which their powerful storytelling spreads! Ah, me, I shudder at the future’s advancing step. In public view the man will die because the dark sword in his frenzied hand massacred the herds and the horse-guiding herdsmen.

Tecmessa Ah! Then it was from there, from there that he came to me with his captive flock! Of part, he cut the throats on the floor inside; some, striking their sides, he tore asunder. Then he caught up two white-footed rams and sheared off the head of one and its tongue-tip, and flung them away; the other he bound upright to a pillar, and seizing a heavy strap from a horse’s harness he flogged it with a whistling, doubled lash, while he cursed it with awful imprecations which a god, and no mortal, had taught him.

The time has come for each of us to veil his head and steal away on foot, or to sit and take on the swift yoke of rowing, giving her way to the sea-faring ship. So angry are the threats which the brother-kings, the sons of Atreus, speed against us! I fear to share in bitter death beneath an onslaught of stones, crushed at this man’s side, whom an untouchable fate holds in its grasp.

It grips him no longer. For like a southerly wind after it has started up sharply without bright lightning he grows calm. And now in his right mind he has new pain. To look on self-made suffering, when no other has had a hand in it—this induces sharp pains.

Chorus But if he has stopped his madness, I have good hope that all may yet be well, since the trouble is of less account once it has passed.

Tecmessa And which, if the choice were given you, would you choose—to distress your friends, and have joy yourself, or to share the grief of friends who grieve?

Chorus The twofold sorrow, lady, is certainly the greater evil.

Tecmessa Then we are ruined now, although the plague is past.

Chorus What do you mean? I do not understand what you say.

Tecmessa That man, while afflicted, found joy for himself in the dire fantasies that held him, though his presence distressed us who were sane. But now, since he has had pause and rest from the plague, he has been utterly subjected to lowly anguish, and we similarly grieve no less than before. Surely, then, these are two sorrows, instead of one?

Chorus Indeed, I agree, and so I fear that a blow sent by a god has hit him. How could it be otherwise, if his spirit is no lighter than when he was plagued, now that he is released?

Tecmessa This, you must know, is how matters stand.

Chorus In what way did the plague first swoop down on him? Tell us who share your pain how it happened.

You will hear all that took place, since you are involved. In the dead of night when the evening lamps were no longer aflame, he seized a two-edged sword and wanted to leave on an aimless foray. Then I admonished him and said, What are you doing, Ajax? Why do you set out unsummoned on this expedition, neither called by messenger, nor warned by trumpet? In fact the whole army is sleeping now. But he answered me curtly with that trite jingle: Woman, silence graces woman. And I, taking his meaning, desisted, but he rushed out alone. What happened out there, I cannot tell. But he came in with his captives hobbled together—bulls, herding dogs, and his fleecy quarry. Some he beheaded; of some he cut the twisted throat or broke the spine; others he abused in their bonds as though they were men, though falling only upon cattle. At last he darted out through the door, and dragged up words to speak to some shadow—now against the Atreidae, now about Odysseus—with many a mocking boast of all the abuse that in vengeance he had fully repaid them during his raid. After that he rushed back again into the house, and somehow by slow, painful steps he regained his reason. And as he scanned the room full of his disastrous madness, he struck his head and howled; he fell down, a wreck amid the wrecked corpses of the slaughtered sheep, and there he sat with clenched nails tightly clutching his hair. At first, and for a long while, he sat without a sound. But then he threatened me with those dreadful threats, if I did not declare all that had happened, and he demanded to know what on earth was the business he found himself in. And in my fear, friends, I told him all that had been done, as far as I knew it for certain. But he immediately groaned mournful groans, such as I had never heard from him before. For he had always taught that such wailing was for cowardly and low-hearted men. He used to grieve quietly without the sound of loud weeping, but instead moaned low like a bull. And now, prostrate in such miserable fortune, tasting no food, no drink, the man sits idly where he has fallen in the middle of the iron-slain cattle. And plainly he plans to do something terrible. Somehow his words and his laments say as much. Ah, my friends—for it was my errand to ask you this—come in and help him, if in any way you can. Men of his kind can be won over by the words of friends.