Sophocles, Ajax 331–429: Kommos: Ajax laments among the slaughtered animals

Chorus Tecmessa, daughter of Teleutas, terrible is your news that our lord has been possessed by his sorrows.

Ajax Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Tecmessa Soon there will be more sorrow, it seems. Did you not hear Ajax, did you not hear his resounding howl?

Ajax Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Chorus The man seems to be sick, or else to be still pained by the disease which was recently with him, since he sees its traces.

Ajax Oh my son, my son!

Tecmessa Ah, miserable me! Eurysaces, it is for you he calls! What can his purpose be? Where are you? I am miserable!

Ajax Teucer! Where is Teucer? Will his raid last for ever? While I perish?

Chorus He seems to be sane—open the door! Perhaps merely at the sight of me he will come to a more respectable mood.

Tecmessa There, it is open. Now you can look on this man’s deeds, and his true condition.

Ajax Ah, good sailors, you alone of my friends 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!

Chorus Ah, lady, too true, it seems, was your testimony! The fact proves that he is not sane.

Ajax 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!

Chorus Hush! Speak words of better omen! Do not cure evil by prescribing evil; do not increase the anguish of your mad disaster.

Ajax 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!

Tecmessa Ajax, my lord, I beg you, do not talk this way!

Ajax Away with you! Will you not take yourself outside! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Chorus By the gods I plead, give way and acquire good sense!

Ajax 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.

Ajax 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!

Chorus It is at the god’s dispensation that every man both laughs and mourns.

Ajax Yet if only I could see him, even shattered as I am! Oh! Oh!

Chorus Make no big threats! Do you not see the trouble you are in?

Ajax O Zeus, forefather of my forebears, if only I might destroy that deep dissembler, that hateful sneak, and the two brother-kings, and finally die myself, also!

When you make that prayer, pray at the same time for me that I, too, may die. What reason is there for me to live when you are dead?

Ah, Darkness, my light! O Gloom of the underworld, to my eyes brightest-shining, take me, take me to dwell with you—yes, take me. I am no longer worthy to look for help to the race of the gods, or for any good from men, creatures of a day. No, the daughter of Zeus, the valiant goddess, abuses me to my destruction. Where, then, can a man flee? Where can I go to find rest? If my past achievements go to ruin, my friends, along with such victims as these near me, and if I am inclined to foolish plunderings, then with sword driven by both hands all the army would murder me!

Ah, what misery for me that a valuable man should speak words of a sort which he would never before now have endured to speak!

Ah! You paths of the sounding sea, you tidal caves and wooded pastures by the shore, long, long, too long indeed have you detained me here at Troy. But no more will you hold me, no more so long as I have the breath of life. Of that much let sane men be sure. O neighboring streams of Scamander, kindly to the Greeks, no more shall you look on Ajax, whose equal in the army—here I will boast— Troy has never seen come from the land of Hellas. But now deprived of honor I lie low here in the dust!

In truth I do not know how to restrain you, nor how to let you speak further, when you have fallen on such harsh troubles.