First Semichorus Toil follows toil yielding toil! Where, where have I not trudged? And still no place can say that I have shared its secret. Listen! A sudden thud!
Second Semichorus We made it, we shipmates of your voyage.
Semichorus 1 What news, then?
Semichorus 2 All the westward flank of the ships has been scoured for tracks.
Semichorus 1 And did you find anything?
Semichorus 2 Only an abundance of toil. There was nothing more to see.
Semichorus 1 Neither, as a matter of fact, has the man been seen along the path that faces the shafts of the morning sun.
Chorus Who, then, can guide me? What toiling fisherman, busy about his sleepless hunt, what nymph of the Olympian heights or of the streams that flow toward Bosporus, can say whether she has anywhere seen the wanderings of fierce-hearted Ajax? It is cruel that I, who have roamed with such great toil, cannot come near him with a fair course, but fail to see where the enfeebled man is.
Tecmessa Ah, me, ah, me!
Chorus Whose cry broke from that nearby grove?
Tecmessa Ah, misery!
Chorus There, I see his unfortunate young bride, who was the prize of his spear, Tecmessa, dissolved in that pitiful wailing.
Tecmessa I am lost, destroyed, razed to the ground, my friends!
Chorus What is it?
Tecmessa Here is our Ajax—his blood newly shed, he lies folded around the sword, burying it.
Chorus Ah, no! Our homecoming is lost! Ah, my king, you have killed me, the comrade of your voyage! Unhappy man—broken-hearted woman!
Tecmessa His condition demands that we cry aiai.
Chorus But by whose hand can the ill-fated man have contrived this end?
Tecmessa He did it with his own hand; it is obvious. This sword which he planted in the ground and on which he fell convicts him.
Chorus Ah, what blind folly I have displayed! All alone, then, you bled, unguarded by your friends! And I took no care, so entirely dull was I, so totally stupid. Where, where lies inflexible Ajax, whose name means anguish?
Tecmessa No, he is not to be looked at! I will cover him over entirely with this enfolding shroud, since no one—no one, that is, who loves him—could bear to see him spurt the darkened gore of his self-inflicted slaughter up his nostrils and out of the bloody gash. Ah, what shall I do? What loved one is there to lift you in his arms? Where is Teucer? How timely would be his arrival, if he would but come to compose the corpse of his brother here! Ah, unlucky Ajax, from so great a height you are fallen so low! Even among your enemies you are worthy of mourning!
Chorus You were bound, poor man, with that unbending heart you were bound, it seems, to fulfill a harsh destiny of limitless toils! So wild to my ears were the words of hatred which in your fierce mood you moaned against the Atreidae with such deadly passion. True it is that that moment was a potent source of sorrows, when the arms were made the prize for a contest in the skills of warfare!
Tecmessa Ah! Ah!
Chorus True anguish, I know, pierces your heart.
Tecmessa Ah! Ah, me!
Chorus I do not wonder, lady, that you wail and wail again, when you have just lost one so loved.
Tecmessa It is for you to analyze my troubles, but for me to feel them too fully.
Chorus I must agree.
Tecmessa Oh, my son, to what a heavy yoke of slavery we advance! What cruel task-masters stand over us!
Chorus Ah, the deeds of the two ruthless Atreidae which you name in our present grief would be unthinkable! May the gods hold them back!
Tecmessa These events that you see would not have happened as they have without the will of the gods.
Chorus Yes, they have brought upon us a burden too heavy to bear.
Tecmessa Yet what suffering the divine daughter of Zeus, fierce Pallas, engenders for Odysseus’ sake!
Chorus No doubt the much-enduring hero exults in his dark soul and mocks in loud laughter at these frenzied sorrows—what shame!— and with him, when they hear the news, will laugh the royal brothers, the Atreidae.
Tecmessa
Then let them mock and rejoice at this man’s misery. Perhaps, even though they did not cherish him while he lived, they will lament his death, when they meet with the difficulties of war. Men of crooked judgment do not know what good they have in their hands until they have thrown it away. His death is more bitter to me than it is sweet to the Greeks; but in any case to Ajax himself it is a joy, since he has accomplished all that he desired to get—his longed-for death. So why should they exult over him? He died before the gods, not at all before them—no! And so let Odysseus toss his insults in empty glee. For them Ajax is no more; for me he is gone, abandoning me to anguish and mourning.
Cite This Text