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Sophocles - Ajax
The morning after Ajax, while driven insane by Athene, has slaughtered the herds thinking they were his enemies, he considers his position:
Aias! Aias!
How fit a name to weep with! Who could have known
How well those syllables would spell my story?
Aias! Alas! Over and over again
I cry Alas! How I am fallen!
My father won the army's first rewards
Here on this soil of Ida, and brought home
A prize of beauty and an honoured name
For valour. I, his son, came, strong as he,
To this same ground, and bore as brave a part
In action, and am now brought down to this,
Death, and disgrace among my countrymen.
One thing is certain - had Achilles lived
To name the champion worthiest to receive
His weapons in reward for valiant service,
They never would have fallen to other hands
Than mine. Instead of that, these sons of Atreus
Have filched them from me for a scheming rascal
And turned their backs on me and all my triumphs.
They'd not have lived to rig another verdict
Against a man; I would have seen to that,
Had not my eyes deceived me and my brain
Wheeled wide of my intention. I was foiled,
At the very instant when I raised my hand
To strike them, by the undefeatable,
The hard-eyed daughter of Zeus; she sent the plague
Of madness on me; and the blood of beasts
Is this that dyes my hands. They have escaped,
And laugh! It was not my doing. Little men,
When gods work mischief, may escape their betters. |
