Drave thee the flocks, our common stock, to slaughter?
Didst thou in victory rob her of her claim
To tithe of spoil, her part,
When to thy bow there fell some noble hart?
Or did the mail-clad God of War resent
Thy negligence thank-offering to pay?
By him at night was the delusion sent
That led astray?
Antistrophe
Ne’er wouldst thou, Ajax, of thine own intent
Have wrought this havoc and the cattle slain.
Such frenzy comes from Heaven in punishment.
(Zeus and Apollo prove the rumour vain!)
And if the great chiefs falsely charge thee, King,
Spreading foul scandal, or the accursed race
Of Sisyphus,1 let not this ill fame cling
To us thy friends; no longer hide thy face,
Quit, we implore,
Thy tent upon the shore.
Rouse thee, my King, where’er thou sittest brooding;
Too long thou mak’st the stour of battle cease,
While in the camp red ruin flames to heaven,
And, like the west wind soughing in the trees,
Unchecked the mockery goes
Of thy o’erweening foes.
My woe no respite knows!
Crew of Ajax, men who trace
Back to Erechtheus your famed race,
Woe is ours who muse upon
The far-off house of Telamon;
For our lord of dreaded might
Stricken lies in desperate plight,
And his soul is dark as night.
What the change so grievous, say,
Of the morn from yesterday?
Daughter of Teleutas, tell;
Stalwart Ajax loves thee well,
Thee his spear-won bride; ’tis thine
What befalls him to divine.
Ah, how tell a tale so drear?
Sad as death what thou shalt hear
Of great Ajax, undone quite,
Smit with madness, in the night.
Look within and see the floor
Reeking with his victims’ gore;
Slain by his own hand there lies
His ungodly sacrifice.
Strophe
O fatal tidings of the hot-brained chief,
Intolerable, yet without relief!
What flagrant charge amid the Greek host goes
That spread by rumour grows?
Ah me, doom stalks amain!
And if with his dark blade the man hath slain
The herds and mounted herdsmen, sure he dies,
A malefactor shamed before all eyes.
Ah me, ’twas thence I saw him come
Driving his captive cattle home.
Of some he gashed the throats amain,
There where they stood upon the ground;
And some were ripped and rent in twain.
Then two white-footed rams he found;
Of one, beheaded first, the tongue
He snipped, then far the carcase flung.
The other to a pillar lashed
Erect, with doubled rein, he thrashed,
And as he plied the whistling thong
He uttered imprecations strong,
Dread words a god, no man, had taught.
Antistrophe
’Tis time to veil the head and steal away
On foot, or straight embarking ply the oar,
And let the good ship bear us from the bay;
Such bitter threats the Atridae on us pour.
Me too, if I be by him, they will stone;
He stands alone,
Fate marks him for her own.
No more; for like the southern blast
When lightnings flash, his rage is past.
But, now he is himself again,
Reviving memory brings new pain.
What keener anguish than to know
Thyself sole cause of self-wrought woe?
Nay, if he have surcease, good hope is mine
All may be well, for men are less concerned
With evil doing when the trouble’s past.
Come tell me, which wouldst choose, if choice were free,
To vex thy friends while thou thyself wert glad,
Or share the pain, grieving with them that grieve?
The twofold sorrow, lady, is the worse.
Then are we losers now our plague is past.
What meanest thou? it passes my poor wit.
Yon man, while stricken, had himself delight
In his sick fancies, though his presence grieved
Us who were sane; but now that he is whole,
Eased of his frenzy, he is racked with grief,
And we are no less troubled than before.
Are there not here two ills in place of one?
’Tis even so, and much I fear it prove
A stroke from heaven, if indeed, now cured,
He is no gladder than he was when sick.
His case is as thou sayest, rest assured.
But tell us how the plague first struck him down.
We share thy sorrow and would know it all.
Hear then the story of our common woe.
At dead of night when all the lamps were out,
He took his two-edged sword, as if intent
On some wild expedition. So I chid him,
Saying, “What dost thou, Ajax, why go forth?
No summons, messenger or trumpet blast,
Hath called thee; nay, by now the whole host sleeps.”
He answered lightly with an ancient saw,
“Woman, for women silence is a grace.”
Admonished thus I held my tongue; but he
Sped forth alone. What happened afterwards
I know not, but he came back with his spoil,
Oxen and sheep-dogs with their fleecy charge.
Some he beheads, of some the upturned necks
He cuts, or cleaves the chine; others again
He buffeted and mangled in their bonds,
Mauling the beasts, as if they had been men.
At last he darted through the door and held
Wild converse with some phantom of the brain;
Now the Atridae, and Odysseus now,
He mocked with peals of laughter, vaunting loud
The vengeance he had wreaked on them. Anon
He rushed indoors again; and then in time
With painful struggles was himself again.
And as he scanned the havoc all around,
He smote his head and wailed and sank to earth,
A wreck among the wreck of slaughtered sheep,
Digging into his hair his clenchèd nails.
At first—a long, long while—he spake no word,
Then against me he uttered those dire threats,
If I declared not all that had befallen,
Bidding me tell him in what plight he stood.
And I a-tremble told him what had chanced,
So far as I had knowledge. Whereat he
Broke into lamentations, piercing, shrill,
Such as I ne’er had heard from him before.
For ’twas his creed that wailings and lament
Are for the craven and faint-hearts; no shrill
Complaint escaped him ever; his low moan
Was like the muffled bellowing of a bull.
But now, confounded in his abject woe,
Refusing food or drink, he sits there still,
Just where he fell amid the carcases
Of the slain sheep and cattle. And ’tis plain
He meditates some mischief, so I read
His muttered exclamations and laments.
Come, friends, and help me, if so be ye can—
This was my errand—men in case like his
Are won
