The night of Hades and eternal gloom.
Antistrophe 1
And now to crown my grief
Comes a new woe,
My leader Ajax, mad beyond relief,
By heaven laid low;
How fallen from that impetuous chief,
Who sailed to meet the foe.
Now, to his friends’ distress,
He sits and broods in sullen loneliness;
Those doughty deeds his right hand wrought
Now count for naught,
And from that loveless pair, those men of sin,
No love but despite win.
Strophe 2
Ah, when his mother, blanched with age and frail
Hears of his shattered reason, what wild wail
Will she upraise, a dirge of shrill despair,
(No plaintive ditty of the nightingale)
With beating of the breast and rending of white hair.
Antistrophe 2
Better be buried with the dead
Who lives with brain bewilderèd.
Of all the Greeks toil-worn
Behold the noblest born,
Now from his native temper warped and strange,
Whose thoughts in alien paths distracted range.
O wretched father, what a curse ’tis thine
Upon thy son to hear—curse that on none
E’er fell of all the Aeacidae’s great line
Save him alone.
Time in its slow, illimitable course
Brings all to light and buries all again;
Strange things it brings to pass, the dreadest oath
Is broken and the stubbornest will is bent.
E’en I whose will aforetime was as iron
Steeled in the dipping, now have lost the edge
Of resolution, by this woman’s words
Unmanned, to pity melted at the thought
Of her a widow and my orphan son
Left amidst foemen. But I go my way
To the sea baths and meadows by the beach,
That I may there assoil me and assuage
The wrathful goddess, having purged my sin.
Then will I seek some solitary spot
And hide this sword, of weapons most accursed,
Deep under earth, consigned to Night and Hell,
Where never eye of man may see it more;
For since the day I hanselled it, a gift
From Hector, my arch-enemy, to this hour,
No favour from Achaeans have I won.
So true the word familiar in men’s mouths,
A foe’s gifts are no gifts and profit not.
Henceforward I shall know to yield to Heaven,
And school myself the Atridae to respect.
They are our rulers and obey we must;
How otherwise? Dread potencies and powers
Submit to law. Thus winter snow-bestrown
Gives place to opulent summer. Night’s dim orb
Is put to flight when Dawn with her white steeds
Kindles the day-beams; and the wind’s fierce breath
Can lay the storm and lull the moaning deep.
E’en thus all-conquering sleep holds not for ever
Whom he has bound, and must relax his grasp.
And we, shall we not likewise learn to yield?
I most of all; for I have learnt, though late,
This rule, to hate an enemy as one
Who may become a friend, and serve a friend
As knowing that his friendship may not last.
An unsafe anchorage to most men proves
The bond of friendship. As for present needs
All shall be well. Woman, go thou within
And pray the gods that all my heart’s desires
May find their consummation to the full.
And ye, my comrades, see that ye respect,
No less than she, my wishes; and enjoin
On Teucer, when he comes, to care for me,
And show good will to you, my friends, withal.
For I am going whither I am bound.
Do ye my bidding, and perchance, though now
I suffer, ye may hear of my release. Exit Ajax.
Strophe
I thrill with rapture, all my heart upsprings!
Pan, Pan, O Pan, appear.
Come to us o’er the sea, sea-rover, leaving
The ridges of Cyllenè’s driven snow,
Come to us, hand in hand blithe dances weaving,
Thou leader of the dance in heaven; show
Of Nysa and of Cnosos measures rare,
For in my rapture I the dance would share.
Come, and upon his footsteps swiftly follow,
Winging thy way across the Icarian main,
Show thy bright presence, Delos’ own Apollo,
God of my life, thou healer of all pain!
Antistrophe
Grim Ares from mine eyes the cloud of sadness
Has lifted; now the radiant Dawn anew,
Angel of light, and harbinger of gladness,
Visits our ships that swiftly cleave the blue.
O joy, when Ajax has forgot once more
His woe, and turns the godhead to adore!
Due rites he pays with contrite heart and lowly.
O all-devouring time, what miracles
Thou workest! lo, his feud forgotten wholly,
Ajax at peace with the Atridae dwells.
Teucer is here—that, friends, is my first news—
Back from the Mysian highlands newly come.
But as he neared headquarters in mid camp,
He was beset with universal shouts
Of obloquy; they spied him from afar,
And crowding round him as he nearer came,
Rained on him taunts from this side and from that,
Railed at the kinsman of the crazy wretch,
Plotter of mischief ’gainst the host—“To die
By stoning, mauled and mangled, is thy doom;
Think not to ’scape it, villain,” so they cried.
It came to such a pass that swords were drawn
And brandished; then the riot, having run
To the very verge of bloodshed, was allayed
By intervention of the elder men.
But where is Ajax? Him I fain would tell;
’Tis meet your lords should know whate’er befell.
He is not within; but now he went abroad,
Yoking some new resolve to his new mood.
Alack, alack!
Too late then on this errand was I sent,
Or I, a laggard, have arrived too late.
What pressing business has been slackly done?
Teucer enjoined his brother should not forth,
Or quit his tent till he himself should come.
Well, he is gone, and with the best resolve
To make his peace with heaven.
Folly sheer,
If there be sense in Calchas’ prophecy.
What prophecy? what knowest thou thereof?
Thus much I know, for I was there. The seer
Leaving the council of assembled chiefs,
From the Atridae drew aside and laid
His right hand lovingly in Teucer’s hand,
And spake and charged him straitly by all means,
For this one day whose light yet shines, to keep
Ajax within his tent nor let him forth,
If he would see him still a living man.
“Only to-day,” said Calchas, “will the wrath
Of dread Athena vex him, and no more.
O’erweening mortals waxing fat with pride
Fall in their folly, smitten by the gods
With dire disaster” (so the prophet spake),
“Whene’er a mortal born to man’s estate
Exalts himself in thoughts too high for man.
Thus Ajax, een when first he left his home,
In
