(The CHORUS, TECMESSA and MESSENGER go out. The scene changes to a lonely place by the sea-shore. Bushes and under-brush are in the background. AJAX enters alone.)AJAX
The slayer stands so that his edge may cleave Most surely (if there be leisure for such thought), Being the gift of Hector, of all friends Most unloved, and most hateful to my sight.
Then it is planted in Troy's hostile soil, New-sharpened on the iron-biting whet.
And heedfully have I planted it, that so With a swift death it prove to me most kind.
Thus have I made all ready. Next be thou The first, O Zeus, to aid me, as is right.
It is no mighty boon that I shall crave.
Send some announcer of the evil news To Teucer, that he first may lift me up, When I have fallen upon this reeking sword, Lest ere he come some enemy should espy me And cast me forth to dogs and birds a prey.
This, O Zeus, I entreat thee, and likewise call On Hermes, guide to the underworld, to lay me Asleep without a struggle, at one swift bound, When I have thrust my heart through with this sword.
Next I call on those maidens ever-living And ever watchful of all human miseries, The dread swift-striding Erinyes, that they mark How by the Atreidae I have been destroyed:
And these vile men by a vile doom utterly May they cut off, even as they see me here.
Come, O ye swift avenging Erinyes, Spare not, touch with affliction the whole host.
And thou, whose chariot mounts up the steep sky, Thou Sun, when on the land where I was born Thou shalt look down, check thy gold-spangled rein, And announce my disasters and my doom To my aged sire and her who nurtured me.
She, woful woman, when she hears these tidings Will wail out a loud dirge through all the town.
But I waste labour with this idle moan.
The act must now be done, and that with speed.
O Death, Death, come now and look upon me.-No, 'tis there I shall meet and speak to thee.
But thee, bright daylight which I now behold, And Helios in his chariot I accost For this last time of all, and then no more.
O sunlight! O thou hallowed soil, my own Salamis, stablished seat of my sire's hearth, And famous Athens, with thy kindred race, And you, ye springs and streams, and Trojan plains, Farewell, all ye who have sustained my life.
This is the last word Ajax speaks to you.
All else in Hades to the dead will I say.
(He falls on his sword. His body lies partially concealed by the underbrush. SEMI-CHORUS 1 enters.)SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
'Tis toil on toil, and toil again.
Where! where!
Where have not my footsteps been?
And still no place reveals the secret of my search.
But hark!
There again I hear a sound.
(SEMI-CHORUS 2 enters.)
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
'Tis we, the ship-companions of your voyage.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
Well how now?
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
We have searched the whole coast westward from the ship.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
You have found nought?
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
A deal of toil, but nothing more to see.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
Neither has he been found along the path That leads from the eastern glances of the sun.
CHORUS (singing)
stropheFrom whom, oh from whom? what hard son of the waves, Plying his weary task without thought of sleep, Or what Olympian nymph of hill or stream that flows Down to the Bosporus' shore, Might I have tidings of my lord Wandering somewhere seen Fierce of mood? Grievous it is When I have toiled so long, and ranged far and wide Thus to fail, thus to have sought in vain.
Still the afflicted hero nowhere may I find.
(TECMESSA enters and discovers the body.)TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
Whose cry was it that broke from yonder copse?
TECMESSA
Alas, woe is me!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
It is the hapless spear-won bride I see, Tecmessa, steeped in that wail's agony.
TECMESSA
I am lost, destroyed, made desolate, my friends.
LEADER
What is it? Speak.
TECMESSA
Ajax, our master, newly slaughtered lies Yonder, a hidden sword sheathed in his body.
CHORUS (chanting)
Woe for my lost hopes of home!
Woe's me, thou hast slain me, my king, Me thy shipmate, hapless man!
Woful-souled woman too!
TECMESSA
Since thus it is with him, 'tis mine to wail.
LEADER
By whose hand has he wrought this luckless deed?
TECMESSA
By his own hand, 'tis evident. This sword Whereon he fell, planted in earth, convicts him.
CHORUS (chanting)
Woe for my blind folly! Lone in thy blood thou liest, from friends'
help afar.
And I the wholly witless, the all unwary, Forbore to watch thee. Where, where Lieth the fatally named, intractable Ajax?
TECMESSA
None must behold him. I will shroud him wholly In this enfolding mantle; for no man Who loved him could endure to see him thus Through nostrils and through red gash spouting up The darkened blood from his self-stricken wound.
Ah me, what shall I do? What friend shall lift thee?
Where is Teucer? Timely indeed would he now come, To compose duly his slain brother's corpse.
O hapless Ajax, who wast once so great, Now even thy foes might dare to mourn thy fall.
CHORUS (chanting)
antistrophe'Twas fate's will, alas, 'twas fate then for thou Stubborn of soul at length to work out a dark Doom of ineffable miseries. Such the dire Fury of passionate hate I heard thee utter fierce of mood Railing at Atreus' sons Night by night, day by day.
Verily then it was the sequence of woes First began, when as the prize of worth Fatally was proclaimed the golden panoply.
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
A loyal grief pierces thy heart, I know.
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
Woman, I marvel not that thou shouldst wail And wail again, reft of a friend so dear.
TECMESSA
'Tis thine to surmise, mine to feel, too surely.
CHORUS (chanting)
'Tis even so.
TECMESSA
Ah, my child, to what bondage are we come, Seeing what cruel taskmasters will be ours.
CHORUS (chanting)
Ah me, at what dost thou hint?
What ruthless, unspeakable wrong From the Atreidae fearest thou?
But may heaven avert that woe!
TECMESSA
Ne'er had it come to this save by heaven's will.
CHORUS (chanting)
Yes, too great to be borne this heaven-sent burden.
TECMESSA