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I turned him backward from his baleful joy,
And overswayed him with blind phantasies,
To swerve against the flocks and well-watched herd
Not yet divided from the public booty.
There plunging in he hewed the horned throng,
And with him Havoc ranged: while now he thought
To kill the Atreidae with hot hand, now this
Now that commander, as the fancy grew.
I, joining with the tumult of his mind,
Flung the wild victim on the fatal net.
Anon, this toil being overpast, he draws
The living oxen and the panting sheep
With cords to his home, not as a hornèd prey,
But as in triumph marshalling his foes:
Whom now he tortures in their bonds within.
Come, thou shalt see this madness in clear day,
55
And tell to the Argives all I show thee here
55
Only stand firm and shrink not, I will turn
55
His eyes askance, not to distinguish thee,
55
Fear nought—Ho! thou that bindest to thy will
The limbs of those thy captives, come thou forth!
Aias! advance before thy palace gate!
I turned him backward from his baleful joy,
And overswayed him with blind phantasies,
To swerve against the flocks and well-watched herd
Not yet divided from the public booty.
There plunging in he hewed the horned throng,
And with him Havoc ranged: while now he thought
To kill the Atreidae with hot hand, now this
Now that commander, as the fancy grew.
I, joining with the tumult of his mind,
Flung the wild victim on the fatal net.
Anon, this toil being overpast, he draws
The living oxen and the panting sheep
With cords to his home, not as a hornèd prey,
But as in triumph marshalling his foes:
Whom now he tortures in their bonds within.
Come, thou shalt see this madness in clear day,
55
And tell to the Argives all I show thee here
55
Only stand firm and shrink not, I will turn
55
His eyes askance, not to distinguish thee,
55
Fear nought—Ho! thou that bindest to thy will
The limbs of those thy captives, come thou forth!
Aias! advance before thy palace gate!
Ajax. Sophocles. Lewis Campbell (Translator). London, New York and Toronto. 1906.