Sophocles Ajax 190

Lewis Campbell (Translator)

Table of Contents

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View: By Card
← Previous Next →
TEU
992cont2
O sorest spectacle mine eyes e’er saw!
Woe for my journey hither, of all ways
Most grievous to my heart, since I was ware,
Dear Aias, of thy doom, and sadly tracked
Thy footsteps. For there darted through the host,
As from some God, a swift report of thee
That thou wert lost in death. I, hapless, heard,
And mourned even then for that whose presence kills me.
Ay me! But come,
Unveil. Let me behold my misery.
O sight unbearable! Cruelly brave!
Dying, what store of griefs thou sow’st for me!
Where, amongst whom of mortals, can I go,
That stood not near thee in thy troublous hour?
Will Telamon, my sire and thine, receive me
With radiant countenance and favouring brow
Returning without thee? Most like! being one
Who smiles no more, yield Fortune what she may.
Will he hide aught or soften any word,
Rating the bastard of his spear-won thrall,
Whose cowardice and dastardy betrayed
Thy life, dear Aias,—or my murderous guile,
To rob thee of thy lordship and thy home?
Such greeting waits me from the man of wrath,
Whose testy age even without cause would storm.
Last, I shall leave my land a castaway,
Thrust forth an exile, and proclaimed a slave;
So should I fare at home. And here in Troy
My foes are many and my comforts few.
All these things are my portion through thy death.
Woe’s me, my heart! how shall I bear to draw thee,
O thou ill-starr’d! from this discoloured blade,
Thy self-shown slayer? Didst thou then perceive
Dead Hector was at length to be thine end?—
I pray you all, consider these two men.
Hector, whose gift from Aias was a girdle,
Tight-braced therewith to the car’s rim, was dragged
And scarified till he breathed forth his life.
And Aias with this present from his foe
Finds through such means his death-fall and his doom.
Say then what cruel workman forged the gifts,
But Fury this sharp sword, Hell that bright band?
In this, and all things human, I maintain,
Gods are the artificers. My thought is said.
And if there be who cares not for my thought,
Let him hold fast his faith and leave me mine.

Ajax. Sophocles. Lewis Campbell (Translator). London, New York and Toronto. 1906.

Current edition Experimental

English (Lewis Campbell, 1906) (OCR draft) (English) (English (Lewis Campbell, 1906))

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (4)
Αἴας μαστιγοφόρος First1KGreek (Sophocles. Sophoclis Aiax. Lobeck Christian, editor. Berlin: Weidmann, 1866.) — 202-214 focus
Αἴας First1KGreek (Sophocles. Sophoclis Fabulae. Pearson, Alfred Chilton, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924.) — 201-213 focus
Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) — 190 focus
μὴ μή μ᾽, ἄναξ, ἔθ᾽ ὧδ᾽ ἐφάλοις κλισίαις
190
Greek (F. Storr, 1912) (OCR draft) Experimental (Greek (F. Storr, 1912)) — 201-213 focus
Translations (4)
German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review) (OCR draft) Experimental (German (J. J. C. Donner, 1875; OCR review)) — 193 focus
Raffe dich auf von dem Size, wo du schon so lang
190
Meidend Werke des Krieges, hingefesselt ruhst,
Daß dein Jammer zum Himmel flammt!
Hier toben die Feinde keck, ohne Zittern,
In säuselnden Thalbuchten,
Und ringsher zischen um dich
195
Hohnlachende Zungen;
Doch zehrender Gram quält uns.
Tekmessa (tritt aus dem Zelte). Der Chor.
English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Thomas Francklin, 1758–1759)) — 190 focus
Teucer
Art thou then destroyed?
That's strange indeed, living and dead at once.
English (Robert Potter, 1788) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Robert Potter, 1788)) — 190 focus
Tecmessa
The dreadful goddess, Pallas, sprung from Jove,
955
To grace Ulysses, gave these evils birth.
English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904) (OCR draft) Experimental (English (Sir Richard Jebb, 1904)) — 201-210 focus

Commentary

Commentary (R. C. Jebb) (OCR draft) (Commentary (R. C. Jebb))

mvp-comment-576-1 ἁπάντων δὴ 1

mvp-comment-576-2 θεαμάτων … προσεῖδον ὀφθαλμοῖς 2

mvp-comment-577-1 ὁδός θ’ ὁδῶν πασῶν 3 ὁδῶν θ’ ἁπασῶν ὁδὸς ἀνιάσασα δή 4 πασῶν 5

mvp-comment-577-2 ἀνιάσασα δή 6

mvp-comment-577-3

ἣν δὴ· δὴ
emphasises the pron., as in 1029, 1043, 1045, and often.

mvp-comment-578-1 ὡς ἐπῃσθόμην 7

mvp-comment-578-2 διώκων 8

mvp-comment-578-3 κἀξιχνοσκοπούμενος 9

mvp-comment-579-1 βάξις 10

mvp-comment-579-2 σου 11 θεοῦ 12

mvp-comment-579-3 διῆλθ’ Ἀχαιοὺς 13

mvp-comment-579-4 In sending this

φήμη
to Teucer, Zeus illustrates his attribute of
Πανομφαῖος
( Il. 8. 250 ).

mvp-comment-580-1 δύστηνος 14 δείλαιος 15 ἐκποδὼν μὲν ὢν 16 νῦν δ’ ὁρῶν 17

mvp-comment-580-2 ὑπεστέναζον 18

mvp-comment-581-1 ἴθ’, ἐκκάλυψον 19

mvp-comment-582-1 ὄμμα 20 τόλμης πικρᾶς 21

mvp-comment-582-2 Eustathius (p. 409, 46), whom some critics follow, takes the gen. as depending on ὦ 22 καὶ 23

mvp-comment-582-3 1006 f. For the dat. μοι 24

mvp-comment-582-4 1008 The ironical ἦ που 25 ἴσως 26 ἴσως 27 ἰδὼν 28 ἐμός θ’ ἅμα 29

mvp-comment-583-1 πῶς γὰρ οὔχ 30

mvp-comment-583-2 ὅτῳ πάρα 31 γελᾶν 32

mvp-comment-583-3 The v.l. ἵλεων 33 ἥδιον 34

mvp-comment-584-1 τί κρύψει 35

mvp-comment-584-2 ποῖον οὐκ ἐρεῖ κακὸν 36 ἐκ δορὸς γεγῶτα πολεμίου 37

mvp-comment-585-1 κακανδρίᾳ 38 σέ, φίλτατ’ Αἴας 39

mvp-comment-585-2 τὰ σὰ … θανόντος 40

mvp-comment-585-3 κράτη 41 δόμους 42

mvp-comment-586-1 δύσοργος 43 ἐν γήρᾳ βαρύς 44

mvp-comment-586-2 πρὸς οὐδὲν 45

mvp-comment-586-3 εἰς ἔριν θυμούμενος 46

mvp-comment-586-4 1019 Join ἀπωστὸς 47 γῆς 48

mvp-comment-586-5 ἀπορριφθήσομαι 49

mvp-comment-586-6 In the Teucer of Pacuvius, fr. 19 (ed. Ribbeck), Telamon says to Teucer, Te repudio nec recipio: naturam abdico: facesse , i. Pacuvius probably used the lost

Τεῦκρος
of Sophocles, which dealt with the hero's expulsion from Salamis by Telamon. The reference to the subject here may be compared with that in the O. C.(1410) to the theme of the Antigone, and with the allusion in the Philoctetes (1437) to the theme of the poet's lost play, ‘Philoctetes at Troy.’

mvp-comment-587-1 δοῦλος λόγοισιν … φανείς 50 λόγοισιν 51 ἀντ’ ἐλευθέρου 52

mvp-comment-588-1 παῦρα 53

mvp-comment-589-1 ηὑρόμην 54

mvp-comment-590-1 τοῦδ’ αἰόλου κνώδοντος 55

mvp-comment-590-2 Lycophron borrows the word

κνώδων
from this passage, in alluding to the suicide of Ajax (464):
δυσμενεστάτου ξένων | ἔτυψε δώρῳ σπλάγχνον, ἀρνεύσας λυγρὸν | πήδημα πρὸς κνώδοντος αὐτουργοὺς σφαγάς
.—For the ἄρα 56 φονέως 57

mvp-comment-590-3 εἶδες 58

mvp-comment-591-1 καὶ θανὼν ἀποφθίσειν 59

mvp-comment-591-2 1028—

mvp-comment-592-1 σκέψασθε … κἀγὼ τάδε 60

mvp-comment-593-1 ᾧ δὴ τοῦδ’ ἐδωρήθη πάρα 61 ᾧ δὴ 62

mvp-comment-594-1 πρισθεὶς … ἐξ ἀντύγων 63

mvp-comment-594-2 Thus

πρισθείς
is forcibly used here to describe the fatal grip of the girdle, from which Hector could not escape. I do not think that the word was meant also to suggest that the girdle cut into his flesh.—Paley is surely mistaken in explaining
ζωστῆρι πρισθείς
as ‘ lacerated by means of the girdle’:
πρισθείς
could not bear that sense, which is expressed in the next verse by
ἐκνάπτετ’
.

mvp-comment-594-3 ἀντύγων 64 ἱππικῶν 65

mvp-comment-595-1 ἐκνάπτετ’ 66

mvp-comment-595-2 ἔστ’ ἀπέψυξεν βίον 67

mvp-comment-595-3 As a matter of verbal criticism, it might be observed that

αἰέν
and
ἔστ’
confirm each other. But the defence of the text rests on broader ground. Evidently we must either reject the whole passage 1028 —1039, as Morstadt and Nauck do, or else leave this verse unaltered. For the parallel between the sword and the girdle, as fatal to their respective recipients, would fail altogether, if the girdle had not been an agent of death to Hector, but merely of insult to his corpse. It is not known whence Sophocles derived this version, which so strangely mars the very climax of the Iliad; possibly from one of the two Cyclic epics, the Aethiopis of Arctînus or the Little Iliad of Lesches, which related the
ὅπλων κρίσις
(see Introd. §§ 2, 3). One thing, at least, seems hardly doubtful. The original motive of this version must have been the same which prompts its use by Sophocles here, —viz., to point the fatal character of Hector's gift to Ajax by connecting a like result with the gift of Ajax to Hector. Two epigrams, attributed to Leontius Scholasticus ( circ. 550 A.D. ), turn on the same legend ( Anthol. 7. 151, 152): see Appendix.

mvp-comment-596-1 δωρεὰν ἔχων 68

mvp-comment-597-1 πρὸς τοῦδ’ 69 τοῦ κνώδοντος 70

mvp-comment-598-1 Ἐρινὺς … ἐχάλκευσε 71

mvp-comment-598-2

κἀκεῖνον, τὸν ζωστῆρα
. From
ἐχάλκευσε
a verb of more general sense, such as
εἰργάσατο
, is to be supplied: cp. Her. 4. 106
ἐσθῆτα δὲ φορέουσι τῇ Σκυθικῇ ὁμοίην, γλῶσσαν δὲ ἰδίην
: see also n. on El. 435
πνοαῖσιν ἢ..κόνει | κρύψον νιν
. —Some critics think that
ἐχάλκευσε
might be said of the
ζωστήρ
no less than of the
ξίφος
, because a girdle was often adorned with metal-work (see, e.g., Il. 11. 236 ). This seems a little forced.

mvp-comment-598-3 δημιουργὸς 72

mvp-comment-599-1 ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν 73 μηχανᾶν 74

mvp-comment-600-1 ἐν γνώμῃ φίλα 75

mvp-comment-600-2 κεῖνός τ’ ἐκεῖνα 76

Commentary (Lewis Campbell, 1879) (OCR draft) (Commentary (Lewis Campbell, 1879)) focus

997. mvp-comment-640-1 The participles are to be taken closely with ἔβην; 'Following up and searching out thy doom, when I perceived that it was come':-viz. on hearing the rumour.

998. mvp-comment-641-1 ὀξεῖα] 'Swift': i.e. not only suddenly arriving, but spreading instantaneously.

998. mvp-comment-641-2 σου] Objective genitive = περί σου. Essay on L. § 9. p. 12. βάξις]· 'Talk, bruit, 'noise.' βάξις is generally something disagreeable. ὡς θεοῦ τινος] 'Seeming to come from some god.' Genitive of the agent (Essay on L. § 10. p. 14): sc. πέμψαντος, or the like. On the source of this rumour, see above, note on l. 826. The messenger returning to the camp after l. 814 would bring word that Ajax was dead.

1000. mvp-comment-642-1 The antecedent to ἁ and object of ὁρῶν, viz. 'thy death,' is to be gathered from the meaning of the two preceding lines. Cp. O. T. 6.

1003. mvp-comment-643-1 ἴθ᾽, ἐκκάλυψον] Cp. supr. 915, 16. If Tecmessa is gone, according to the note on supr. 985, these words are spoken either (1) to the coryphaeus, who on her departure might naturally take his station by the corpse; or (2) to an attendant of Teucer. Cp. El. 1468, χαλάτε πᾶν κάλυμμ᾽ ἀπ᾿ ὀφθαλμῶν, ὅπως | τὸ συγγενές τοι κἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ θρήνων τύχῃ.

1004. mvp-comment-644-1 'O sight intolerable! telling of a rash and cruel deed.' ὄμμα here is not merely the person of Ajax as an object of vision, but the whole harrowing spectacle, from which Teucer passes naturally in the next line to Ajax himself. For the genitive τόλμης, 'implying rashness,' cp. Thuc. 3. 45. § 7. πολλῆς εὐηθείας, ὅστις οἴεται. πικρᾶς] Not merely 'passionate,' but 'cruel,' because causing so much pain.

1005. mvp-comment-645-1 The participial phrase ὅσας .. κατασπείρας has the chief stress.

1008. mvp-comment-646-1 The omission of με in all the MSS. is a strong proof of the loss of the sense of quantity in Byzantine times. The line was scanned ἢ ποῦ τελᾶμῶν without suspicion. τ' ἴσως in the Laurentian reading (understood as 'equally') has come in from the next line, and there is no reason to doubt that θ' ἅμα is the genuine reading. Emphatic fulness in dwelling on such relationships is common in Greek, and is especially natural in Teucer.

1008-1010. mvp-comment-647-1 The iteration of ἢ που ἴσως .. πῶς γὰρ οὐκ ; is expressive of Teucer's bitterness of soul.

1010-1011. mvp-comment-648-1 'Who will not smile any the more sweetly, no, not even if good fortune come to him.' The idiomatic force of the comparative can hardly be rendered in translation. Lit. 'Even though fortunate, to smile none the more pleasantly (on that account)'. For πάρα, cp. supr. 904, αἰάζειν πάρα: infr. 982, πάρα στενάζειν.

1011. mvp-comment-649-1 There is a slight irony in ἥδιον. The Laurentian reading, μηδὲν ἵλεων γελᾶν, is not Greek, and ἥδιον, the reading of Par. A and several other MSS., is further supported by the unintelligible reading ἴδιον c. gl. οἰκεῖον in V', which is clearly a corruption of ἥδιον, and may have given rise to ἵλεων. See Phil. 1392, and v. rr. Others explain the words to mean, 'Whose custom it is not to smile pleasantly when fortunate.' But such a meaning of παρεῖναι is doubtful, and the comparative is then without point. The line, as above interpreted, may remind us of the story of Henry the First of England, who is said never to have smiled again after the death of his son, William the Aetheling. For the sorrow of Telamon, cp. Fr. 516 (from the 'Teucer'), ὡς ἄρ᾽, ὦ τέκνον, κενὴν | ἐτερπόμην σου τέρψιν εὐλογουμένου | ὡς ζῶντος· ἡ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐν σκότῳ λαθοῦσά με | ἕσαιν᾿ Ἐρινὺς ἡδοναῖς ἐψευσμένον.

1012. mvp-comment-650-1 τί κρύψει;] 'Over what will he draw the veil?' i. e. He will not soften the shame of my birth, though it reflects on himself.

1013. mvp-comment-651-1 By a slight prolepsis the evil that is supposed to be predicated is made part of the subject. 'What evil will he not speak of me,-of the base-born issue of his spear?' i. e. Will he not call me so? Cp. Il. 8. 283 (of Telamon), ὅ σ᾽ ἔτρεφε τυτθὸν ἐόντα | καί σε νόθον περ ἐόντα κομίσσατο.

1017. mvp-comment-652-1 ἀνὴρ. βαρύς] ‘A passionate man, whom old age makes dangerous.' Telamon had always been irascible (this helps to account for the impetuosity of his son), and a bad temper is not improved by age. We may infer, too, from Teucer's fear of Telamon, that Ajax was the favourite son.

1018. mvp-comment-653-1 πρὸς οὐδὲν θυμούμενος] Either (1) connecting εἰς ἔριν with with θυμούμενος, ‘Angered into strife at nothing;' or (2) joining οὐδὲν εἰς ἔριν, ‘Angered at what is no cause of quarrel.' For (2), cp. Eur. Phoen. 598, κατα σὺν πολλοῖσιν ἦλθες πρὶς τὸν οὐδὲν ἐς μαχήν, where οὐδέν taken alone does not answer sufficiently to δειλὸν καὶ φιλόψυχον in the preceding line: Plat. Phil. 17 C, εἰς ταῦτα οὐδενὸς ἄξιος ἔσει.

1020. mvp-comment-654-1 λόγοισιν φανείς] 'Proclaimed,' i. e. by Telamon, who would declare Teucer to be the son of a slave-woman, and therefore ineligible for the succession.

1022. mvp-comment-655-1 Although there is some confusion in the MSS. here, the reading of this line is tolerably certain.

1023. mvp-comment-656-1 He resumes what he had said in l. 1005, and thus returns from himself to Ajax, and to the duties of the present hour.

1024-1025. mvp-comment-657-1 πῶς. κνώδοντος] 'How shall I disengage thee from this cruel, gleaming blade?' The first notion of κνώδων (cp. κνώδαξ) seems to be 'a projecting point' or 'tooth.' Here the point of the sword, projecting through the body of Ajax, is clearly meant, as this alone could be seen. The mantle ( supr. 899, 915) has been removed at l. 1003. αἰόλου may mean 'discoloured,' as in Phil. 1157, ἐμᾶς σαρκὸς αἰόλας, or 'bright in part,' the sheen of the newly whetted blade remaining where not obscured by the blood.

1026. mvp-comment-658-1 φονέως] Teucer, like Ajax, supr. 815, personifies the weapon, which, as the gift of Hector, is imagined to be instinct with enmity. His mind is in sympathy with his brother's, and he falls into a similar train of reasoning.

1027. mvp-comment-659-1 Cp. Trach. 1162, 3, ὅδ᾽ οὖν ὁ θὴρ Κενταύρος, ὡς τὸ θεῖον ἦν | πρύφαντον, οὕτω ζῶντά μ' ἔκτεινεν θανών. ἀποφθίσειν has been changed to ἀποφθιεῖν, as the Attic form. But it must remain uncertain how far this was required by the tragic dialect.

1029-1031. mvp-comment-660-1 This variation from the story of the Iliad is followed by Quintus Smyrnaeus, and was probably that adopted by the author of the Ilias minor. See Introduction, and cp. Eur. Andr. 399, σφαγὰς . . Ἕκτορος τροχηλάτους. The exchange of presents occurs in Il. 7. 303-5, ὡς ἄρα φωνήσας δῶκε ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον, | σὺν κολεῷ τε φέρων καὶ ἐϋτμήτῳ τελαμῶνι· | Αἴας δὲ ζωστῆρα δίδου φοίνικι φαεινόν.

1029. mvp-comment-661-1 πρισθείς] « Gallingly tied;' i. e, not only bound fast, but cut by the strained cords as he hung. Cp. El. 862, τμητοῖς ὁλκοῖς ἐγκῦρσαι.

1031. mvp-comment-662-1 ἐκνάπτετ'] 'His flesh was frayed,' upon the stones as he was dragged along. Cp. especially, Plat. Rep. B. 10. p. 616 Α, εἶλκον .. ἐπ᾿ ἀσπαλάθων κνάπτοντες. βίον is added for the sake of definiteness, as ἀποψύξαι alone may mean 'to swoon.'

1033. mvp-comment-663-1 πρὸς τοῦδ᾽] Sc. τοῦ κνώδοντος, supr. 1025. The masculine gender is resumed, after τήνδε δωρεάν, as more appropriate to the personification of the sword. πεσήματι, like πηδήματι, supr. 833, refers to the act of falling on the sword.

1035. mvp-comment-664-1 κἀκεῖνον] Sc. τὸν ζωστῆρα.

1036. mvp-comment-665-1 μὲν οὖν evades a direct answer to the preceding question. Any one is free to deny that this is the work of the Erinys and of Hades. As for Teucer, he will always refer every event to a Divine Power. And to what Powers but these can the present events be referred?

1039. mvp-comment-666-1 ἐκεῖνα] Sc. ἃ φίλα αὐτῷ τυγχάνει ὄντα. For this vague pronoun, cp. Eur. Alc. 867, 8, ζηλῶ φθιμένους, κείνων ἔραμαι, | κεῖν᾽ ἐπιθυμῶ δώματα ναίειν.