Sophocles Ajax 254

Der Chor.

Chorus

But if he has stopped his madness, I have good hope that all may yet be well, since the trouble is of less account once it has passed.

Tecmessa

And which, if the choice were given you, would you choose—to distress your friends, and have joy yourself, or to share the grief of friends who grieve?

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Chorus

The twofold sorrow, lady, is certainly the greater evil.

Tecmessa

Then we are ruined now, although the plague is past.

Chorus

What do you mean? I do not understand what you say.

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Tecmessa

That man, while afflicted, found joy for himself in the dire fantasies that held him, though his presence distressed us who were sane. But now, since he has had pause and rest from the plague,

he has been utterly subjected to lowly anguish, and we similarly grieve no less than before. Surely, then, these are two sorrows, instead of one?

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Chorus

Indeed, I agree, and so I fear that a blow sent by a god has hit him. How could it be otherwise, if his spirit is no lighter

than when he was plagued, now that he is released?

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Tecmessa

This, you must know, is how matters stand.

Chorus

In what way did the plague first swoop down on him? Tell us who share your pain how it happened.

Tecmessa

You will hear all that took place, since you are involved.

In the dead of night when the evening lamps were no longer aflame, he seized a two-edged sword and wanted to leave on an aimless foray. Then I admonished him and said, What are you doing, Ajax? Why do you set out unsummoned on this expedition,

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neither called by messenger, nor warned by trumpet? In fact the whole army is sleeping now. But he answered me curtly with that trite jingle: Woman, silence graces woman. And I, taking his meaning, desisted, but he rushed out alone.
 

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What happened out there, I cannot tell. But he came in with his captives hobbled together—bulls, herding dogs, and his fleecy quarry. Some he beheaded; of some he cut the twisted throat or broke the spine; others

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he abused in their bonds as though they were men, though falling only upon cattle. At last he darted out through the door, and dragged up words to speak to some shadow—now against the Atreidae, now about Odysseus—with many a mocking boast of all the abuse that in vengeance he had fully repaid them during his raid.

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After that he rushed back again into the house, and somehow by slow, painful steps he regained his reason. And as he scanned the room full of his disastrous madness, he struck his head and howled; he fell down, a wreck amid the wrecked corpses of the slaughtered sheep, and there he sat

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with clenched nails tightly clutching his hair. At first, and for a long while, he sat without a sound. But then he threatened me with those dreadful threats, if I did not declare all that had happened, and he demanded to know what on earth was the business he found himself in.

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And in my fear, friends, I told him all that had been done, as far as I knew it for certain. But he immediately groaned mournful groans, such as I had never heard from him before. For he had always taught that such wailing

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was for cowardly and low-hearted men. He used to grieve quietly without the sound of loud weeping, but instead moaned low like a bull.
  And now, prostrate in such miserable fortune, tasting no food, no drink,

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the man sits idly where he has fallen in the middle of the iron-slain cattle. And plainly he plans to do something terrible. Somehow his words and his laments say as much. Ah, my friends—for it was my errand to ask you this—come in and help him, if in any way you can.

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Men of his kind can be won over by the words of friends.

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Chorus

Tecmessa, daughter of Teleutas, terrible is your news that our lord has been possessed by his sorrows.

Ajax

wailing.

Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Tecmessa

Soon there will be more sorrow, it seems. Did you not hear

Ajax, did you not hear his resounding howl?

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Ajax

wailing.

Oh! Ah, me! Ah, me!

Chorus

The man seems to be sick, or else to be still pained by the disease which was recently with him, since he sees its traces.

Ajax

wailing.

Oh my son, my son!

Tecmessa

Ah, miserable me! Eurysaces, it is for you he calls! What can his purpose be? Where are you? I am miserable!

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Ajax

Teucer! Where is Teucer? Will his raid last for ever? While I perish?

Chorus

He seems to be sane—open the door!

Perhaps merely at the sight of me he will come to a more respectable mood.

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Tecmessa

There, it is open. Now you can look on this man’s deeds, and his true condition.