Leader: Keep silence from dread words; nor curing ill
By ill, so swell the misery of this curse.
Ajax: (chanting) Behold now the bold, the man stout of heart,
Who ne'er shrank in fight against foes-behold
How I have spent my rage on beasts that feared no harm!
Ah me, the mockery! To what shame am I brought low
Tecmessa: Ajax, my master, I entreat thee, speak not so.
Ajax: (chanting) Away hence, I command thee! Take thyself elsewhere.
Aiai! Aiai!
Leader: Oh, by the Gods, we pray thee, yield to wisdom's voice.
Ajax: (chanting) Oh, wretch that I was to allow
Those cursed foes to slip from my hands, and assaulting
Horned kine and goodly flocks, madly to spill
Their life in streams of dark blood!
Leader: Why still be afflicted, now the deed is done past cure?
Never can these things be as though they had not been.
Studies
