Chorus: (chanting) Yes, too great to be borne this heaven-sent burden.
Tecmessa: Yet such the woe which the dread child of Zeus,
Pallas, has gendered for Odysseus' sake.
Chorus: (chanting) Doubtless the much-enduring hero in his dark spy's
soul exults mockingly,
And laughs with mighty laughter at these agonies
Of a frenzied spirit. Shame! Shame!
Sharers in glee at the tale are the royal Atreidae.
Tecmessa: Well, let them mock and glory in his ruin.
Perchance, though while he lived they wished not for him,
They yet shall wail him dead, when the spear fails them.
Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good
That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
More to their grief he died than to their joy,
And to his own content. All his desire
He now has won, that death for which he longed.
Why then should they deride him? 'Tis the gods
Must answer for his death, not these men, no.
Then let Odysseus mock him with empty taunts.
Ajax is no more with them; but has gone,
Leaving to me despair and lamentation.
Studies
