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    Aias: With linked Table of Contents
    Aias: With linked Table of Contents
    Aias: With linked Table of Contents
    Ebook58 pages1 hour

    Aias: With linked Table of Contents

    By Sophocles

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    About this ebook

    Sophocles' play is a famous retelling of Aias's (Ajax's) demise. After the armor is awarded to Odysseus, Aias feels so insulted that he wants to kill Agamemnon and Menelaus. Athena intervenes and clouds his mind and vision, and he goes to a flock of sheep and slaughters them, imagining they are the Achaean leaders, including Odysseus and Agamemnon. When he comes to his senses, covered in blood, he realizes that what he has done has diminished his honor, and decides that he prefers to kill himself rather than live in shame.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilder Publications, Inc.
    Release dateMay 22, 2015
    ISBN9781633849600
    Aias: With linked Table of Contents
    Author

    Sophocles

    Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than or contemporary with those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides.

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      Book preview

      Aias - Sophocles

      Aias

      by Sophocles

      Translated by Lewis Campbell, M.A., LL.D.

      EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

      HONORARY FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD

      ©2015 SMK Books

      All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for brief quotations for review purposes only.

      SMK Books

      PO Box 632

      Floyd, VA 24091-0632

      ISBN 13: 978-1-63384-960-0

      Table of Contents

      The Persons

      Scene

      Play

      THE PERSONS

      Athena.

      Odysseus.

      Aias, the son of Telamon.

      Chorus of Salaminian Mariners.

      Tecmessa.

      A Messenger.

      Teucer, half brother of Aias.

      Menelaus.

      Agamemnon.

      Eurysakès, the child of Aias and Tecmessa, appears, but does not speak.

      Scene. Before the encampment of Aias on the shore of the Troad. Afterwards a lonely place beyond Rhoeteum.

      Time, towards the end of the Trojan War.

      ‘A wounded spirit who can bear?’

      After the death of Achilles, the armour made for him by Hephaestus was to be given to the worthiest of the surviving Greeks. Although Aias was the most valiant, the judges made the award to Odysseus, because he was the wisest.

      Aias in his rage attempts to kill the generals; but Athena sends madness upon him, and he makes a raid upon the flocks and herds of the army, imagining the bulls and rams to be the Argive chiefs. On awakening from his delusion, he finds that he has fallen irrecoverably from honour and from the favour of the Greeks. He also imagines that the anger of Athena is unappeasable. Under this impression he eludes the loving eyes of his captive-bride Tecmessa, and of his Salaminian comrades, and falls on his sword. (‘The soul and body rive not more in parting Than greatness going off.’)

      But it is revealed through the prophet Calchas, that the wrath of Athena will last only for a day; and on the return of Teucer, Aias receives an honoured funeral, the tyrannical reclamations of the two sons of Atreus being overcome by the firm fidelity of Teucer and the magnanimity of Odysseus, who has been inspired for this purpose by Athena.

      Aias

      Athena (above). Odysseus.

      Athena. Oft have I seen thee, Laërtiades,

      Intent on some surprisal of thy foes;

      As now I find thee by the seaward camp,

      Where Aias holds the last place in your line,

      Lingering in quest, and scanning the fresh print

      Of his late footsteps, to be certified

      If he keep house or no. Right well thy sense

      Hath led thee forth, like some keen hound of Sparta!

      The man is even but now come home, his head

      And slaughterous hands reeking with ardent toil.

      Thou, then, no longer strain thy gaze within

      Yon gateway, but declare what eager chase

      Thou followest, that a god may give thee light.

      Odysseus. Athena, ‘tis thy voice! Dearest in heaven,

      How well discerned and welcome to my soul

      From that dim distance doth thine utterance fly

      In tones as of Tyrrhenian trumpet clang!

      Rightly hast thou divined mine errand here,

      Beating this ground for Aias of the shield,

      The lion-quarry whom I track to day.

      For he hath wrought on us to night a deed

      Past thought—if he be doer of this thing;

      We drift in ignorant doubt, unsatisfied—

      And I unbidden have bound me to this toil.

      Brief time hath flown since suddenly we knew

      That all our gathered spoil was reaved and slaughtered,

      Flocks, herds, and herdmen, by some human hand,

      All tongues,

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