Stasimon 5
[Episode]
Toil follows toil yielding toil! Where, where have I not trudged? And still no place can say that I have shared its secret.
First Semichorus
Listen! A sudden thud!
870
Second Semichorus
We made it, we shipmates of your voyage.
Semichorus 1
What news, then?
Semichorus 2
All the westward flank of the ships has been scoured for tracks.
Semichorus 1
And did you find anything?
875
Semichorus 2
Only an abundance of toil. There was nothing more to see.
Semichorus 1
Neither, as a matter of fact, has the man been seen along the path that faces the shafts of the morning sun.
[Choral 1]
Who, then, can guide me? What toiling
Chorus
fisherman, busy about his sleepless hunt, what nymph of the Olympian heights or of the streams that flow toward
880
Bosporus, can say whether she has anywhere seen the wanderings of fierce-hearted Ajax? It is cruel that I, who have roamed with such great toil, cannot come near him with a fair course,
885
but fail to see where the enfeebled man is.
890
Chorus
Whose cry broke from that nearby grove?
Chorus
There, I see his unfortunate young bride, who was the prize of his spear,
Tecmessa, dissolved in that pitiful wailing.
895
Tecmessa
I am lost, destroyed, razed to the ground, my friends!
Tecmessa
Here is our Ajax—his blood newly shed, he lies folded around the sword, burying it.
