Stasimon 2
Chorus
Make no big threats! Do you not see the trouble you are in?
Ajax
O Zeus, forefather of my forebears, if only I might destroy that deep dissembler, that hateful sneak, and
the two brother-kings, and finally die myself, also!
390
Tecmessa
When you make that prayer, pray at the same time for me that I, too, may die. What reason is there for me to live when you are dead?
[Choral 3]
Ah, Darkness, my light!
Ajax
O Gloom of the underworld, to my eyes brightest-shining, take me, take me to dwell with you—yes, take me. I am no longer worthy to look for help to the race of the gods,
395
or for any good from men, creatures of a day.
No, the daughter of Zeus, the valiant goddess, abuses me to my destruction. Where, then, can a man flee? Where can I go to find rest?
400
If my past achievements go to ruin, my friends, along with such victims as these near me, and if I am inclined to foolish plunderings, then with sword driven by both hands all the army would murder me!
405
Tecmessa
Ah, what misery for me that a valuable man should speak words of a sort which he would never before now have endured to speak!
410
Ajax
Ah! You paths of the sounding sea, you tidal caves and wooded pastures by the shore, long, long, too long indeed
have you detained me here at Troy. But no more will you hold me, no more so long as I have the breath of life. Of that much let sane men be sure.
O neighboring streams of Scamander,
415
kindly to the Greeks, no more shall you look on Ajax, whose equal in the army—here I will boast—
420
Troy has never seen come from the land of Hellas. But now deprived of honor I lie low here in the dust!
425
Chorus
In truth I do not know how to restrain you, nor how to let you speak further, when you have fallen on such harsh troubles.
