Stasimon 1
[Episode]
Mates of the ship of Ajax, offspring of the race that springs from the Erechtheids, the
soil’s sons, cries of grief are the portion of us who care from afar for the
house of Telamon.
Tecmessa
Ajax, our terrible, mighty lord of untamed power, now lies plagued by a turbid storm of disease.
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Chorus
And what is the heavy change from the fortune of yesterday which this night has produced?
Daughter of Teleutas the Phrygian, speak, since for you his spear-won mate bold Ajax maintains his love, so that with some knowledge you could suggest an explanation.
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[Choral]
Oh, how am I to tell a tale too terrible for words?
Tecmessa
Grave as death is the suffering which you will hear. By madness our glorious Ajax was seized in the night, and he has been subjected to utter disgrace. All this you may see inside his dwelling—butchered victims bathed in blood,
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sacrifices of no hand but his.
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[Choral 1]
What report of the fiery warrior have you revealed to us, unbearable, nor yet escapable—
Chorus
a report which the great Danaans propound, which their powerful storytelling spreads! Ah,
me, I shudder at the future’s advancing step. In public view the man will
die
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because the dark sword in his frenzied hand massacred the herds and the horse-guiding herdsmen.
230
[Choral]
Ah! Then it was from there, from there that he came to me with his captive flock!
Tecmessa
Of part, he cut the throats on the floor inside; some, striking their sides, he tore asunder. Then he caught up two white-footed rams and sheared off the head of one and its tongue-tip, and flung them away;
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the other he bound upright to a pillar, and seizing a heavy strap from a horse’s harness
he flogged it with a whistling, doubled lash, while he cursed it with awful
imprecations which a god, and no mortal, had taught him.
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[Choral 1]
The time has come for each of us to veil his head and steal away on foot, or to sit and take on the swift yoke of rowing,
245
Chorus
giving her way to the sea-faring ship. So angry are the threats which the brother-kings, the sons of Atreus, speed against us! I fear to share in bitter death beneath an onslaught of stones,
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crushed at this man’s side, whom an untouchable fate holds in its grasp.
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[Choral]
It grips him no longer. For like a southerly wind after it has started up sharply without bright lightning he grows calm. And now in his right mind he has new pain.
Tecmessa
To look on self-made suffering, when no other has had a hand in it—this induces sharp pains.
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