Stasimon 2
[Choral 1]
Ah, good sailors, you alone of my friends
Ajax
who alone still abide by the true bond of friendship, see how great a wave has just now crested over and broken around me, set on by a murderous storm!
350
Chorus
Ah, lady, too true, it seems, was your testimony!
The fact proves that he is not sane.
355
Ajax
Ah, you clan staunch in maritime skill, who embarked and stroked the oar-blade upon the brine, in you, in you alone
I see a defense against suffering. Come, slay me on top of these!
360
Chorus
Hush! Speak words of better omen! Do not cure evil by prescribing evil; do not increase the anguish of your mad disaster.
[Choral 2]
Do you see the bold, the strong of heart,
Ajax
the dauntless in battles with the enemy—do you see me now, terrible in the force of my hands against beasts unformidable? Oh, the mockery! How I have been violated!
365
Tecmessa
Ajax, my lord, I beg you, do not talk this way!
Ajax
Away with you! Will you not take yourself outside!
Chorus
By the gods I plead, give way and acquire good sense!
Ajax
My rotten fortune!—I let slip from my grasp those men who were begging for punishment,
and fell instead on cattle with twisted horns and fine goats, making their dark blood flow!
375
Chorus
Why grieve when the deed is past recall? These things can never be but as they are.
Ajax
Ah, you who spy out all things,
you ready tool of every crime, ah, son of Laertes, you filthiest sneak in all the army, I am sure you laugh loud and long for joy!
380
Chorus
It is at the god’s dispensation that every man both laughs and mourns.
Ajax
Yet if only I could see him, even shattered as I am!
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.