great, are but a slippery defence to a tower, for the low united to the great, and the great by means of his inferiors, might best be supported. But 'tis impossible to fore-teach the senseless opinions on this. By such men art thou clamoured against, and we have not strength to make head against all this, O prince, without thy aid. For when now they have escaped thine eye, they clatter like flocks of birds; but shrinking in terror from the mighty vulture, soon would they voiceless, wert thou suddenly to appear, in silence cower. Full surely did the bull-hunting Diana, daughter of Jove, [oh wide report! oh mother of my shame!] incite thee against the public droves of oxen; either haply in requital of some victory to her fruitless, or cheated her present of illustrious spoils, or in the stricken deer. Or was it Enyalius, of the brazen breast-plate, having some complaint in behalf of his aiding spear, a that by nightly devices avenged the wrong? For, surely, thou couldst never, son of Telamon, intentionally have essayed [a purpose] so sinister, assaulting the flocks: yet a disease from heaven might visit thee: but may Jove and Apollo, avert the accursed slander of the Greeks. If, however, the mighty princes are by stealth suborning these fables, or any one of Sisyphus' Thus Lobeck gives it. Brunck translates it, tauris vecta." Musgrave's idea would make Sophocles guilty of an anachronism. “.— Concursusque matronarum in templum Diana quam Tauropolou vocant, ad spem exposcendum fieret." Liv. XLIV. c. 44. a Musgrave translates this, "ullus est contumeliam hasta auxiliatrici suæ illatam." The Scholia mention that Anticlea, mother of Ulysses, was violated by Sisyphus, on her way to her betrothed husband, Laertes, and add abandoned race, do not, do not, my king, any longer thus, keeping thine eye fixed within thy tent on the shore, receive the ill report. But rise from the seat, where long since thou art rooted in the slow torture of this protracted inaction, inflaming thine heaven-sent plague: while the insolence of thine enemies thus fearless is speeding amid the breezy glens; and all from laughing tongues are launching the grievous burden [of their scoffs], but on me sorrow hath settled. TECMESSA. с Defenders of the ship of Ajax, progeny of the earthborn Erectheidæ, we have cause to mourn with groans, who from afar are well-wishers to the house of Telamon. For now Ajax, the terrible, the mighty, of savage strength, is lying diseased with tempestuous fury. CHO. How has this night changed the burden of the day-time? Child of Telleutas the Phrygian, speak, since the ardent Ajax, dearly loving thee, honours thy captive bed, and thus thou wouldst not ignorantly hint at aught. TEC. How, then, shall I speak a tale unspeakable? for thou wilt hear a calamity terrible as death, since that it was with the connivance of her father Autolycus, who had been detected in stealing some property from Sisyphus. • A political stroke to please the Athenians, derived probably from the tradition of the Eacidæ passing over to Salamis from Ægina, which belonged to Attica. "Movit Ajacem Telamone natum HOR. LIB. II. OD. iv. 1. 5. our illustrious Ajax, seized with phrenzy, hath this night been degraded. Such butchery, weltering in gore, the slaughter of his hand, mayest thou see within, the victims of that man. CHO. What tidings hast thou disclosed, insupportable, yet unavoidable, of the fiery warrior!-tidings whispered among the Greek chieftians already, and which wide report will aggravate! Ah me, I fear the approaching ill. Too plainly will the hero fall by his phrenzy-stricken hand, having slaughtered with dark sword at once, the cattle and the 'herdsmen. TEC. Ah me! 'twas thence, then, thence he came, bringing us the fettered flock; of which some he was butchering on the ground within, and others he was rending asunder, hewing open their sides. But having chosen out two white-footed rams, he lops off and throws away the head and tip of the tongue of one, and having tied the other upright to a pillar, and taken the large curb-rein of his chariot, he lashes it with a sounding double scourge, reviling it in shameful terms, which a dæmon, and none of men, has taught him. CHO. Time is it now for one, having shrouded one's head in a veil, to adopt a stealthy flight on foot, or "Quem Deus vult perdire, prius dementat." Musgrave thinks the word gipartos should be translated, “undecunque manifestus, multis indiciis convictus." f According to Musgrave, the Greek here alludes to some spot in the plain of Troy called Hippus. The conduct of Fulvia, wife of Antony, exhibits a similar instance of revenge, when with a bodkin she pierced the tongue of the murdered Cicero. seating him on the speeding bench of [our] oarage, commit himself to the ocean-bounding bark. Such threats do the Atride of twin sway in concert ply against us. I fear lest, stricken, I share the pain of a violent death by stoning with Ajax, whom an unapproachable calamity possesses. TEC. No longer. For having rushed forth as the impetuous south wind without the flashing lightning, he is calm. And now, being sensible, he feels a fresh sorrow. For to look on sufferings all one's own, none other faring alike, suggests deep pangs. CHO. Yet if he be at rest, I deem myself most fortunate, for of the evil now vanished there is less thought. TEC. Whether now, did any one assign you the choice, would you choose, afflicting your friends, yourself to be possessed of pleasures, or a sharer amid sharers, to sympathize in pain ? CHO. The misery doubled, believe me, lady, is the greater. TEC. Thus we, though not diseased, are now afflicted. CHO. How hast thou said this? I know not how thou meanest. TEC. That man, while he was diseased, was himself delighted with the woes in which he was involved, but "In summer, when there are thunders and lightnings, thenceforth arise violent winds: and, the lightning be frequent and vivid, they blow with greater fury; but if it be slight and seldom, then they are gentler: the contrary of which is the case in autumn and winter." Theophrast, de Sign. Vent. p. 421. by his presence tortured us who were in our senses. But now that he has ceased, and respired from his malady, both he is all racked with dreadful anguish, and we similarly no less than before. And are not these, then, double ills from single? CHO. I agree with you, and am in fear lest some plague from Heaven be upon him. How should it not, if when at rest he is not a whit more gladdened than when distempered? TEC. It needs thou be assured that these things are so. CHO. Well, and what might be the beginning of this evil that assailed him? Disclose to us, who sympathize in his misfortunes. i TEC. Thou shalt know the whole matter, as being a sharer in it. For he, in the dead of night, when the evening lamps were no longer burning, having taken his two-edged sword, was eagerly seeking to prowl through the deserted passes. So I chide him, and say, "What dost thou, Ajax? Why unbidden, nor summoned by messengers, hurriest thou to this attempt,nor hearing any trumpet? Now at least the whole army is asleep." He answered me with words brief, This has by some been understood to mean the stars; but from the common mode of designating the approach and close of the night by similar expressions (περὶ λύχνων αφάς. Di. Hal. xi. μέχρι λύχνων ¿Qav Athen. xii. ad extremas lucernas. Propert. L. 3. El. 8.) the translation as it stands appears most probable. It may be questioned, however, whether angas vuxròs means the dead of night, or its close. Pindar (Isthm. 4.) asserts that it was in the night that Ajax fell on his sword. |