Seven Plays of Sophocles (eBook)

SCENE. Before the encampment of Aias on the shore of the Troad.  Afterwards a lonely place beyond Rhoeteum.

Time, towards the end of the Trojan War.

'A wounded spirit who can bear?'

After the death of Achilles, the armour made for him by Hephaestus was to be given to the worthiest of the surviving Greeks. Although Aias was the most valiant, the judges made the award to Odysseus, because he was the wisest.

Aias in his rage attempts to kill the generals; but Athena sends madness upon him, and he makes a raid upon the flocks and herds of the army, imagining the bulls and rams to be the Argive chiefs. On awakening from his delusion, he finds that he has fallen irrecoverably from honour and from the favour of the Greeks. He also imagines that the anger of Athena is unappeasable. Under this impression he eludes the loving eyes of his captive-bride Tecmessa, and of his Salaminian comrades, and falls on his sword. ('The soul and body rive not more in parting Than greatness going off.')

But it is revealed through the prophet Calchas, that the wrath of Athena will last only for a day; and on the return of Teucer, Aias receives an honoured funeral, the tyrannical reclamations of the two sons of Atreus being overcome by the firm fidelity of Teucer and the magnanimity of Odysseus, who has been inspired for this purpose by Athena.

  AIAS

ATHENA (above). ODYSSEUS.

ATHENA. Oft have I seen thee, Laertiades,

Intent on some surprisal of thy foes;

As now I find thee by the seaward camp,

Where Aias holds the last place in your line,

Lingering in quest, and scanning the fresh print

Of his late footsteps, to be certified

If he keep house or no. Right well thy sense

Hath led thee forth, like some keen hound of Sparta!

The man is even but now come home, his head

And slaughterous hands reeking with ardent toil.

Thou, then, no longer strain thy gaze within

Yon gateway, but declare what eager chase

Thou followest, that a god may give thee light.

ODYSSEUS. Athena, 'tis thy voice! Dearest in heaven,

How well discerned and welcome to my soul

From that dim distance doth thine utterance fly

In tones as of Tyrrhenian trumpet clang!

Rightly hast thou divined mine errand here,

Beating this ground for Aias of the shield,

The lion-quarry whom I track to day.

For he hath wrought on us to night a deed

Past thought--if he be doer of this thing;

We drift in ignorant doubt, unsatisfied--

And I unbidden have bound me to this toil.

  Brief time hath flown since suddenly we knew

That all our gathered spoil was reaved and slaughtered,

Flocks, herds, and herdmen, by some human hand,

All tongues, then, lay this deed at Aias' door.

And one, a scout who had marked him, all alone,

With new-fleshed weapon bounding o'er the plain,

Gave me to know it, when immediately

I darted on the trail, and here in part

I find some trace to guide me, but in part

I halt, amazed, and know not where to look.

Thou com'st full timely. For my venturous course,

Past or to come, is governed by thy will.

ATH. I knew thy doubts, Odysseus, and came forth

Zealous to guard thy perilous hunting-path.

OD. Dear Queen! and am I labouring to an end?

ATH. Thou schem'st not idly. This is Aias' deed.

OD. What can have roused him to a work so wild?

ATH. His grievous anger for Achilles' arms.

OD. But wherefore on the flock this violent raid?

ATH. He thought to imbrue his hands with your heart's blood.

OD. What? Was this planned against the Argives, then?

ATH. Planned, and performed, had I kept careless guard.

OD. What daring spirit, what hardihood, was here!

ATH. Alone by night in craft he sought your tents.

OD. How? Came he near them? Won he to his goal?

ATH. He stood in darkness at the generals' gates.

OD. What then restrained his eager hand from murder?

ATH. I turned him backward from his baleful joy,

And overswayed him with blind phantasies,

To swerve against the flocks and well-watched herd

Not yet divided from the public booty.

There plunging in he hewed the horned throng,

And with him Havoc ranged: while now he thought

To kill the Atreidae with hot hand, now this

Now that commander, as the fancy grew.

I, joining with the tumult of his mind,

Flung the wild victim on the fatal net.

Anon, this toil being overpast, he draws

The living oxen and the panting sheep

With cords to his home, not as a horned prey,

But as in triumph marshalling his foes:

Whom now he tortures in their bonds within.

  Come, thou shalt see this madness in clear day,

And tell to the Argives all I show thee here

Only stand firm and shrink not, I will turn

His eyes askance, not to distinguish thee,

Fear nought--Ho! thou that bindest to thy will

The limbs of those thy captives, come thou forth!

Aias! advance before thy palace gate!

OD. My Queen! what dost thou? Never call him forth.

ATH. Hush, hush! Be not so timorous, but endure.

OD. Nay, nay! Enough. He is there, and let him bide.

ATH. What fear you? Dates his valour from to day?

OD. He was and is my valiant enemy.

ATH. Then is not laughter sweetest o'er a foe?

OD. No more! I care not he should pass abroad.

ATH. You flinch from seeing the madman in full view.

OD. When sane, I ne'er had flinched before his face.

ATH. Well, but even now he shall not know thee near.

OD. How, if his eyes be not transformed or lost?

ATH. I will confound his sense although he see.

OD. Well, nothing is too hard for Deity.

ATH. Stand still and keep thy place without a word.

OD. I must. Would I were far away from here!

ATH. Aias! Again I summon thee. Why pay

So scanty heed to her who fights for thee?

Enter AIAS with a bloody scourge.

AIAS. Hail, offspring of the Highest! Pallas, hail!

Well hast thou stood by me. Triumphal gold

Shall crown thy temple for this lordly prey.

ATH. A fair intention! But resolve me this:

Hast dyed thy falchion deep in Argive blood?

AI. There is my boast; that charge I'll ne'er deny.

ATH. Have Atreus' sons felt thy victorious might?

AI. They have. No more they'll make a scorn of me!

ATH. I take it, then, they are dead.

AI.   Ay, now they are dead,

Let them arise and rob me of mine arms!

ATH. Good. Next inform us of Laertes' son;

How stands his fortune? Hast thou let him go?

AI. The accursed fox! Dost thou inquire of him?

ATH. Ay, of Odysseus, thy late adversary.

AI. He sits within, dear lady, to my joy,

Bound; for I mean him not just yet to die.

ATH. What fine advantage wouldst thou first achieve?

AI. First, tie him to a pillar of my hall--

ATH. Poor wretch! What torment wilt thou wreak on him?

AI. Then stain his back with scourging till he die.

ATH. Nay, 'tis too much. Poor caitiff! Not the scourge!

AI. Pallas, in all things else have thou thy will,

But none shall wrest Odysseus from this doom.

ATH. Well, since thou art determined on the deed,

Spare nought of thine intent: indulge thy hand!

AI. (waving the bloody scourge).

I go! But thou, I charge thee, let thine aid

Be evermore like valiant as to-day.    [Exit

ATH. The gods are strong, Odysseus. Dost thou see?

What man than Aias was more provident,

Or who for timeliest action more approved?

OD. I know of none. But, though he hates me sore,

I pity him, poor mortal, thus chained fast

To a wild and cruel fate,--weighing not so much

His fortune as mine own. For now I feel

All we who live are but an empty show

And idle pageant of a shadowy dream.

ATH. Then, warned by what thou seest, be thou not rash

To vaunt high words toward Heaven, nor swell thy port

Too proudly, if in puissance of thy hand

Thou passest others, or in mines of wealth.

Since Time abases and uplifts again

All that is human, and the modest heart

Is loved by Heaven, who hates the intemperate will.          [Exeunt

CHORUS (entering).

      Telamonian child, whose hand

      Guards our wave-encircled land,

      Salamis that breasts the sea,

      Good of thine is joy to...