3 when he rested from this 'butchery, having bound together with chains those of the oxen that survived, and all the flocks, he conveys them to his dwelling, as having men and not a horned spoil, and is now scourging them fettered at home. Nay, I will also shew thee this his sickness most manifest, that having witnessed thou mayest noise it abroad to all the Greeks. But tarry with firmness, nor receive the man as a calamity: for I will bar the averted glances of his eyes from looking on thy presence." Ho! thou. Thee, that art fitting in chastisement thy captives' hands with bonds, I bid come to me. Ajax, I say, come out before thine abode. m UL. What doest thou, Minerva? by no means call him out. MIN. Wilt thou not keep silence, nor cherish cowardice? UL. Nay, by heaven, content thee that he stay within. MIN. Lest what should happen? Was not this man ere now... 1 Lobeck reads wovov, and observes that the expression, as it stands in Brunck, is never used but as applied to those "qui a cæde et certamine diuturno quietem habent." So Brunck. The translator, however, is inclined to adopt the opinion of Lobeck, who places the words undè ovμPogàv déxov in a parenthetic form, and joins τὸν ἄνδρα with μίμνε. "This is supposed by Lobeck to have been all copied by Sophocles from the Iliad of Lesches, a Lesbian poet, whose work is mentioned by Pausanias. • Musgrave considers vng, as used in this passage, nar' ižóxnv. Lobeck, with more reason, understands it, "Was he more than man before now ??? UL. Mine enemy, I grant, and even now [he is.] MIN. And is not that the most grateful laugh, which we indulge on our foes? UL. For my part, I am satisfied that he stay within doors. MIN. Dreadest thou to look on a man most evidently frantic ? UL. I ne'er had avoided him, through dread, while in his senses. MIN. Nor fear that he shall now behold thee, though close by him. UL. How not, if, at least, he looks with the same eyes? MIN. I will darken his eyes, although they see. UL. Any thing may be, when a God is the framer. MIN. Stand now, in silence, and continue as thou art. UL. I will continue, but I had rather have been elsewhere. MIN. Ho! ho! Ajax! A second time I call thee to me. Why hast thou so little respect for thine ally? AJAX. Minerva, hail, O hail, thou child of Jove. How fortunate thy presence here! I will crown thee, too, with trophies all-golden, in requital of this my spoil. MIN. Well hast thou said; but tell me this, hast thou well bathed thy sword in Argos' host? AJ. 'Tis mine to boast, and I will not deny [and say] PI did not the deed. This form is constantly used by Thucydides; see L. I, c. 73. MIN. And hast thou armed thine hand against the Atridæ ? AJ. Aye, so as that they shall never more dishonour Ajax. MIN. The men are dead, as I understand thy speech. AJ. As dead, now let them rob me of my arms. MIN. Good. And what then of Laertes' son? How stands he to thee in fortune? has he escaped thee? AJ. Question you me of that scurvy dog fox, where he is? MIN. I do: Ulysses, thy rival, I mean. AJ. My chiefest joy, O queen, he sits a prisoner within. For I would in no wise have him die yet. MIN. Ere thou shalt do what, or reap what further gain? AJ. Ere, bound to the column of my hall's dome,— MIN. What ill, I pray, wilt thou work the miserable man? AJ. His back first purpled with the scourge, he shall die. MIN. Nay, do not thus, at least, torture the wretch. This was a common custom : "First fast behind his hands and feet they bound, The howling felon swung from side to side." POPE'S ODYSSEY, B. XXII. v. 210. For a description of the chieftains' tents at Troy, see the last book of the Iliad. Hence the title of this tragedy. AJ. Minerva, in the rest I concede to thy pleasure, but he shall pay this very penalty, and no other. MIN. Do thou then, since this it is thy pleasure to do, use thine hand, spare to do nought of that thou purposest. AJ. I go to my work; but this I charge thee with, that thou be ever on my side an assistant such as now. MIN. Thou seest, Ulysses, the might of Gods, how great it is. Whom found you ever, either more provident to counsel, or more brave to act in time of need than this man? UL. I know of none; and though he be mine enemy, I yet compassionate him, thus wretched, for that he hath been yoked to grapple with a dreadful calamity,' considering no more his fortune than mine own; for I see that all we who are alive, are nothing else but phantoms, or unreal shadows. MIN. Since then thou seest it is so, look that thyself never utter a prideful word against the Gods, nor assume aught of vanity, if thou outweighest any one, either in valour or depth of plenteous wealth; since a day sinks and restores again [to light] all human things. But the modest the Gods love, and abhor the wicked. This is precisely Aristotle's idea: "For it evidently is necessary that a person likely to feel pity should be actually such as to deem that either in his own person, or of some one connected with him, he may suffer some evil." Rhet. B. II. c. 8. For similar sentiments, compare the second strophe of the fourth chorus in Edipus Tyrannus. CHORUS. Son of Telamon, that swayest the based shore of sea-girt Salamis, I joy over thee when "fortunate: but when a stroke from Jupiter, or malignant rumour of muttered calumny from the Greeks assails thee, I feel deep horror, and quiver with alarm, like the glance of a fluttering dove. Even as on the night now vanished, great clamours, tending to disgrace, beset us; that thou, having rushed forth to the meadow, the courser's joy, hast destroyed the herds and plunder of the Greeks, all that yet was left their lances' prize, slaughtering them with flashing steel. Such whispered words as these Ulysses framing carries to the ear of all, and firmly convinces them; since now he tells a tale of thee, most plausible, and every one that hears is yet more delighted than the teller, insolently triumphing in thy sorrows. whoso launches his bolt at noble persons, can never miss: but were any one to bring such charge against me, he would not be believed; since envy crawls on towards the master. And yet the mean, without the " Literally, "doing well." For Virgil has not forgotten this characteristic of Ulysses. See the Eneid, B. II. v. 97, 164. y "Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se See also Aristotle's Rhet. B. II. c. 10. "If I am traduced by tongues, which neither know My faculties nor person, yet will be The chronicles of my doing,-let me say, "Tis but the fate of place," HENRY VIII. Act 1, sc. 2. |