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Chorus
Who, then, can guide me? What toiling [880] fisherman, busy about his sleepless hunt, what nymph of the Olympian heights or of the streams that flow toward [885] Bosporus, can say whether she has anywhere seen the wanderings of fierce-hearted Ajax? It is cruel that I, who have roamed with such great toil, cannot come near him with a fair course, [890] but fail to see where the enfeebled man is. Enter Tecmessa near the corpse of Ajax.
Tecmessa
Ah, me, ah, me! Chorus
Whose cry broke from that nearby grove? Tecmessa
Ah, misery! Chorus
There, I see his unfortunate young bride, who was the prize of his spear, [895] Tecmessa, dissolved in that pitiful wailing. Tecmessa
I am lost, destroyed, razed to the ground, my friends! Chorus
What is it? Tecmessa
Here is our Ajax—his blood newly shed, he lies folded around the sword, burying it. Chorus
[900] Ah, no! Our homecoming is lost! Ah, my king, you have killed me, the comrade of your voyage! Unhappy man—broken-hearted woman! Tecmessa
[905] His condition demands that we cry ‘aiai.’ Chorus
But by whose hand can the ill-fated man have contrived this end? Tecmessa
He did it with his own hand; it is obvious. [910] This sword which he planted in the ground and on which he fell convicts him. Chorus
Ah, what blind folly I have displayed! All alone, then, you bled, unguarded by your friends! And I took no care, so entirely dull was I, so totally stupid. Where, where lies inflexible Ajax, whose name means anguish?
Sophocles. The Ajax of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.
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