Ajax (370-455)

Aiai! Who would ever have thought that my name would so descriptively suit my troubles? For well now may Ajax cry Aiai—yes, twice and three times. Such are the harsh troubles with which I have met. Look, I am one whose father’s

prowess won him the fairest prize of all the army, whose father brought every glory home from this same land of Ida; but I, his son, who came after him to this same ground of Troy with no less might and proved the service of my hand in no meaner deeds,

I am ruined as you see by dishonor from the Greeks. And yet of this much I feel sure: if Achilles lived, and had been called to award the first place in valor to any claimant of his arms, no one would have grasped them before me.

But now the Atreidae have made away with them to a man without scruples and thrust away the triumphs of Ajax. And if these eyes and this warped mind had not swerved from the purpose that was mine, they would have never in this way procured votes in judgment against another man.

As it was, the daughter of Zeus, the grim-eyed, unconquerable goddess, tripped me up at the instant when I was readying my hand against them, and shot me with a plague of frenzy so that I might bloody my hands in these grazers. And those men exult to have escaped me—

not that I wanted their escape. But if a god sends harm, it is true that even the base man can elude the worthier. And now what shall I do, when I am plainly hated by the gods, abhorred by the Greek forces and detested by all Troy and all these plains?