Here now one of the servants approaches with him.Enter the Servant and Eurysaces.AjaxLift him; lift him up here. Doubtless he will not shrink to look on this newly-shed blood, if he is indeed my true-born son and heir to his father’s manners. But he must at once be broken into his father’s harsh ways and moulded to the likeness of my nature.Ah, son, may you prove luckier than your father, but in all else like him. Then you would not prove base. Yet even now I may well envy you on this account, that you have no perception of these evils about us. Yes, life is sweetest when one lacks sense, for lack of sensation is a painless evilthat is, until one learns to know joy or pain. But when you come to that knowledge, then you must be sure to prove among your father’s enemies of what mettle and of what lineage you are. Meanwhile feed on light breezes, and nurse your tender life for your mother’s joy.There is no Greek—I know it for certain—who will do violence to you with hard outrages, even when you are without me. So trusty is the guard, Teucer himself, whom I will leave at your gates. He will not falter in his care for you, although now he walks a far path, busied with the hunt of enemies. O my warriors, my seafaring comrades! On you as on him, I lay this shared task of love: give my command to Teucer! Let him take this child to my home and set him before the face of Telamon, and of my mother, Eriboea,so that he may become the comfort of their age into eternity until they come to the deep hollows of the god below. And order him that no commissioners of games, nor he who is my destroyer, should make my arms a prize for the Greeks. No, you take this for my sake, Son, my broad shield from which you have your name.Hold it and wield it by the sturdy thong, this sevenfold, spear-proof shield! But the rest of my arms shall be my gravemates.To Tecmessa.Come, take the child right away, shut tight the doors and make no laments before the house.God, what a weepy thing is woman. Quick, close the house! It is not for a skilful doctor to moan incantations over a wound that craves the knife.ChorusI am afraid when I hear this eager haste. Your tongue’s sharp edge does not please me.TecmessaAjax, my lord, what can you have in mind?AjaxDo not keep asking me, do not keep questioning. Self-restraint is a virtue.TecmessaAh, how I despair! Now, by your child, by the gods, I implore you, do not betray us!AjaxYou annoy me too much. Do you not knowthat I no longer owe any service to the gods?TecmessaHush, no impiety!AjaxSpeak to those who hear.TecmessaYou will not listen?AjaxAlready your words have been too many.TecmessaYes, because I am afraid, my king!AjaxTo the Attendants.Close the doors this instant!TecmessaIn the name of the gods, be softened!AjaxYou have foolish hope, I think,if you plan so late to begin schooling my temper.Ajax is shut into the tent. Exit Tecmessa with Eurysaces.

ChorusO famous Salamis, you, I know, have your happy seat among the waves that beat your shore, eternally conspicuous in the eyes of all men.But I, miserable, have long been delayed here, still making my bed through countless months in the camp on the fields of Ida.I am worn by time and with anxious expectation still of a journey to Hades the abhorred, the unseen.

ChorusAnd now a new struggle awaits me, ah, me!—a match withAjax, hard to cure, sharing his tent with a madness of divine origin. It is he whom mighty in bold war you dispatched from you once far in the past. But now he is changed; he grazes his thoughts in isolated places