by Sophocles
—JS
NOTES
1. The palpable disorientation of the Chorus’s search parties, looking to save Aias from himself, is prefigured by the play’s opening scene, which has been characterized as “a most unusual dumb show” (Taplin, 40; Hesk, 41). Greek tragedies do not begin as pantomime. Nonetheless, there’s Odysseus, in the obscure stillness of early morning, trying to distinguish Aias’s tracks from a muddle of others—looking not to save Aias but to ascertain if he really is the warrior, as suspected, who has slaughtered the livestock, the unsorted war spoil, that is (was) the common property of the entire Greek army.
2. “If we may paraphrase a famous quotation from Shelley and turn it on its head, early Greek poets from Homer (c. 700) to Pindar (518–446) were the ‘acknowledged legislators of the word.’ They were not just arbiters of elegance and taste but articulators, often controversially so, of ideologies and moral values. . . . A very special class of poets is constituted by the writers of Athenian tragedy. . . . Theirs could be an explicitly didactic genre though necessarily an indirect, analogical medium for commenting on current political affairs or ideas, since with very rare exceptions tragedy’s plots were taken ultimately from the ‘mythical’ past of gods and heroes.” —Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice
“The fifth century Athenians . . . considered the problem of the state and the basis of its authority . . . These things were discussed and debated both before and after the coming of the sophists; and we catch echoes of these debates in great literature—in Herodotus, naturally, and in the speeches of Thucydides, but also in the Eumenides of Aeschylus, the Antigone of Sophocles. It could be that the Ajax [Aias] is an important document for a transitional period of Greek thought.” —R. P. Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles: An Interpretation
3. This “incompletely democratized culture” was nonetheless more thoroughly democratic than any modern democracy. The dêmos, the common people, had something of a handle or grip (kratos) on power, not least because their political engagement was relatively hands-on—actively participatory, rather than mediated through layers of putative representatives, though in time their democracy, like ours, also functioned as an empire.
4. Herbert Golder, Introduction to Aias (Oxford University Press, 1999).
5. As a barbarian, an outsider, Teukros looks on heroic Greek self-mythification with a colder, more realistic eye than most ‘natives’ might be predisposed to. In certain respects this applies as well to Tekmessa, another barbarian.
6. Though Menelaos and Agamemnon are brother kings sharing command of the Greek forces, Sophocles goes out of his way to cast them in distinct political roles: Menelaos, though noble, expounds an oligarchic politic, whereas Agamemnon, the superior of the two, bases his authority on his spectacularly sordid ‘noble’ lineage. (As the fifth century wore on, antidemocratic opposition coming from those of noble birth was taken up, increasingly, by the oligarchs—landowners who were not aristoi but who wanted special privileges in a polity of ‘rule by the few.’ Some strategically minded oligarchs would also try to make common cause with the dêmos against the nobles.) For the most part, democracy was not called dêmokratia, which could mean anything from “people power” to “mob rule.” To forestall negative interpretations, the defenders of democracy preferred to call it isonomia, “equality before or under the law.”
7. Greek ethos held that one must ‘help friends, harm enemies.’ Sophocles challenges this not only through Odysseus but through Aias himself, who concludes, with strikingly disabused sôphrosunê, that friends and enemies change over time. “I know, now, to hate my enemy / as one who may later be a friend. / My friend I’ll help out just enough— / he may, one day, be my enemy” (829–832). Ironically, Odysseus and Aias together constitute a formidable critique of what was, even in fifth-century Athens, a seemingly unchallengeable ethos.
8. John O’Leary (1830–1907). An early member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and editor of The Irish People. Imprisoned for nine years by the British, after which he went into exile in Paris. Praised by W. B. Yeats for his “moral genius,” in particular because O’Leary would not allow any special pleading about the needs of a nation (i.e., the need to establish a free Irish state) to blur the outlines of good and bad, whether in action or in literature.
Aias
Translated by James Scully
CHARACTERS
ATHENA
ODYSSEUS
AIAS
CHORUS, sailor warriors of Salamis
LEADER of the Chorus
TEKMESSA, concubine/wife of Aias
Eurysakes, son of Aias and Tekmessa
MESSENGER
TEUKROS, half-brother of Aias
MENELAOS
AGAMEMNON
Herald, Armed Attendants of Menelaos, Agamemnon
Coast of Troy. Murmurous surf. In the obscure silence of early morning, ODYSSEUS is tracking, pausing over, footprints in the sand. Behind him the peak of a tent, made of hides, shows above the gated walls of Aias’s compound.
VOICE OF ATHENA
Odysseus! Every time I see you
you’re out! getting
the jump on your enemies.
ATHENA appears. ODYSSEUS hears but cannot see her.
Now you’re nosing around the tents
Aias and his sailors pitched
here, at the edge of the sea
where all is saved or lost.
You’re looking to see
which tracks are really fresh,
whether he’s in there or still 10
out here somewhere.
Well, go no further. Your nose
like a Spartan foxhound’s
has led you to the right place.
You needn’t sneak around to see
what’s up. He’s in there all right,
dripping sweat and blood spatter
from his head
and his sword-slashing hands.
Speak. Why are you after him? 20
You might learn something
from one who knows.
ODYSSEUS
Athena? Really? No god
comes nearer my heart than you!
I can’t see you but in my mind
I know you, your voice
sounds through me
like a bronze-mouthed trumpet!
You’re right. I’ve been closing in
on an enemy: Aias 30
with his monster shield.
It’s he, and no other, I’m tracking.
Last night he did something unthinkable.
Or maybe he did. I’m not sure.
We’re all still confused.
I took it on myself
to get to the bottom of this.
Just now at dawn we found
all our war spoil: cattle, sheep, oxen,
even the herdsmen guarding them, 40
butchered! Every last one.
We all think we see in this
the heavy hand of Aias.
Someone saw him charging across
the field, all by himself, swinging
his sword spraying blood.
A lookout reported this to me.
Right away I picked up the trail.
Still, the tracks are mucked up.
Some are his. The rest, 50
who knows?
You got here just in time.
I’ve always counted on you
to set me straight.
ATHENA
Odysseus, don’t I know that?
For some time now
I’ve been keeping an eye out,
helping you along.
ODYSSEUS
I’m on the right track then?
ATHENA
Absolutely. He did it. 60
ODYSSEUS
It’s crazy. What got into him
he’d do a thing like that?
ATHENA
MAD!
He felt he should be awarded
the arm
or of Achilles.
ODYSSEUS
But why take it out on animals?
ATHENA
He thought the blood smearing his hands
was your blood.
ODYSSEUS
This was murder meant for us?
ATHENA
He’d have gotten you, too, 70
if I hadn’t been watching out.
ODYSSEUS
How did he dare think
he’d get away with it?
ATHENA
By coming up on you
alone, under cover of darkness.
ODYSSEUS
How close did he get?
ATHENA
Near as the flaps
on your commanders’ tents.
ODYSSEUS
So close? And bloodthirsty?
What stopped him? 80
ATHENA
I did! I took his own
rush of horrible joy
it was incurable
and spun him round in it!
He couldn’t see straight,
hacking at cattle, at sheep,
in the milling pool
of unsorted war spoil, cracking
spines in a widening apron
of blood and carcasses. 90
He thought he’d grabbed
with his own hands
the sons of Atreus—and plunged on
slaughtering one warlord after another,
me drawing him on, entangling him
deeper in misery.
He broke off then, arm weary.
The cattle and sheep still alive
he roped together and hauled
back to his camp here 100
as though they were men! not
beasts with horns and hooves.
He’s in there now, torturing them.
See this sickness for yourself.
Then you may tell the Greeks
what you have witnessed.
ODYSSEUS looks to slip away.
Wait! right . . . there.
He can’t hurt you now.
I’ll make sure the light of his eye
won’t find you. 110
YOU IN THERE, AIAS! Stop
hog-tying your captives.
Come out here!
ODYSSEUS
Athena, what are you doing! Don’t.
ATHENA
Shsh! You want to be called a coward?
ODYSSEUS
God no. Just . . . let him be.
ATHENA
Why? He’s the same man he was, isn’t he?
ODYSSEUS
Exactly. And still my enemy.
ATHENA
(teasing, testing)
To gloat over your enemy,
what could be sweeter? 120
ODYSSEUS
I’m happy just letting him stay there.
ATHENA
Afraid to look a madman in the eye?
ODYSSEUS
If he wasn’t mad, I would. Face him.
ATHENA
You could stick your face in his
he still wouldn’t see you.
ODYSSEUS
Why not? He still sees with the same eyes.
ATHENA
Open and shining as they are
I’ll darken them.
ODYSSEUS
Gods make anything the way they want.
ATHENA
Quiet then. Don’t move. 130
ODYSSEUS
I have a choice? I wish
I were somewhere else.
ATHENA
AIAS! Still don’t hear me?
ME!? Your comrade-in-arms!
AIAS comes out: blood-smeared, bloody whip in hand.
ATHENA, invisible to ODYSSEUS, is visible to AIAS. ODYSSEUS, in turn, is invisible to AIAS.
AIAS
Greetings, Athena, daughter of Zeus!
You’ve backed me to the hilt
and yes! on your temple I will hang
trophies of solid gold!
ATHENA
That’s . . . nice.
But tell me: you plunged your sword 140
deep into the blood of the Greek army?
AIAS
That I did. I don’t mind saying.
ATHENA
And drove your spear into the sons of Atreus?
AIAS
Never again will those two
dishonor Aias.
ATHENA
You mean they’re dead.
AIAS
Yes, dead! That’s the last time
they’ll rob me of Achilles’ armor.
ATHENA
I see. And Laertes’ son, Odysseus,
what about him? He got away? 150
AIAS
That foxfucker you ask me
about him?
ATHENA
Yes. Odysseus. The one who’s always
standing in your way.
AIAS
Hah! My lady, of all my prisoners,
he’s the best. In there in chains.
I’m keeping him alive, for now.
ATHENA
For what? What more can you want?
AIAS
First I’ll chain him to a post . . .
ATHENA
Poor man! Then what? 160
AIAS
. . . whip the living skin off his back.
Then kill him.
ATHENA
Torture? Do you really have to?
AIAS
Anything else, Athena, you’d have your way.
But that one gets what’s coming to him.
ATHENA
Well, whatever pleases you,
do it.
AIAS
Right. I’ve work to do. But
you, be sure to watch my back
the way you did last night. 170
AIAS goes back inside the camp compound.
ATHENA
You see, Odysseus, how powerful
the gods are? Have you ever known
a man more prudent, yet readier
to step up in a crisis?
ODYSSEUS
Never. Yet I feel his wretchedness.
My enemy, yes, but caught up
in a terrible doom. My doom, too.
I see that now. All we who live, live
as ghosts of ourselves. Shadows in passing.
ATHENA
Then think on that, and watch yourself. 180
Never challenge the gods. Don’t
puff yourself up when you beat someone
at something, or when your wealth piles up.
In the scale of things, one day lifts
humans up, another brings them down.
The gods love those who take care
but abhor those who cross them.
ATHENA vanishes. ODYSSEUS leaves. The CHORUS comes on, agitated.
LEADER
Son of Telamon, rock of Salamis
towering up from the crashing sea,
when you do well 190
our hearts surge with joy—
but when Zeus comes down on you,
when Greek rumors come after you,
we’re flustered, like doves
with a quick, scared look!
CHORUS
(severally)
Loud whispers from the dying night
shame us. They say you tore
across the meadow through sheep
and cattle, the horses
wild-eyed, panicked! 200
as you with your flashing sword
slaughtered the unsorted war spoil of the Greeks.
These whispers Odysseus
slips into everyone’s ear.
And they believe him! Each one who hears
makes more of it than the one before. It’s all
too believable! They’re getting a belly laugh
making a mockery of you.
Sure. Set sights on the man who’s bigger than life,
you can’t miss. 210
Bu
t say stuff about me, who’d listen?
It’s only the great they envy after.
Yet we, down here, can’t all by ourselves
like a tower
defend the walls of a city.
We’re better off working with them: the great
depend on us, we depend
on one another.
But fools too thick to learn these truths
understand nothing, they go on about you— 220
what can we say
unless you back us up?
LEADER
Out of your sight they chatter like a flock
of noisy little birds—but if you’d just
show yourself! then
as when the huge
bearded vulture shadows them
suddenly
they’d shrink away. And shut up.
CHORUS
(severally)
That mother of a rumor 230
shames us!
Was it Artemis riding a bull
—or what—
drove you against
cattle that belonged to everyone?
She helped you win some victory
or take down a stag
and you gave nothing back?
Or has the bronze-armored War God
you fought side-by-side with 240
as if he didn’t exist
schemed against you in the night?
Aias, in your own right mind
you’d never go so far astray
you’d attack a bunch of cattle.
It could be
the gods deranged you. But if so
may Zeus and Apollo run these rumors off.
Or if the god-almighty kings are spreading lies
or the bastard son of that hopeless race of Sisyphos 250
Odysseus is hissing insinuations
don’t sit and sit there brooding in your tent
backed against the sea: call them on it!
LEADER
Stand up for yourself!
You’ve been holed up too long,
battle fatigued.
Out here the flames of your ruin
lick at the very heavens.
The arrogance of your enemies
is a wind-whipped firestorm 260
roaring, tongues run amok with insults
and mockery, while we’re stuck
in anguish here.
