by Sophocles
whose people grew up with mine,
and the springs and rivers, the very
plains of Troy, good-bye to all
who have nursed me in this life.
This is the last word Aias has
for you. The rest I will speak
only to the dead in Hades.
AIAS falls on his sword. His body is screened by the bushes. CHORUS in two parties—“hurried and disorderly” (Garvie, 209)—stumble in from opposite directions.
SEMI-CHORUS 1
Take pains, get pain,
pain piled on.
Where haven’t I looked? 1040
Where have I?
Still no sign anywhere.
Listen! What’s that?
SEMI-CHORUS 2
Your shipmates!
SEMI-CHORUS 1
What’s the word?
SEMI-CHORUS 2
We’ve covered the west.
SEMI-CHORUS 1
And . . . ?
SEMI-CHORUS 2
Nothing. Hard going.
SEMI-CHORUS 1
Nothing on the road from where the sun comes, either.
CHORUS
(severally)
If only some fisherman 1050
out fishing day and night,
or nymph from Olympus or some
stream rushing toward the Bosphoros
could shout to us they’ve seen
somewhere
a man of ferocious heart wandering through!
It’s hard making my way
aimless,
no wind at my back,
to catch a glimpse of that fast fading man. 1060
Off: short, sharp scream.
CHORUS
From the wood! Who screamed?
Off: drawn-out howl.
Disclosure of TEKMESSA, rising from behind the bushes that hide the body of AIAS. Two parties of the CHORUS converge.
CHORUS
(severally)
Tekmessa!
His spear-gotten bride . . .
dissolved in her own cries.
TEKMESSA
Now nothing . . . left! I’m lost! My friends . . .
CHORUS
What?
TEKMESSA
Here. Aias. Fresh slaughter.
His sword buried in his body.
CHORUS
(severally)
Nooo! We’ll never get home!
Lord you’ve killed us too, 1070
your own comrades! And you,
poor woman.
TEKMESSA
AIAI! his very name, Aias, cries out of us!
LEADER
Who had a hand in this?
TEKMESSA
Himself alone. He planted the sword
he fell on. The sword stands witness.
CHORUS
(severally)
And I saw nothing!
Blind, dumb, and you by your own hand
in your own blood
with no friends to watch over you! 1080
Where now is Aias
relentless as the grief sounding his name?
TEKMESSA covers the corpse with a robe.
TEKMESSA
Don’t look! I’ll wrap him
in my robe. Nothing must show.
None who loved him could bear seeing
the blood gasping up through his nostrils,
darkening from the wound
his own hand opened.
Now what will I do?
Who’ll lift you up? Where’s Teukros? 1090
If he would just come, give
composure to his brother’s corpse!
O Aias, to have from so high
come to this! Even your enemies
must to their sorrow feel it.
LEADER
It had to be, had to,
you were so thick-hearted
you had to push your fate to the bitter end.
All night long,
all day, you’d be groaning, 1100
raging at the sons of Atreus
with inextinguishable murder in your heart.
Yes, the day
Achilles’ arms became a contest prize
for the best warrior,
that day began this misery.
TEKMESSA groans.
LEADER
Grief this deep stops the heart.
TEKMESSA, howling.
LEADER
I don’t
wonder you cry out over and over,
you’ve lost so much. 1110
TEKMESSA
You imagine my life. I live it.
LEADER
Yes.
TEKMESSA
Ah child, our new overseers will put
the collar of slaves on us.
CHORUS
Shsh! It’s unspeakable
how brutal the sons of Atreus
will be to you in your grief.
Pray the gods stop them!
TEKMESSA
Yet the gods had a hand in this.
LEADER
The gods’ burden will break us. 1120
TEKMESSA
Athena, dread daughter of Zeus,
she concocted this. She’ll do
anything for her Odysseus.
CHORUS
Sure in the darkness of his heart
that long-calculating man
has to be thrilled!
He mocks this mad frenzy,
he laughs, and with him
the sons of Atreus have a good laugh too.
TEKMESSA
Then let them laugh! Joy in his sorrows. 1130
They didn’t miss him alive? Maybe they will
when in the thick of it they find he’s gone!
Men with no sense don’t know what good
they have . . . till they’ve thrown it away.
His death leaves more pain to me
than joy to them. His own joy is
he got what he wanted. And met his own death
on his own terms. What’s for them
to celebrate? His death is between him
and the gods—and not, no way, for them. 1140
Let Odysseus mouth off. What was Aias
is gone. And has left me wretched.
VOICE OF TEUKROS
o god o god o aias o god
LEADER
Quiet!
I think I hear Teukros, shouting something
awful striking the heart of this disaster.
TEUKROS appears.
TEUKROS
Brother Aias, dear familiar face,
what I hear, is it true?
LEADER
He’s dead, Teukros. Know that for a fact.
TEUKROS
This falls on me! 1150
LEADER
That’s it, for sure.
TEUKROS
The rashness of it!
LEADER
Yes. Let it all out.
TEUKROS
So sudden a doom . . .
LEADER
Sudden, yes.
TEUKROS
But his son!
Where will I find him in this Troy?
LEADER
Alone. In the tent.
TEUKROS
Get him. NOW!
before our enemies bag him like 1160
a lion cub whose mother finds it gone.
Go! Hurry! Help him! Others too!
Men can’t help crowing over
the dead—once they are dead.
TEKMESSA hurries off.
LEADER
While he lived, Teukros, that’s exactly what
he commanded: that you watch over his son.
And you do.
TEUKROS
A worse sight I have not seen
in all my life—the road here
became the worst I ever walked 1170
when I learned, Aias, it was
your death I was on the trail of.
Word of it raced through the Greek ar
my
like a message from the gods. It got to me
before I could get to you. Hearing it I
moaned low my wretchedness. But here
now the sight of this unnerves me
aiai!
(to sailor)
You. Uncover. Let’s see the worst.
The sailor does so, behind the screen of bushes.
It’s awful to see in the flesh 1180
courage this brutal. What fields of grief
your death seeds for me! Where
will I go now? Who will welcome me
who couldn’t help you through this?
Naturally our father Telamon
will be all smiles when I come home
without you—that same man who,
after getting good news, is no less
sour than before. He’ll curse me out
as the bastard of a captive girl, war spoil, 1190
a coward who let you down. Or charge that
calculating to get your privilege and power
I betrayed you. Overbearing, foul-tempered,
aimlessly mean old man! He’ll say all that
and banish me. His words will brand me
a slave. That will be my welcome home.
Now enemies are everywhere, same as
in Troy. This your death has left me.
Now what? How can I lift you off
the acrid glint of the swordpoint 1200
that took your breath away? You see
how even in death your enemy, Hektor,
took you down?
(to sailors)
Look how fate
bound these two together! With the war belt
Aias gave him, Hektor was gripped
against the chariot rails and dragged,
mangled, till his life gave out. In turn,
Aias got this gift from Hektor
and fell on it. 1210
Wasn’t this sword forged
by the Furies? And that war belt by Hades,
the savage craftsman who fashions death
for everyone? As I see it, these things
and all such always are ways the gods
set men up. Anyone who sees this otherwise,
think what you like. This thought is mine.
LEADER
Don’t drag this out. Think how you’ll bury
your brother—and what will you say now
that your enemy’s coming up. There! 1220
He’s the type that could mock us our loss.
TEUKROS
From the army? Who?
CHORUS
The Menelaos we came all this way to help.
TEUKROS
O yes. This close
there’s no doubt who he is.
MENELAOS arrives with guards and a herald.
MENELAOS
Hey, you! Don’t lift that corpse don’t
even touch it! That’s an order.
TEUKROS
A tall order. Why waste your breath on it?
MENELAOS
Because I say so. Our commander says so too.
TEUKROS
Then maybe you’d care to tell us 1230
on what grounds you order this?
MENELAOS
We brought him here thinking
he’d be a friend, an ally of the Greeks.
He turned out to be a worse enemy
than any Trojan. With his spear he
plotted to murder us all in the night.
If a god hadn’t stopped him, it would be
our doom now to die his shameful death,
exposed to all, while he’d still be alive.
Yet the god drove his mad rage aside 1240
against cattle and sheep. Not a man alive
has the power, now, to bury him in a grave.
We’ll haul the carcass out onto damp
yellow sands somewhere, for seabirds
to feed on. So don’t puff yourself up
threatening us. We couldn’t in life
keep him in line, but like it or not, in death
we will. He will go wherever our hands
take him, and leave him, seeing as in life
he never listened to a word I said. 1250
When a common person defies his betters
it shows he’s no good. What city can thrive
where there’s no fear of the law? How keep
discreet order in an army camp without
shutting it up in fear and respect? Even
a man grown gigantic, he should watch it!
One little slip, he could go down. No,
the man who lives in fear and shame
is safe. But in a city of no respect, just
insolence and willfulness, though it 1260
enjoy awhile a following wind, one day
it will go under. Fear is in order.
Why dream we can do what we want
without paying for it? One such turn
deserves another. This man flared up, all
hot-tempered and cocky. Now it’s
my turn for high-and-mighty thoughts.
I warn you: bury that man, you may
bury yourself with him.
LEADER
You’ve set down right-minded precepts, 1270
Menelaos. Don’t overreach yourself
outraging the dead.
TEUKROS
My friends, it’s no surprise that a nobody
of common stock offends, in his own way,
when a supposed noble can talk such trash.
Again now. You say you brought him here
as an ally. He didn’t sail here on his own?
His own master? What justifies your claim
to command him and his men? You rule
the Spartans, not us. You’ve no more grounds 1280
to claim power over him than he over you.
You yourself came under orders; you’re not
the commander of these forces. So how is it
you command Aias?
Lord it over those
you’re lord over. Give them a tongue-lashing
with your big talk. I’ll bury Aias the proper way
no matter what you or that other general say.
Your mouth doesn’t scare me. Aias didn’t, like
those poor bastards in the ranks, come here 1290
to get you your wife back. He came
because of an oath he’d taken. Not for you.
He wouldn’t go to war for the shell of a man.
Next time you come here bring more heralds,
bring the commander in chief! Make
all the racket you want. As long as you are
what you are, I wouldn’t bother to notice.
LEADER
Again insulting words! On top of all this?
I don’t like it. Even if they are called for.
MENELAOS
The archer, far from blood dust, thinks he’s something. 1300
TEUKROS
I’m very good at what I do.
MENELAOS
How you’d brag . . . had you a shield.
TEUKROS
Barehanded I’d match you in all your armor.
MENELAOS
Your courage is all in your mouth.
TEUKROS
A righteous cause is my courage.
MENELAOS
What? It’s right to defend my killer?
TEUKROS
Your killer!? You’re dead? And still alive?
MENELAOS
A god saved me. But he wanted me dead.
TEUKROS
If the gods saved you, why disrespect them?
MENELAOS
How do I disrespect the gods? 1310
TEUKROS
By forbidding the burial of the dead.
MENELAOS
This was our enemy. It’s right to forbid him rest.
TEUKROS
Did Aias ever really confront you a
s an enemy?
MENELAOS
We hated one another. You know that.
TEUKROS
Sure. He knew you rigged the vote against him.
MENELAOS
The judges made that ruling. Not me.
TEUKROS
You’d put a straight face on any crooked scheme.
MENELAOS
Talk like that could get someone hurt.
TEUKROS
Not us more than you.
MENELAOS
One last time. He will not be buried. 1320
TEUKROS
I’m telling you. He will.
MENELAOS
I saw, once, a real blowhard make
his crew sail into a spell of bad weather.
When the storm broke, you wouldn’t have heard
a peep out of him, scrunched under his robe,
not daring to breathe a word with the crew
running round stepping all over him. So
you. One little cloudburst may set off
a monster storm that will drown you out.
TEUKROS
Me too. I once saw a fool so full 1330
of himself, he made fun of others’ misery.
It happened a man like me, the way I feel
it could be me, said something like
“Man, don’t disrespect the dead. You do,
you will pay for it.” To his face said it,
the face of the fool standing before me now,
Menelaos. How’s that for talking double-talk?
MENELAOS
I’m leaving. It would be shameful if anyone knew
I, with so much power, stooped to quibble with you.
TEUKROS
Then get! Shame is in standing still 1340
blasted by hot air from a fool.
MENELAOS and Attendants leave.
LEADER
A big fight for sure. And soon.
Move, Teukros! Find a hollowed-out spot,
some moldy darkness men will hold
famous forever as his tomb.
TEKMESSA reappears with EURYSAKES in hand.
TEUKROS
Just in time, his wife and son are here
to perform the burial rites.
You, boy, come here.
Stand by the father who gave you your life.
Press your hand on him, clutching locks of hair: 1350
mine, your mother’s, your own.
The suppliant’s power that is stored there
will go under with him. And if anyone
