Perish the Argive host, perish my life, Now unendurable! The brave no more Hath his due guerdon, but the baser sort Are honoured most and loved, as this Odysseus Hath worship mid the Greeks: but utterly Have they forgotten me and all my deeds, All that I wrought and suffered in their cause."
So spake the brave son of strong Telamon, Then thrust the sword of Hector through his throat.
Forth rushed the blood in torrent: in the dust Outstretched he lay, like Typhon, when the bolts Of Zeus had blasted him. Around him groaned The dark earth as he fell upon her breast.
Then thronging came the Danaans, when they saw Low laid in dust the hero; but ere then None dared draw nigh him, but in deadly fear They watched him from afar. Now hasted they And flung themselves upon the dead, outstretched Upon their faces: on their heads they cast Dust, and their wailing went up to the sky.
As when men drive away the tender lambs Out of the fleecy flock, to feast thereon, And round the desolate pens the mothers leap Ceaselessly bleating, so o'er Aias rang That day a very great and bitter cry.
Wild echoes pealed from Ida forest-palled, And from the plain, the ships, the boundless sea.
Then Teucer clasping him was minded too To rush on bitter doom: howbeit the rest Held from the sword his hand. Anguished he fell Upon the dead, outpouring many a tear More comfortlessly than the orphan babe That wails beside the hearth, with ashes strewn On head and shoulders, wails bereavement's day That brings death to the mother who hath nursed The fatherless child; so wailed he, ever wailed His great death-stricken brother, creeping slow Around the corpse, and uttering his lament:
"O Aias, mighty-souled, why was thine heart Distraught, that thou shouldst deal unto thyself Murder and bale? All, was it that the sons Of Troy might win a breathing-space from woes, Might come and slay the Greeks, now thou art not?
From these shall all the olden courage fail When fast they fall in fight. Their shield from harm s broken now! For me, I have no will To see mine home again, now thou art dead.
Nay, but I long here also now to die, That so the earth may shroud me -- me and thee Not for my parents so much do I care, If haply yet they live, if haply yet Spared from the grave, in Salamis they dwell, As for thee, O my glory and my crown!"
So cried he groaning sore; with answering moan Queenly Tecmessa wailed, the princess-bride Of noble Aias, captive of his spear, Yet ta'en by him to wife, and household-queen O'er all his substance, even all that wives Won with a bride-price rule for wedded lords.
Clasped in his mighty arms, she bare to him A son Eurysaces, in all things like Unto his father, far as babe might be Yet cradled in his tent. With bitter moan Fell she on that dear corpse, all her fair form Close-shrouded in her veil, and dust-defiled, And from her anguished heart cried piteously:
"Alas for me, for me now thou art dead, Not by the hands of foes in fight struck down, But by thine own! On me is come a grief Ever-abiding! Never had I looked To see thy woeful death-day here by Troy.
Ah, visions shattered by rude hands of Fate!
Oh that the earth had yawned wide for my grave Ere I beheld thy bitter doom! On me No sharper, more heart-piercing pang hath come -- No, not when first from fatherland afar And parents thou didst bear me, wailing sore Mid other captives, when the day of bondage Had come on me, a princess theretofore.
Not for that dear lost home so much I grieve, Nor for my parents dead, as now for thee:
For all thine heart was kindness unto me The hapless, and thou madest me thy wife, One soul with thee; yea, and thou promisedst To throne me queen of fair-towered Salamis, When home we won from Troy. The Gods denied Accomplishment thereof. And thou hast passed Unto the Unseen Land: thou hast forgot Me and thy child, who never shall make glad His father's heart, shall never mount thy throne.
But him shall strangers make a wretched thrall:
For when the father is no more, the babe Is ward of meaner men. A weary life The orphan knows, and suffering cometh in From every side upon him like a flood.
To me too thraldom's day shall doubtless come, Now thou hast died, who wast my god on earth."
Then in all kindness Agamemnon spake:
"Princess, no man on earth shall make thee thrall, While Teucer liveth yet, while yet I live.
Thou shalt have worship of us evermore And honour as a Goddess, with thy son, As though yet living were that godlike man, Aias, who was the Achaeans' chiefest strength.
Ah that he had not laid this load of grief On all, in dying by his own right hand!
For all the countless armies of his foes Never availed to slay him in fair fight."
