章节正文
He tossed words, now against the Atreidae, now
Taunting Odysseus, piling up huge jeers
Of how he had gone and wreaked his scorn upon them.
Soon he rushed back within the tent, where slowly
And hardly to his reason he returned.
And gazing round on the room filled with havoc,
He struck his head and cried out; then amidst
The wrecks of slaughtered sheep a wreck he fell,
And sat clutching his hair with tight-clenched nails.
There first for a long while he crouched speechless;
Then did he threaten me with fearful threats,
If I revealed not all that had befallen him,
Asking what meant the plightwherein he lay.
And I, friends, terror-stricken, told him all
That had been done, so far as I had knowledge.
Forthwith he broke forth into bitter wailing,
Such as I ne'er had heard from him before
For always had he held that such laments
Befitted cowards only, and low-souled men:
But uttering no shrill cries, he would express
His grief in low groans, as of a moaning bull.
But now prostrate beneath so great a woe,
Not tasting food nor drink, he sits among
The sword-slain beasts, motionless where he sank.
And plainly he meditates some baleful deed,
For so portend his words and lamentations.
But, O friends!-'twas for this cause I came forth-
Enter and help, if help at all you can:
For by friends' words men so bestead are won.
LEADER
Child of Teleutas, fearful are thy tidings,
That our prince has been maddened by his griefs.
AJAX (within)
Alas! Woe, woe!
TECMESSA
Soon, I fear, worse will follow. Heard you not?
'Twas Ajax. Oh, how dreadful was that cry.
AJAX
Alas! Woe, woe!
LEADER
He seems either still frenzied, or else grieving
For his past frenzies, now he sees their work.
AJAX
Alas! My son, my son!
TECMESSA
Woe's me! Eurysaces, 'tis for thee he calls.
What can he purpose?-Where art thou?-Ah, woe!
AJAX
Teucer, come!-Where is Teucer? Will he never
Come back from cattle-raiding?-while I perish!
LEADER
He seems in his right mind. But open the doors.
Perhaps even the sight of me may sober him.
(She opens the doors of the tent. AJAX is
revealed sitting among the slain beasts.)
TECMESSA
See, I have opened. You may now behold
What he has done, and in what plight he lies.
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
My shipmates and friends, you that alone to me
Loyal and true remain, of all friends alone,
Behold how great a billowlately rising from the storm of blood
Surging around engulphs me!
LEADER
Ah me, too true, it seems, was thy report.
This sight reveals the work of no sane mind.
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
My mates, skilled and tried in brave seamanship,
Ye who embarking drove the wave-cleaving oar,
In you, in you alone I see a help and refuge from despair.
Smite me, and spill my blood too.
LEADER
Keep silence from dread words; nor curing ill
By ill, so swell the misery of this curse.
AJAX (chanting)
Behold now the bold, the man stout of heart,
Who ne'er shrank in fight against foes-behold
How I have spent my rage on beasts that feared no harm!
Ah me, the mockery! To what shame am I brought low
TECMESSA
Ajax, my master, I entreat thee, speak not so.
AJAX (chanting)
Away hence, I command thee! Take thyself elsewhere.
Aiai! Aiai!
LEADER
Oh, by the Gods, we pray thee, yield to wisdom's voice.
AJAX (chanting)
Oh, wretch that I was to allow
Those cursed foes to slip from my hands, and assaulting
Horned kine and goodly flocks, madly to spill
Their life in streams of dark blood!
LEADER
Why still be afflicted, now the deed is done past cure?
Never can these things be as though they had not been.
AJAX (chanting)
Thou all-spying knave, of all deeds of shame
The prompt, easy tool, Odysseus the wise!
Villain, of all the camp the most foul and vile!
Huge laughterdoubtless shakes thee now for sheer delight.
LEADER
As God appoints, so every man laughs or laments.
AJAX (chanting)
Would I might meet him, crushed and broken though I be.
Alas! Woe, woe!
LEADER
Speak no proud words. Seest thou not to what woe thou art sunk?
AJAX (chanting)
O Zeus, of my fathers the sire,
Might I but kill that hateful and crafty dissembler,
Yea, and those two brother kings, partners in pride,
Then last myself too perish!
TECMESSA
If thus thou prayest, pray therewith for me, that
Die with thee. Why, when thou art dead, should I live on?
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
Shadow that art my light!
Erebus, oh to me verily bright as day!
Receive, receive me your habitant.
Receive me now no more worthy to seek help of the gods,
Nor any more from fellow mortal men to claim kindness:
No, but she the strong
Zeus-born deity
Miserably tortures me.
Whither should I then flee?
Whither seek for rest?
Since my former glory is gone, my friends,
With yonder victims, yonder spoils by frenzy won,
Since all the host with swords uplifted
Sternly would slay me,
TECMESSA
Ah, woe is me! from such a noble warrior
To hear such words as once he ne'er had deigned to speak!
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
Billowy paths of foam,
Eddying caves, and ye coppices by the shore,
A weary, weary time tarrying here
Beneath the walls of Troy me have you kept, but from this hour
Alive you shall not keep me. Truth I speak: let none doubt it.
O Scamander's wave,
Stream whose neighbouring flow
Oft have the Argives blest,
Never, nevermore
Me shall you behold,
Me (a proud word will I utter now)
Whose peer in battle Troy has never seen yet come
From Hellas' land: but now dishonoured
Thus am I prostrate.
LEADER
In truth I know not how to restrain thy speech, nor yet
To suffer it; so grievous is thy couch of woe.
AJAX
Aiai! Who ever would have thought my name
Would harmonise so aptly with my woes?
For now well may I wail that sound out twice,
Yea thrice; such woeful destinies are mine,
Whose father from this land of Ida won
Fame's noblest guerdon over the whole host,
And crowned with praises only sailed back home;
But I, his son, who to the self-same Troy
Came after him, in might no less than he,
Nor rendering meaner service by my deeds,
Dishonoured by the Argives perish thus.
Yet this methinks I know for truth, were now
Achilles living and called on to adjudge
As the award of valour his own arms,
No man's hand would have grasped them before mine.
But now the Atreidae to a scheming knave
Have dealt them, thrusting by my valiant deeds.
And if these eyes, these wits had not in frenzy
Swerved from my purpose, never would they thus
Pervert judgment against another man.
But the irresistible fierce-eyed goddess, even
As I was arming my right hand to slay them,
Foiled me, smiting me with a maddening plague,
So that I stained my hand butchering these cattle.
Thus my foes mock me, escaped beyond my reach,
Through no goodwill of mine: but if a god
Thwart vengeance, even the base may escape the nobler.
And what should I now do, who manifestly
To Heaven am hateful; whom the Greeks abhor,
Whom every Trojan hates, and this whole land?
Shall I desert the beached ships, and abandoning
The Atreidae, sail home o'er the Aegean sea?
With what face shall I appear before my father
Telamon? How will he find heart to look
On me, stripped of my championship in war,
That mighty crown of fame that once was his?
No, that I dare not. Shall I then assault
Troy's fortress, and alone against them all
Achieve some gloriousexploit and then die?
No, I might gratify the Atreidae thus.
That must not be. Some scheme let me devise
Which may prove to my aged sire that I,
His son, at least by nature am no coward.
For 'tis base for a man to crave long life
Who endures never-varying misery.
What joy can be in day that follows day,
Taunting Odysseus, piling up huge jeers
Of how he had gone and wreaked his scorn upon them.
Soon he rushed back within the tent, where slowly
And hardly to his reason he returned.
And gazing round on the room filled with havoc,
He struck his head and cried out; then amidst
The wrecks of slaughtered sheep a wreck he fell,
And sat clutching his hair with tight-clenched nails.
There first for a long while he crouched speechless;
Then did he threaten me with fearful threats,
If I revealed not all that had befallen him,
Asking what meant the plightwherein he lay.
And I, friends, terror-stricken, told him all
That had been done, so far as I had knowledge.
Forthwith he broke forth into bitter wailing,
Such as I ne'er had heard from him before
For always had he held that such laments
Befitted cowards only, and low-souled men:
But uttering no shrill cries, he would express
His grief in low groans, as of a moaning bull.
But now prostrate beneath so great a woe,
Not tasting food nor drink, he sits among
The sword-slain beasts, motionless where he sank.
And plainly he meditates some baleful deed,
For so portend his words and lamentations.
But, O friends!-'twas for this cause I came forth-
Enter and help, if help at all you can:
For by friends' words men so bestead are won.
LEADER
Child of Teleutas, fearful are thy tidings,
That our prince has been maddened by his griefs.
AJAX (within)
Alas! Woe, woe!
TECMESSA
Soon, I fear, worse will follow. Heard you not?
'Twas Ajax. Oh, how dreadful was that cry.
AJAX
Alas! Woe, woe!
LEADER
He seems either still frenzied, or else grieving
For his past frenzies, now he sees their work.
AJAX
Alas! My son, my son!
TECMESSA
Woe's me! Eurysaces, 'tis for thee he calls.
What can he purpose?-Where art thou?-Ah, woe!
AJAX
Teucer, come!-Where is Teucer? Will he never
Come back from cattle-raiding?-while I perish!
LEADER
He seems in his right mind. But open the doors.
Perhaps even the sight of me may sober him.
(She opens the doors of the tent. AJAX is
revealed sitting among the slain beasts.)
TECMESSA
See, I have opened. You may now behold
What he has done, and in what plight he lies.
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
My shipmates and friends, you that alone to me
Loyal and true remain, of all friends alone,
Behold how great a billowlately rising from the storm of blood
Surging around engulphs me!
LEADER
Ah me, too true, it seems, was thy report.
This sight reveals the work of no sane mind.
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
My mates, skilled and tried in brave seamanship,
Ye who embarking drove the wave-cleaving oar,
In you, in you alone I see a help and refuge from despair.
Smite me, and spill my blood too.
LEADER
Keep silence from dread words; nor curing ill
By ill, so swell the misery of this curse.
AJAX (chanting)
Behold now the bold, the man stout of heart,
Who ne'er shrank in fight against foes-behold
How I have spent my rage on beasts that feared no harm!
Ah me, the mockery! To what shame am I brought low
TECMESSA
Ajax, my master, I entreat thee, speak not so.
AJAX (chanting)
Away hence, I command thee! Take thyself elsewhere.
Aiai! Aiai!
LEADER
Oh, by the Gods, we pray thee, yield to wisdom's voice.
AJAX (chanting)
Oh, wretch that I was to allow
Those cursed foes to slip from my hands, and assaulting
Horned kine and goodly flocks, madly to spill
Their life in streams of dark blood!
LEADER
Why still be afflicted, now the deed is done past cure?
Never can these things be as though they had not been.
AJAX (chanting)
Thou all-spying knave, of all deeds of shame
The prompt, easy tool, Odysseus the wise!
Villain, of all the camp the most foul and vile!
Huge laughterdoubtless shakes thee now for sheer delight.
LEADER
As God appoints, so every man laughs or laments.
AJAX (chanting)
Would I might meet him, crushed and broken though I be.
Alas! Woe, woe!
LEADER
Speak no proud words. Seest thou not to what woe thou art sunk?
AJAX (chanting)
O Zeus, of my fathers the sire,
Might I but kill that hateful and crafty dissembler,
Yea, and those two brother kings, partners in pride,
Then last myself too perish!
TECMESSA
If thus thou prayest, pray therewith for me, that
Die with thee. Why, when thou art dead, should I live on?
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
Shadow that art my light!
Erebus, oh to me verily bright as day!
Receive, receive me your habitant.
Receive me now no more worthy to seek help of the gods,
Nor any more from fellow mortal men to claim kindness:
No, but she the strong
Zeus-born deity
Miserably tortures me.
Whither should I then flee?
Whither seek for rest?
Since my former glory is gone, my friends,
With yonder victims, yonder spoils by frenzy won,
Since all the host with swords uplifted
Sternly would slay me,
TECMESSA
Ah, woe is me! from such a noble warrior
To hear such words as once he ne'er had deigned to speak!
AJAX (chanting)
Alas!
Billowy paths of foam,
Eddying caves, and ye coppices by the shore,
A weary, weary time tarrying here
Beneath the walls of Troy me have you kept, but from this hour
Alive you shall not keep me. Truth I speak: let none doubt it.
O Scamander's wave,
Stream whose neighbouring flow
Oft have the Argives blest,
Never, nevermore
Me shall you behold,
Me (a proud word will I utter now)
Whose peer in battle Troy has never seen yet come
From Hellas' land: but now dishonoured
Thus am I prostrate.
LEADER
In truth I know not how to restrain thy speech, nor yet
To suffer it; so grievous is thy couch of woe.
AJAX
Aiai! Who ever would have thought my name
Would harmonise so aptly with my woes?
For now well may I wail that sound out twice,
Yea thrice; such woeful destinies are mine,
Whose father from this land of Ida won
Fame's noblest guerdon over the whole host,
And crowned with praises only sailed back home;
But I, his son, who to the self-same Troy
Came after him, in might no less than he,
Nor rendering meaner service by my deeds,
Dishonoured by the Argives perish thus.
Yet this methinks I know for truth, were now
Achilles living and called on to adjudge
As the award of valour his own arms,
No man's hand would have grasped them before mine.
But now the Atreidae to a scheming knave
Have dealt them, thrusting by my valiant deeds.
And if these eyes, these wits had not in frenzy
Swerved from my purpose, never would they thus
Pervert judgment against another man.
But the irresistible fierce-eyed goddess, even
As I was arming my right hand to slay them,
Foiled me, smiting me with a maddening plague,
So that I stained my hand butchering these cattle.
Thus my foes mock me, escaped beyond my reach,
Through no goodwill of mine: but if a god
Thwart vengeance, even the base may escape the nobler.
And what should I now do, who manifestly
To Heaven am hateful; whom the Greeks abhor,
Whom every Trojan hates, and this whole land?
Shall I desert the beached ships, and abandoning
The Atreidae, sail home o'er the Aegean sea?
With what face shall I appear before my father
Telamon? How will he find heart to look
On me, stripped of my championship in war,
That mighty crown of fame that once was his?
No, that I dare not. Shall I then assault
Troy's fortress, and alone against them all
Achieve some gloriousexploit and then die?
No, I might gratify the Atreidae thus.
That must not be. Some scheme let me devise
Which may prove to my aged sire that I,
His son, at least by nature am no coward.
For 'tis base for a man to crave long life
Who endures never-varying misery.
What joy can be in day that follows day,
- threaten [´θretn]
v.恐吓；有....的危险 (初中英语单词) - fearful [´fiəfəl] a.可怕的；担心的 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- prince [´prins] n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词)
- dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
- lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
- refuge [´refju:dʒ] v.&n.避难(所)；庇护 (初中英语单词)
- misery [´mizəri] n.痛苦；悲惨；穷困 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- doubtless [´dautlis] ad.无疑地；大概，多半 (初中英语单词)
- therewith [ðɛə´wið] ad.于是，随即 (初中英语单词)
- worthy [´wə:ði] a.有价值的；值得的 (初中英语单词)
- perish [´periʃ] v.灭亡；消灭；(使)死去 (初中英语单词)
- scheming [´ski:miŋ] a.计划的；诡计多端 (初中英语单词)
- goddess [´gɔdis] n.女神 (初中英语单词)
- glorious [´glɔ:riəs] a.光荣的；辉煌的 (初中英语单词)
- scheme [ski:m] n.计划；阴谋，诡计 (初中英语单词)
- plight [plait] n.境况；困境；苦境 (高中英语单词)
- wherein [weər´in] ad.那里面 (高中英语单词)
- terror-stricken [´terə,strikən] a.(受了)惊吓的 (高中英语单词)
- shrill [ʃril] a.(声音)尖锐的 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- skilled [skild] a.有技能的，熟练的 (高中英语单词)
- goodly [´gudli] a.适意的；漂亮的 (高中英语单词)
- prompt [prɔmpt] a.敏捷的 vt.促使 (高中英语单词)
- mortal [´mɔ:tl] a.致命的 n.凡人 (高中英语单词)
- restrain [ri´strein] vt.抑制；管束；限制 (高中英语单词)
- methinks [mi´θiŋks] vi.据我看来 (高中英语单词)
- goodwill [,gud´wil] n.友好，亲善；信誉 (高中英语单词)
- vengeance [´vendʒəns] n.报复，复仇 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- fortress [´fɔ:tris] n.堡垒，要塞 (高中英语单词)
- exploit [´eksplɔit] n.功绩 vt.剥削；开发 (高中英语单词)
- gratify [´grætifai] vt.使高兴；满足 (高中英语单词)
- befallen [bi´fɔ:lən] befall的过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- prostrate [´prɔstreit, prɔ´streit] a.俯伏的 vt.弄倒 (英语四级单词)
- billow [´biləu] n.巨浪 v.(使)翻腾 (英语四级单词)
- entreat [in´tri:t] vt.恳求，恳请 (英语四级单词)
- wretch [retʃ] n.不幸的人；卑鄙的人 (英语四级单词)
- hateful [´heitfəl] a.可恨的，可憎的 (英语四级单词)
- verily [´verili] ad.真实的；肯定地 (英语四级单词)
- frenzy [´frenzi] n.&vt.(使)狂乱 (英语四级单词)
- grievous [´gri:vəs] a.痛苦的；严重的 (英语四级单词)
- thrice [θrais] ad.三倍地；三次 (英语四级单词)
- valour [´vælə] n.英勇，勇猛 (英语四级单词)
- valiant [´væliənt] a.勇敢的，英勇的 (英语四级单词)
- irresistible [,iri´zistəbəl] a.不可抵抗的 (英语四级单词)
- championship [´tʃæmpiənʃip] n.拥护；奋斗；锦标赛 (英语四级单词)
- shrank [ʃræŋk] shrink的过去式 (英语六级单词)
- crafty [´krɑ:fti] a.狡猾的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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