Ajax

Let the Achaeans find me a prize in fair exchange to my liking, or I will come and take your own, or that of Ajax or of Odysseus;

for the present, let us draw a ship into the sea, and find a crew for her expressly;

"That," answered Helen, "is huge Ajax, bulwark of the Achaeans, and on the other side of him, among the Cretans, stands Idomeneus looking like a god, and with the leaders of the Cretans round him.

With what delight should I be affected when I met Palamedes, Ajax, and others circumvented by an unjust judgement!

For this insanity, which, joined with folly, extends more widely, we separate from raving fury.

And so that Oïleus in Sophocles, who had before consoled Telamon over the death of Ajax, when he had heard of his own son, was broken.

Our best men all of them fell there - Ajax, Achilles, Patroklos peer of gods in counsel, and my own dear son Antilokhos, a man singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.

Ajax was wrecked, for Poseidon drove him on to the great rocks of Gyrae;

"As we two sat weeping and talking thus sadly with one another the ghost [ psukhê] of Achilles came up to us with Patroklos, Antilokhos, and Ajax who was the finest and goodliest man of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus.

" Nor is Ajax silent, but, about to slay himself, cries out:

And of homonyms, some are homonymous by chance, as Ajax the Locrian and Ajax the Salaminian;

So that Agamemnon prayed for ten such old men to be his counselors, rather than young warriors like Ajax and Achilles, since thus Troy would the sooner be taken.

but when he magnifies the Achaeans, he is full of much difficulty and to all plainly lies—that Ajax twice mastered Hector in vain, once in the single combat, again with the stone, and that Diomedes mastered Aeneas, though this man too accomplished nothing, but only took the horses, which was incapable of refutation.

And false too is the single combat of Ajax and Hector, and very silly the breaking-off, Ajax again there conquering, but with no result, and their giving gifts to one another as friends.

who is there that wonders not at this difference,—when the heart of him that was to run the risk of the combat only beats inwardly, as if he were to undertake a mere wrestling or running match, but the very bodies of the spectators tremble and shake, out of the kindness and fear which they had for their king?

And in what follows, he speaks like handsome things of his fellow-soldiers in general, thus:

but Ajax is always represented as friendly to Achilles;

For Homer says that Ajax, who had distinguished himself in the war, was honored with the long chine, assuming that the most fitting meed for a brave man in the prime of his youth is that from which both honor and strength will accrue to him.

it was the soul of Ajax, the son of Telamon, which, because it remembered the adjudication of the arms of Achilles, was unwilling to become a man.

By madness our glorious Ajax was seized in the night, and he has been subjected to utter disgrace.

Ajax, my lord, the fortune that humans are compelled to endure is their gravest evil.

And now you have discerned correctly that I am circling my path on the track of a man who hates me, Ajax the shield-bearer.

Again, in the Ajax of Theodectes, Odysseus explains to Ajax why, although really more courageous than Ajax, he is not considered to be so.

And the following remark from the Ajax of Theodectes, that Diomedes chose Odysseus before all others, not to do him honor, but that his companion might be his inferior;

Of their battle-rousing sons I shall sing, and of swift Achilles, and the high-spirited son of beautiful Eriboea, Aias, the shield-bearing hero, who stood on the stern of his ship and stopped bold-hearted, bronze [helmeted] Hector in his rush to burn the ships with dread fire, at the time when the son of Peleus stirred fierce wrath [in his breast]

It did not escape the Aeantidae that Ajax, robbed of the prize of valor, did not consider his own life worth living.

And yearning after thee came Achilles and Ajax to the house of Hades, and for the sake of thy dear form the nursling of Atarneus too was bereft of the light of the sun.

Hector of Troy or Ajax triple-plumed, as I saw him, saw him, in Priam’s gateway;

Thou wilt not ask for Ajax, Ileus’ son?

Shall Ajax bear him now,

Next, to my seeming, Ajax hath the most,

There is a startling contrast between the last prayer of Ajax to Zeus that he be at least buried, so that dogs and birds eat not his body, and the prayer of the devout Zoroastrian that he be not buried, and that dogs and birds do eat his remains.

First of all they set apart for the gods, among other first-fruits, three Phoenician triremes, one to be dedicated at the Isthmus, where it was till my lifetime, the second at Sunium, and the third for Ajax at Salamis where they were.

To each of these two were born sons—to Telamon Ajax and Teucer, and to Peleus Achilles, and these heroes gave proof of their valour in the clearest and most convincing way:

For if they had been able to see the truth, then mighty Aias, in anger over the arms, would never have planted in his chest the smooth sword—Aias, who was the most powerful in battle, except for Achilles, and whom the breath of the unswerving Zephyr conveyed in swift ships, to bring back the wife of golden-haired Menelaus from the city of Ilus.

but Aias holds ancestral Salamis, and Achilles holds the shining island in the Euxine sea.

Envy devoured the son of Telamon, throwing him onto his own sword.

for I personally should find the life there wonderful, when I met Palamedes or Ajax, the son of Telamon, or any other men of old who lost their lives through an unjust judgement, and compared my experience with theirs.

Ajax, descendant of Zeus, son of Telamon, chief of thy people, All thou hast uttered is good in my sight and pleases my spirit.

but in this case also Achilles was induced by the goodness of his heart to say to Ajax something different from what he had said to Odysseus;

Don’t you know that after he said to Odysseus that he was going to sail away at daybreak, in speaking to Ajax he does not repeat that he is going to sail away, but says something different?

Now, Hippias, do you think the son of Thetis and pupil of the most wise Cheiron was so forgetful, that, although a little earlier he had reviled deceivers in the most extreme terms, he himself immediately said to Odysseus that he was going to sail away and to Ajax that he was going to stay, and was not acting by design and in the belief that Odysseus was behind the times and that he himself would …

For I was well aware that he was far more proof against money on every side than Ajax against a spear;

Homer acquaints us how Ajax, being to engage in a single combat with Hector, bade the Grecians pray to the Gods for him;