Ajax

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

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;

Priam then caught sight of Ajax and asked, "Who is that great and goodly warrior whose head and broad shoulders tower above the rest of the Argives?

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;

"He would not answer, but turned away to Erebus and to the other ghosts [ psukhai];

" 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;

And Ajax, after his victory, he honors with the chine of the ox.

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.

So the body the Ajaxes barely saved to the ships.

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.

Ajax:

Ajax:

Ajax:

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

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

Shall Ajax bear him now,

Thou wilt not ask for Ajax, Ileus’ son?

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:

In Troy Hector heard of Aias.

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

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

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.

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

Frenzy drove Ajax to death, anger to frenzy.

The tragic actor Neoptolemus, near Rhoeteum the burial-place of Troy, warned in dreams by Ajax himself, frees his tomb from ruin, and, when he puts down the rubbish of the stones, returns thence rich with gold.

Any one of you, therefore, who wishes to acquire the art of the householder, the political leader, or the general, or to become like Achilles or Ajax or Nestor or Odysseus, should seek my favour, for I understand all these things.