be the first to take me up when fallen on this freshsprinkled sword: and that I may not, having been ere that discovered by any of my foes, be hurled a castaway to dogs and birds a prey. This much I beg of thee, O Jove; and with thee I call on the nether Mercury, conductor of ghosts, to lull me softly to repose, when I have burst through my side with this my sword, by a bound quick and without a struggle. I call, too, the ever-virgins to my aid; them, ever beholding all the sufferings of mortality, the awful Furies, with gigantic stride, to learn of me how I, unhappy, am done to death by Atreus' sons; and may they grasp them all together, villains as they are, by a death most vile, and doomed to utter destruction: even as they look on me falling self-murdered, so self-murdered may they perish by their dearest offspring. Go, ye swift and avenging Furies, banquet on the whole armed host, and spare not. And thou, that Musgrave considers this passage to refer to the death of Ulysses by his son Telegonus. Certainly Agamemnon did not fall by the contrivance of any of his children; and as for Menelaus, he, if we may credit Homer, was carried to the islands of the blest, without having tasted death; how deservedly, we may gather from Herodotus' account of his conduct in Egypt. The curse of Ajax is remarkably grand and awful, but will hardly bear comparison with the celebrated imprecation in Lord Byron's Giaour. h This most sublime idea has been well imitated by Seneca : "O decus mundi, radiate Titan, Dic sub Aurorâ positis Sabais, Dic sub Occasu positis Iberis, Dic ad æternos properare manes HERC. ET. v. 1316. makest the high heaven thy chariot course, O Sun! when thou shalt look on the land of my fathers, checking thy golden-backed rein, announce my woes and my fate to my aged sire, and the wretched mother that nursed me. Full surely she, unhappy, when she shall hear this report, will send forth a dreadful wail throughout the whole city. But it avails not to lament thus vainly: no, the deed must be done, and with all speed. O death, death, come now and look upon me; although thee, indeed, there also shall I meet and accost. But thee, O present brilliance of the lustrous day, and the car-borne sun, I salute now for the last time, and never again hereafter. O light! O sacred soil of mine own country, Salamis! O floor of my father's hearth, and thou, illustrious Athens ! and race that shared my nurture! and ye fountains, and rivers here, and the Trojan plains I address; farewell, my fosterers: this his last word does Ajax speak to you all else will I tell to the dead in Hades. SEMICHO. 'Double double toil and trouble! for whither, whither, aye whither went I not? and yet no place knows to learn [of thee.] Hist! hist! again I hear some noise. SEMICHO. "Tis but ours, the ship's company, partners in your voyage. SEMICHO. Well, and what then? SEMICHO. All the western side of the fleet has been paced [by us.] SEMICHO. And hast thou then got- SEMICHO. Trouble in abundance, and nought more to be seen. iLiterally, "trouble brings trouble to trouble." SEMICHO. Nay, nor to me then, on the measured track in the east, does the hero any where present himself to view. k CHO. Who, who of the industrious fishermen, plying his sleepless quest for prey, or who of the Olympian Goddesses, or who acquainted with the torrent rivers of the Bosporus, if haply any where he descries the chief of savage spirit roaming, will tell me, for grievous it is that I, a wanderer, should approach no fortunate course of my lengthened toils; and that I, wearied and feeble as I am, should not see where he is. TEC. Alas! ah me! CHO. Whose cry issued from the neighbouring grove? TEC. Alas, unhappy me! CHO. I see the hapless captive bride Tecmessa, overwhelmed amid this grief. TEC. I am lost, undone; I am utterly ruined, my friends. CHO. What is it? TEC. Here is our Ajax lying just now newly slain, folded over his 1secreted sword. CHO. Alas, and woe is me! for my return! Ah me! prince, thou hast killed thy fellow-seaman here. Unhappy me! O lady, sad at heart! k "Ide's may be rendered, “haunting, or dwelling near." So Lucian : "Gens conscia Nilo." PHARSAL. L. I. v. 20. 1 For nevpala Musgrave proposes here to read nadaiμg, and adds, "desideratur certe epithetum, quod præsentem ensis conditionem declaret." TEC. 'Tis time to wail, since such is his fate. CHO. By whose hand then could he ill-fated have ever effected this ? TEC. Himself, by his own hand; 'tis plain, for this his sword stuck in the ground, whereon he fell, convicts him. CHO. Ah me! for this my misery! 'twas then alone, by friends unfenced, thou didst shed thy blood: while I, the all-senseless, the all-ignorant, neglected thee. Where, where lies the intractable Ajax of ill-omened name? m TEC. Mark me, he is not to be gazed on. No, I will shroud him in this enfolding robe from head to foot, since none that was his friend could bear to look on him exhaling upwards at the nostrils, and out of the red gash, the gore now blackened from his self-inflicted death-wound. Ah me, what shall I do? What friend will bear thee off? Where is Teucer? How timely were his presence, would he but come to help lay out for burial this his fallen brother! Ah luckless Ajax! what thou wert! what thou art! deserving to meet with mourning, aye, "even from thy foes. m Wakefield (Sylv. Crit. p. 104) proposes to read gos pivòs, and quotes Statius :— "Corruit, extremisque animæ singultibus errans THEB. III. 90. "And if thou tell'st the heavy story right, THIRD PART OF HENRY VI. Act 1. CHO. Wretched man! thou wert then bent, at some time, to accomplish thine evil lot of endless woes : such words wouldst thou sigh out all night and day, stern heart, of evil sound to the Atridæ, with deadly passion. Surely that time was a chief source of troubles, when the contest of superior valour was proposed about Achilles' arms. TEC. Ah me, me! CHO. The pang of genuine grief pierces to thine heart, I know. TEC. Ah me, me! CHO. I can well believe thou sighest thus doubly, lady, but now despoiled of such a friend as this. TEC. "Tis thine to fancy all this, but mine too truly to feel. CHO. I confess it. TEC. Ah me, my child, to what a yoke of slavery pass we! what taskmasters are over us! CHO. Alas! in this thy sorrow thou hast made mention of the unutterable deed of the two unfeeling Atridæ but may Heaven avert it. TEC. Nay, all this had never stood as it does, but with Heaven's will. CHO. But far too heavy is this burden they have brought upon us. TEC. And yet such affliction as this does the dread Goddess Pallas, child of Jove, gender, to gratify Ulysses. CHO. Aye, verily, the chief of many toils in his • Musgrave proposes avaidav, rejecting the interpretation of avavdov by infandum. |