Page:Ajax (Trevelyan 1919).djvu/23

 CHORUS

Nay, if 'tis ceased, there is good cause to hope.

Once 'tis past, of less moment is his frenzy.

TECMESSA

And which, were the choice thine, wouldst thou prefer,

To afflict thy friends and feel delight thyself,

Or to share sorrow, grieving with their grief?

CHORUS

The twofold woe, lady, would be the greater.

TECMESSA

Then we, though plagued no more, are undone now.

CHORUS

What mean thy words? Their sense is dark to me.

TECMESSA

Yonder man, while his spirit was diseased,

Himself had joy in his own evil plight,

Though to us, who were sane, he brought distress.

But now, since he has respite from his plague,

He with sore grief is utterly cast down,

And we likewise, no less than heretofore.

Are there not here two woes instead of one?

CHORUS

Yes truly. And I fear, from some god came

This stroke; how else? if, now his frenzy is ceased,

His mind has no more ease than when it raged.

TECMESSA

'Tis even as I said, rest well assured.

CHORUS

But how did this bane first alight upon him?

To us who share thy grief show what befell.

TECMESSA

Thou shalt hear all, as though thou hadst been present.

In the middle of the night, when the evening braziers