Page:Ajax (Trevelyan 1919).djvu/24

 No longer flared, he took a two-edged sword,

And fain would sally upon an empty quest.

But I rebuked him, saying: "What doest thou,

Aias? Why thus uncalled wouldst thou go forth?

No messenger has summoned thee, no trumpet

Roused thee. Nay, the whole camp is sleeping still."

But curtly he replied in well-worn phrase:

"Woman, silence is the grace of woman."

Thus schooled, I yielded; and he rushed out alone.

What passed outside the tent, I cannot tell.

But in he came, driving lashed together

Bulls, and shepherd dogs, and fleecy prey.

Some he beheaded, the wrenched-back throats of some

He slit, or cleft their chines; others he bound

And tortured, as though men they were, not beasts.

Last, darting through the doors, as to some phantom

He tossed words, now against the Atreidæ, 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 plight wherein 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.