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 CHORUS

In truth I know not how to restrain thy speech, nor yet

To suffer it; so grievous is thy couch of woe.

AIAS

Aiai! Who ever would have thought my name

Would harmonise so aptly with my woes?

For now well may I wail that sound out twice,

Yea thrice; such woeful destinies are mine,

Whose father from this land of Ida won

Fame's noblest guerdon over the whole host,

And crowned with praises only sailed back home;

But I, his son, who to the self-same Troy

Came after him, in might no less than he,

Nor rendering meaner service by my deeds,

Dishonoured by the Argives perish thus.

Yet this methinks I know for truth, were now

Achilles living and called on to adjudge

As the award of valour his own arms,

No man's hand would have grasped them before mine.

But now the Atreidæ to a scheming knave

Have dealt them, thrusting by my valiant deeds.

And if these eyes, these wits had not in frenzy

Swerved from my purpose, never would they thus

Pervert judgment against another man.

But the irresistible fierce-eyed goddess, even

As I was arming my right hand to slay them,

Foiled me, smiting me with a maddening plague,

So that I stained my hand butchering these cattle.

Thus my foes mock me, escaped beyond my reach,

Through no goodwill of mine: but if a god

Thwart vengeance, even the base may escape the nobler.

And what should I now do, who manifestly

To Heaven am hateful; whom the Greeks abhor,

Whom every Trojan hates, and this whole land?

Shall I desert the beached ships, and abandoning

The Atreidæ, sail home o'er the Ægean sea?