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 AIAS

'Tis a foolish hope,

If thou shouldst now propose to school my mood.

CHORUS

O famed Salamis, thou amidst

Breaking surges abidest ever

Blissful, a joy to the eyes of all men.

But I the while long and wearily tarrying

Through countless months still encamped on the fields of Ida

In misery here have made my couch,

By time broken and worn,

In dread waiting the hour

When I shall enter at last the terrible shadow abode of Hades.

Now dismays me a new despair,

This incurable frenzy (woe, ah

Woe's me!) cast by the gods on Aias,

Whom thou of old sentest forth from thy shores, a strong

And valiant chief; but now, to his friends a sore grief,

Devouring his lonely heart he sits.

His once glorious deeds

Are now fallen and scorned,

Fallen to death without love from the loveless and pitiless sons of Atreus.

His mother, 'tis most like, burdened with many days,

And whitened with old age, when she shall hear how frenzy

Has smitten his soul to ruin,

Ailinon! ailinon!

Will break forth her despair, not as the nightingale's

Plaintive, tender lament, no, but in passion's wailing

Shrill-toned cries; and with firecefierce [sic] strokes

Wildly smiting her bosom,

In grief's anguish her hands will rend her grey locks.