Page:Ajax (Trevelyan 1919).djvu/38

 Ares hath lifted horror and anguish from our eyes.

Io, Io! Now again,

Now, Zeus, can the bright and blithe

Glory of happier days return

To our swift-voyaging ships, for now

Hath Aias wholly forgot his grief,

And all rites due to the gods he now

Fain would meetly perform with loyal worship.

Mighty is time to dwindle all things.

Nought would I call too strange for belief, when Aias thus beyond hope

Hath learnt to repent his proud feuds,

And lay aside anger against the Atreidæ.

MESSENGER

My friends, these tidings I would tell you first:

Teucer is present, from the Mysian heights

But now returned, and in the central camp

By all the Greeks at once is being reviled.

As he drew near they knew him from afar,

Then gathering around him one and all

With taunts assailed him from this side and that,

Calling him kinsman of that maniac.

That plotter against the host, saying that nought

Should save him; stoned and mangled he must die.

And so they had come to such a pitch that swords

Plucked from their sheaths stood naked in men's hands.

Yet when the strife ran highest, it was stayed

By words from the elders and so reconciled.

But where is Aias? I must speak with him.

He whom it most concerns must be told all.

CHORUS

He is not within, but has just now gone forth

With a new purpose yoked to a new mood.