Page:Ajax (Trevelyan 1919).djvu/45

 CHORUS

Woe for my lost hopes of home!

Woe's me, thou hast slain me, my king,

Me thy shipmate, hapless man!

Woful-souled woman too!

TECMESSA

Since thus it is with him, 'tis mine to wail.

CHORUS

By whose hand has he wrought this luckless deed?

TECMESSA

By his own hand, 'tis evident. This sword

Whereon he fell, planted in earth, convicts him.

CHORUS

Woe for my blind folly! Lone in thy blood thou lyest, from friends' help afar.

And I the wholly witless, the all unwary,

Forbore to watch thee. Where, where

Lyeth the fatally named, intractable Aias?

TECMESSA

None must behold him. I will shroud him wholly

In this enfolding mantle; for no man

Who loved him could endure to see him thus

Through nostrils and through red gash spouting up

The darkened blood from his self-stricken wound.

Ah me, what shall I do? What friend shall lift thee?

Where is Teucer? Timely indeed would he now come,

To compose duly his slain brother's corpse.

hapless Aias, who wast once so great,

Now even thy foes might dare to mourn thy fall.

CHORUS

'Twas fate's will, alas, 'twas fate then for thou

Stubborn of soul at length to work out a dark

Doom of ineffable miseries. Such the dire

Fury of passionate hate