Page:Ajax (Trevelyan 1919).djvu/59

 Being such, do you reproach me with my lineage?

Telamon is the father who begat me,

Who, as the foremost champion of the Greeks,

Won as his bride my mother, a princess

By birth, Laomedon's daughter: a chosen spoil

She had been given him by Alcmena's son.

Thus of two noble parents nobly born,

How should I shame one of my blood, whom now,

Laid low by such calamity, you would thrust

Unburied forth, and feel no shame to say it?

But of this be sure: wheresoever you may cast him,

Us three also with him will you cast forth.

For it beseems me in his cause to die

In sight of all, rather than for the sake

Of your wife—or your brother's should I say?

Look then not to my interest, but your own.

For if you assail me, you shall soon wish rather

To have been a coward than too bold against me.

CHORUS

In good time. King Odysseus, hast thou come,

If 'tis thy purpose not to embroil but reconcile.

ODYSSEUS

What is it, friends? Far off I heard high words

From the Atreidæ over this hero's corpse.

AGAMEMNON

Royal Odysseus, but now from this man

We have been listening to most shameful taunts.

ODYSSEUS

How shameful? I could find excuse for one

Who, when reviled, retorts with bitter words.

AGAMEMNON

Yes, I repaid his vile deeds with reviling.