Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/391

Rh Well art Thou come, and I with golden spoils

Will deck thy shrine for this my glorious raid.

Athena. Thou speakest well. But tell me this, I pray,

Is thy sword red with blood of Argive host?

Aias. Well may I boast, and I deny it not.

Athena. Did'st thou against the Atreidæ arm thy hand?

Aias. Yea. Nevermore shall they do Aias wrong.

Athena. The men are dead, if I thy meaning catch.

Aias. Yea, dead; now let them carry off my arms.

Athena. So be it; but that son of Lartios,

What is his plight? Has he escaped thy hand?

Aias. That scoundrel fox! Dost ask me where he is?

Athena. E'en so. I mean Odysseus, thy chief foe.

Aias. He, Ο my Mistress, sits a prisoner there,

My choicest spoil. I seek not yet his death.

Athena. What wilt thou do first, what advantage gain?

Aias. First he, bound to the pillar in the court.

Athena. What ill wilt thou on that poor wretch inflict?

Aias. His back all bleeding with the scourge, shall die.

Athena. Do not, I pray, such outrage wreak on him.

Aias. In other things, Athena, have thy way:

But he this penalty, nought else, shall pay.

Athena. Since this thy joy then, to it with a will:

Spare not a jot of all thy soul desires.

Aias. I go to work. And Thou, I charge Thee, still

Be with me, helper true, as now Thou art.

[Goes back to his tent.

Athena. Thou see'st, Odysseus, all the might of Gods,

How great it is. Whom found'st thou than this man

With keener foresight, or with better gifts,

To do what seemed most fitting for the time?

Odys. I know of no man, and I pity him,

So wretched now, although mine enemy,