Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/404

306 In nature not faint-hearted. It is shame

For any man to wish for length of life,

Who, wrapt in troubles, knows no change for good.

For what delight brings day still following day,

Or bringing on, or putting off our death?

I would not rate that man as worth regard

Whose fervour glows on vain and empty hopes:

But either noble life or noble death

Becomes the gently born. My say is said.

Chor. And none will say, Ο Aias, that thou speak'st

As one who talks by rote, but from thine heart:

Yet cease, we pray thee; leave such thoughts as these,

And let thy friends control thy soul's resolve.

Tec. My master Aias, greater ill is none

To mortals given than lot of servitude;

And I was sprung from free-born father, strong,

If any was in Phrygia, in his wealth:

And now I am a slave, for so it pleased

The Gods and thy right hand; and therefore, since

I share thy bed, I care for thee and thine.

And now I pray, by Zeus who guards our hearth,

And by the couch where thou hast slept with me,

Deem it not right, in bondage leaving me,

That I should hear hard words from those thy foes;

For should'st thou die, and dying leave me lone,

Be sure that I upon that self-same day,

Dragged by the Argives with a harsh constraint,

With this thy son must eat a bond-slave's bread;

And some one of my masters bitter words

Will speak with scorn,—"Behold the concubine

Of Aias who excelled the host in might!

What bondage now she bears, in place of lot

That all did envy!" This will some one say,

And Fate pursue me, while for thee and thine