Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/431

Rh For I, indeed, learn nothing by thy speech,

Thy barbarous accent so offends mine ear.

Chor. Would that ye both self-mastery could learn:

Better than this I cannot wish you both.

Teu. Alas! How soon the credit of the dead

Flits, and is gone, and proves but treacherous stay,

When this man, Aias, takes no count of thee,

Not e'en in poor, cheap words, for whom thou oft

Thy life exposing, strovest in the fight;

But all the past is past, and thrown aside.

Ο thou that speakest such a senseless speech,

Hast thou no memory, none, of that same day

When ye were shut within the bulwarks high,

Already good as dead, and he, himself,

Alone, came on to help, and freed you all,

Putting to flight your foes, when fire had seized

Your ships' tall masts, and where the sailors sit,

And Hector's self was leaping o'er the trench

Right on your sailors' boats? Who staved this off?

Was it not he of whom thou now dost say,

That never did he stir a foot for thee?

Nay, wrought he not in your sight noble deeds?

And yet once more, when he went forth to meet,

In single combat, Hector, casting lots,

At no man's word, the lot which he put in

Was no deserter, lump of moistened clay,

But one full sure to be the first to leap

With nimble spring from out the crested helm;

'Twas he that did all this, and I with him,

The base-born slave, of alien mother sprung.