Ajax

Ajax by Sophocles

Sophocles’ Ajax is a surviving Athenian tragedy set at the Greek camp at Troy, soon after the death of Achilles. It shows the last day of Ajax the Great, son of Telamon, who was defeated by Odysseus in the contest for the armor of Achilles (lines 41, 441–449). In the night Ajax set out to kill the Greek leaders, but Athena turned his madness on the army’s cattle and sheep (lines 51–65). When he recovers and sees what he has done, he determines to die (lines 430–480). He seems to give way to the pleas of his concubine Tecmessa and his sailors (lines 646–692), but then falls on the sword given to him by Hector (lines 815–865). The second half of the play concerns the burial of his body: Menelaus and then Agamemnon forbid it, Ajax’s half-brother Teucer insists on it (lines 1047–1315), and Odysseus persuades Agamemnon to allow it, saying that Ajax was the best and bravest in the army at Troy, excepting Achilles (lines 1332–1345).

Date and Historical Background

No ancient source that survives gives the year or the festival of the first performance of Ajax, and the ancient introductions to the play that are preserved do not date it. Its date, and its place among Sophocles’ seven surviving tragedies, are therefore uncertain.

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, who appears in the prologue
• Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who hunts Ajax’s tracks and finally persuades Agamemnon to allow the burial
• Ajax, son of Telamon, a famous Greek warrior
• Tecmessa, daughter of Teleutas the Phrygian, Ajax’s captive and concubine (lines 210–212, 485–490)
• Eurysaces, Ajax’s young son with Tecmessa (non-speaking)
• Messenger, who brings Calchas’ warning from Teucer
• Teucer, Ajax’s half-brother, son of Telamon and Hesione (lines 1299–1304)
• Menelaus, King of Sparta, Agamemnon’s brother
• Agamemnon, supreme leader of the Greeks at Troy
• Chorus of Salaminian sailors, Ajax’s followers (lines 134–135, 201–203)

Setting

The prologue and the scenes down to line 814 are set in front of the tent of Ajax at the edge of the camp by the ships at Troy (lines 3–4). At line 815 the scene changes to a lonely place on the shore, where Ajax kills himself, and the rest of the play, including the quarrel over the burial, takes place there (lines 892–1420).

Summary of Ajax

Prologue

The play begins at dawn (lines 1–133) outside Ajax’s tent. Athena notices Odysseus following Ajax’s fresh tracks to find out whether he is inside, and says, “There is no further need for you to peer inside these doors. Rather tell me what your goal is… so that you may learn from her who holds the knowledge” (lines 1–13). Odysseus replies that during the night someone slaughtered the army’s cattle, plunder not yet divided, together with the herdsmen who guarded them; all men blame Ajax, and a scout saw him bounding alone over the plain with a newly wet sword (lines 14–35).

Athena confirms that Ajax did it. He was mad with anger over the arms of Achilles, and he set out by night, by stealth and alone, to kill the army’s leaders; he was already at the double doors of the two generals, Agamemnon and Menelaus (lines 39–50). She prevented him by casting over his eyes “oppressive notions of his fatal joy” and turning his fury on the flocks and herdsmen (lines 51–54). He cut down many animals, imagining at one moment that he was killing the two Atreidae and at another one of the other leaders (lines 55–60). He then bound the living oxen and sheep together and took them home as if they were men, and now he is abusing them in the house (lines 61–65).

Athena calls Ajax out, though Odysseus shrinks from seeing him, and she makes his eyes unable to see the man standing by (lines 66–89). Ajax enters with a blood-stained whip, greets Athena, and thanks her for her help (lines 91–93). He says he has killed the Atreidae, and that Odysseus, whom he calls “that blasted fox,” is his prisoner inside, bound to a pillar and about to be flogged to death (lines 94–113). In reality it is a ram he has bound (compare lines 237–244). When he goes in, Athena asks Odysseus to see how great the strength of the gods is (lines 118–120). Odysseus answers that he pities Ajax, who is “yoked beneath a ruinous delusion,” and says that all of us who live are “nothing more than phantoms or fleeting shadow” (lines 121–126). Athena tells him never to speak arrogantly against the gods, since “a day can press down all human things, and a day can raise them up” (lines 127–132).

First Parodos (First Entrance Song)

The Chorus of Salaminian sailors enters (lines 134–200). They say that rumors have spread through the army that Ajax destroyed the cattle, and they name Odysseus as the man who “moulds and breathes into the ears of all” the whispered slanders (lines 142–151). They ask whether Artemis or the god of war has driven him to the deed (lines 172–181), and call on him to come out of his tent and silence the rumors, as a vulture would silence the birds (lines 166–171, 193–200).

First Episode

Tecmessa comes out and tells the Chorus that Ajax has been seized by madness in the night and that butchered animals lie inside (lines 201–220). She describes what he did (lines 284–330): he took a two-edged sword at night and wanted to leave; she asked what he was doing, and he answered with a trite saying, “Woman, silence graces woman” (lines 285–293). When he came back with his captives, he beheaded some, cut the throat of others, flogged a ram tied to a pillar, and cursed it with awful imprecations (lines 295–304, 237–244). As he returned to his senses, he saw the room and howled, and sat in the middle of the carcasses with his nails in his hair, without a sound for a long time (lines 305–312). When she told him what had happened, he groaned in a way he had never done before, for he had always taught that such wailing was for cowardly men (lines 313–322). He now sits without food or drink, and she thinks that he plans something terrible (lines 323–330).

Ajax is heard crying out for his son and for Teucer (lines 333–342), and the door of the tent is opened. Tecmessa opens it, and he is seen sitting among the slaughtered cattle (lines 346–347). In the lyric exchange that follows (lines 348–429), a kommos or lament, he addresses his sailors as the only friends who stand by the true bond of friendship, and asks them to kill him on top of the cattle (lines 348–361). They answer, “Do not cure evil by prescribing evil” (lines 362–363). He curses Odysseus, the “filthiest sneak in the army” (lines 379–382), and prays that he might destroy him and the two kings and then die himself (lines 387–391). He calls on Darkness and the underworld to take him, since the daughter of Zeus abuses him to destruction (lines 394–404). He says that he sees a pun on his own name in his troubles, “Aiai!” (lines 430–432).

In his long speech (lines 430–480) he considers what he can do. He cannot sail home, for he could not face his father Telamon without the prize of valor; to attack Troy alone and die would please the Atreidae; and it is shameful to crave the full term of life when one finds no relief from ignominious troubles. “The options for a noble man are only two,” he concludes: “either live with honor, or make a quick and honorable death” (lines 479–480).

Tecmessa begs him not to leave her, since on the day he dies she and his son will be taken as slaves, and reminds him of his aged father and mother (lines 485–524). Ajax asks to see his son (lines 530–544). When Eurysaces is brought, Ajax says that he envies him because he has no perception of evils, and prays that he may be luckier than his father but like him in all else (lines 545–559). He tells the sailors to ask Teucer to take the boy to Telamon and to Eriboea, his mother, and gives the boy his broad shield, from which he takes his name, keeping the rest of his arms to be buried with him (lines 560–577). He tells Tecmessa to shut the doors, since a doctor does not chant incantations over a wound that needs the knife (lines 578–582). She asks him not to betray them, but he refuses to answer, and says that he no longer owes any service to the gods (lines 585–595). He goes into the tent.

In the first stasimon (lines 596–645) the Chorus sings of Salamis and of the sorrow of Ajax’s old mother when she hears of his madness: “Yes, better hid in Hades is the man plagued by foolishness,” they sing (lines 635–640).

Second Episode

Ajax comes out of the tent with a sword in his hand, followed by Tecmessa (lines 646–692). “All things the long and countless years first draw from darkness, and then bury from light,” he says, and nothing is beyond expectation; “the dread power of oath is conquered, as is unyielding will” (lines 646–649). He says his own tongue has been softened by Tecmessa’s words, and that he pities the thought of leaving her a widow and the boy an orphan among enemies (lines 650–653). He will go to the bathing-place and the meadows by the shore, to purify himself of defilement and escape the anger of the goddess; then he will find a lonely spot and bury his sword, Hector’s gift, most hateful weapon, deep in the earth (lines 654–665). He now knows how to yield to the gods and to revere the Atreidae, since winter gives way to summer and night to day, and an enemy is to be hated only as far as he may become a friend (lines 666–683). He tells Tecmessa to go in and pray, and tells the sailors to tell Teucer to take care of them when he comes (lines 684–690). He ends: “before long, perhaps, though I now suffer, you will hear that I have found rest and peace” (lines 690–692).

In the second stasimon (lines 693–718) the Chorus rejoices, calls on Pan and Apollo to dance with them, and thanks the gods for the end of Ajax’s pain: “Ares has dispelled the cloud of fierce trouble from our eyes” (lines 706–708).

Third Episode

A Messenger from the camp reports that Teucer has returned from the Mysian heights and has been shouted at by the whole army, which calls him the brother of the maniac and the plotter, and even threatens him with stones and swords until the elders calm them (lines 719–732). He asks for Ajax, and the Chorus says he has just left (lines 733–736). “Too late, then, was he who sent me on this errand, or I myself came too slowly,” says the Messenger (lines 737–739). He explains that Teucer had said that Ajax was not to leave the house until he arrived, because Calchas, the prophet, had taken Teucer by the hand and told him to keep Ajax inside for this one day, if he wished ever to see him alive, since only for this day would the anger of Athena lash him (lines 741–757). Calchas had explained that men who think thoughts too high for man fall into grave troubles sent by the gods. Ajax had been foolish from the start: when Telamon told him to seek victory but always with the help of god, he answered that even a worthless man could win with the help of the gods, but he trusted to win without it. When Athena urged him on in battle, he told her to stand beside the other Greeks, for where Ajax stood the line would never break (lines 758–777). If he survives this day, Calchas said, the god may save him (lines 778–779). Tecmessa is called out and learns the warning; she sends the sailors to look for him in all directions (lines 784–814).

The scene changes to a lonely place on the shore, and Ajax enters with his sword (lines 815–865). He has planted it, Hector’s gift, in enemy soil, newly whetted, with great care so that it will bring him a speedy death. He prays to Zeus to send a messenger to Teucer, so that Teucer will be the first to raise him and he will not be cast out as prey for dogs and birds. He calls on Hermes to lay him softly asleep with one quick leap, and on the Erinyes to destroy the Atreidae just as they see him fall by his own hand, “slain by their own kin may they perish at the hand of their best-loved offspring.” He calls on Helios to tell his father and the nurse who raised him, and salutes the light, the soil of Salamis, Athens, and the springs and rivers of the plain of Troy. “This is the last word that Ajax speaks to you. The rest he will tell to the shades in Hades” (lines 864–865). He falls upon the sword.

Second Parodos (Second Entrance Song)

The Chorus returns in two groups, which have searched the shore to west and east without finding him (lines 866–890). Then Tecmessa cries out, and they find her beside the body: “Here is our Ajax—his blood newly shed, he lies folded around the sword, burying it” (lines 891–908). She covers him with her robe because no one who loved him could bear to see the dark blood spurting from the gash (lines 915–919). The Chorus recalls the day when the arms were made the prize of a contest (lines 926–936). Tecmessa says that none of these events would have happened without the will of the gods, and that Athena has caused this suffering for Odysseus’ sake (lines 950–953). The Chorus imagines Odysseus and the Atreidae laughing (lines 954–960); Tecmessa answers that they may mock, but that for Ajax himself the death he longed for is a joy (lines 961–973).

Fourth Episode

Teucer arrives, having heard a swift rumor about Ajax, and is told he is dead (lines 974–1002). The body is uncovered. Teucer mourns, and fears what Telamon will say to him when he returns without Ajax, as the son of a war-prize, and he foresees being cast out as a slave (lines 1003–1021). He notes the cruel exchange of gifts: Hector was dragged at the chariot-rail by the belt that Ajax had given him, and Ajax now perished on Hector’s sword (lines 1026–1035). Seeing Menelaus approach, the Chorus warns Teucer (lines 1040–1046).

Menelaus forbids the burial (lines 1047–1090). Ajax, he says, proved an enemy worse than the Phrygians when he plotted the death of the whole army and marched against them by night; a god smothered the attempt and turned it against the flocks; so no one will bury the body, which will be cast on the sand as food for birds. A city or a camp cannot be ruled well, he says, unless fear and reverence are established in it. Teucer replies (lines 1093–1117) that Ajax sailed of his own accord, not under Menelaus, who came as Sparta’s king, not as master over them, and that it was for the sake of his oath, not for Menelaus’ wife, that he made the expedition. In the quick exchange which follows (lines 1120–1161), Menelaus mocks Teucer as a bowman and Teucer says that Menelaus was caught fixing the votes to rob Ajax of the arms (lines 1135–1136); Menelaus leaves, saying that it would be a disgrace to argue when he has the power to use force (lines 1159–1160).

The Chorus urges Teucer to find a hollow grave (lines 1163–1166). Tecmessa and Eurysaces return, and Teucer has the boy kneel and clasp the body in supplication, holding locks of hair cut from Teucer, Tecmessa and himself (lines 1168–1181). Anyone who tears him away will be cast out of his country, unburied, and cut off at the root with all his race, just as Teucer shears the lock (lines 1175–1179). He goes to find a grave. In the third stasimon (lines 1185–1222) the Salaminian sailors curse the man who taught the Greeks the war of Ares, and lament that Ajax, “always my bulwark against night’s terrors and flying missiles” (lines 1211–1212), is gone, wishing to be at Sunium below Athens.

Exodos (Exit Song)

Teucer returns as Agamemnon approaches (lines 1223–1225). Agamemnon is furious: he calls Teucer “the captive slave’s son,” and says that although he is “a nobody and a nothing” he has stood up for “this other nothing lying here” (lines 1226–1231). He says the judges gave the arms to the winner and the losers cannot reject their verdict, and he tells Teucer to bring a free man to speak for him since he does not understand his barbarian tongue (lines 1232–1263).

Teucer answers (lines 1266–1315) that Agamemnon has forgotten what Ajax did for him: that he alone came and saved the Greeks when they were trapped inside their defenses and the flames were already blazing around the sterns of the ships, as Hector leapt over the trench; and that he confronted Hector in single combat by lot. “It was this man who did those deeds,” says Teucer, “and I, the slave, the son of the barbarian mother, was at his side” (lines 1287–1289). He turns on Agamemnon’s own descent: Pelops was a Phrygian, Atreus set before his brother a feast of the flesh of his own children, and Agamemnon’s mother was Cretan, whose father found her with a stranger and gave her to the fish (lines 1290–1298). He himself is the son of Telamon and Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, whom Heracles gave to Telamon as a prize (lines 1299–1304). Wherever Agamemnon casts Ajax, he says, he will cast the three of them with him, Teucer, Tecmessa and the boy (lines 1308–1309).

Odysseus arrives and is greeted by the Chorus as one who can mediate (lines 1316–1317). Hearing the cause of the dispute, he asks Agamemnon, in the name of the gods, not to cast the man out unburied. Ajax was his bitterest enemy since the contest for Achilles’ arms, but he will not dishonor him in return, since he was the best and bravest in the Greek force at Troy except Achilles. To dishonor him would be to damage “the laws given by the gods” (lines 1332–1345). Agamemnon objects, and Odysseus answers: “The man was once my enemy, yes, but he was also noble” and “I yield to his excellence much more than his hostility” (lines 1355–1357). Agamemnon gives way, but as a favor to Odysseus, and says, “To that man, however, as on earth, so below I give my hatred” (lines 1370–1372). Odysseus announces that he is now ready to be Teucer’s friend and to share the burial (lines 1376–1380). Teucer thanks him and curses Agamemnon and Menelaus, but asks him not to touch the corpse lest he offend the dead; Odysseus accepts and leaves (lines 1381–1401).

Teucer directs the digging of the grave, a cauldron for the ritual cleansing, and the bringing of Ajax’s armor, and has the boy help him lift his father (lines 1402–1417). The Chorus ends the play: “Many things, I tell you, can be known through mortal eyes; but before he sees it happening, no one can foretell the future, or what his fate will be” (lines 1418–1420).

A Brief Analysis

Ajax is divided at the suicide (line 865) into two halves: the first concerns the madness of Ajax and his decision to die, and the second the burial of his body. Both halves turn on the same question, how a man should be judged when he is as proud and as violent as Ajax was.

The gods are present from the first scene. Athena shows Odysseus the madness that she herself has caused (lines 51–65), and draws the moral that a man must never speak arrogantly against the gods, since a day can raise or press down all human things (lines 127–133). Calchas gives a reason for her anger: Ajax had refused his father’s advice to seek victory with the help of god, and had told Athena to stand beside the other Greeks (lines 758–777). Odysseus, who sees Ajax in his madness, pities him, because he sees his own lot in his (lines 121–126).

Ajax’s own reasoning is stated in his long speech: he cannot live without honor, and the noble man has only two options, to live with honor or to die with honor (lines 479–480). He had won glory in Troy; now he is hated by gods and by the army (lines 457–459). His speech of deception (lines 646–692) is notable because it keeps the same terms: he says he will yield to the gods and revere the Atreidae, and that an enemy is to be hated only so far as he may become a friend (lines 666–683). Whether the speech is sincere in part or wholly a deception is not stated in the text; the Chorus takes it at face value (lines 693–718), and Tecmessa says afterward that she was deceived (line 807).

The second half repeats the question of honor in a debate. Menelaus argues from the need of fear and obedience in a camp (lines 1071–1086). Agamemnon argues from the verdict of the judges (lines 1243–1249) and from Teucer’s birth (lines 1226–1231). Teucer answers with Ajax’s deeds in the war (lines 1273–1289) and with the descent of the Atreidae (lines 1290–1298). Odysseus resolves it with an argument that does not deny the hatred but separates it from the man’s worth: he was an enemy, yet he was noble, and the laws of the gods forbid the dishonoring of the dead (lines 1332–1357). The Chorus praises Odysseus’ judgment (lines 1374–1375), and the play ends with the preparations for Ajax’s burial.