CR. O me! This crime can come On no man else, exempting me. I slew thee--I, O misery! I say the truth, 'twas I! My followers, Take me with speed--take me away, away! Me, who am nothing now. CH. Thou sayest the best, if there be best in woe. Briefest is happiest in calamity. CR. Ah! let it come, II 2 The day, most welcome of all days to me, That brings the consummation of my doom. Come! Come! I would not see another sun. CH. Time will determine that. We must attend To present needs. Fate works her own dread work. CR. All my desire was gathered in my prayer. CH. But prayer is bootless. For to mortal men There is no saviour from appointed woe. CR. Take me away, the vain-proud man that slew Thee, O my son! unwittingly,--and thee! Me miserable, which way shall I turn, Which look upon? Since all that I can touch Is falling,--falling,--round me, and o'erhead Intolerable destiny descends. LEADER OF CHORUS. Wise conduct hath command of happiness Before all else, and piety to Heaven Must be preserved. High boastings of the proud Bring sorrow to the height to punish pride:-- A lesson men shall learn when they are old. * * * * * AIAS THE PERSONS ATHENA. ODYSSEUS. AIAS, _the son of Telamon._ CHORUS _of Salaminian Mariners._ TECMESSA. _A Messenger._ TEUCER, _half brother of Aias._ MENELAUS. AGAMEMNON. EURYSAKES, _the child of Aias and Tecmessa, appears, but does not speak._ SCENE. Before the encampment of Aias on the shore of the Troad. Afterwards a lonely place beyond Rhoeteum. Time, towards the end of the Trojan War. _'A wounded spirit who can bear?'_ After the death of Achilles, the armour made for him by Hephaestus was to be given to the worthiest of the surviving Greeks. Although Aias was the most valiant, the judges made the award to Odysseus, because he was the wisest. Aias in his rage attempts to kill the generals; but Athena sends madness upon him, and he makes a raid upon the flocks and herds of the army, imagining the bulls and rams to be the Argive chiefs. On awakening from his delusion, he finds that he has fallen irrecoverably from honour and from the favour of the Greeks. He also imagines that the anger of Athena is unappeasable. Under this impression he eludes the loving eyes of his captive-bride Tecmessa, and of his Salaminian comrades, and falls on his sword. ('The soul and body rive not more in parting Than greatness going off.') But it is revealed through the prophet Calchas, that the wrath of Athena will last only for a day; and on the return of Teucer, Aias receives an honoured funeral, the tyrannical reclamations of the two sons of Atreus being overcome by the firm fidelity of Teucer and the magnanimity of Odysseus, who has been inspired for this purpose by Athena. AIAS ATHENA (_above_). ODYSSEUS.