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.

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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:

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ATHENA (above). ODYSSEUS:

ATHENA:
Oft have I seen thee, Laertiades,
Intent on some surprisal of thy foes;
As now I find thee by the seaward camp,
Where Aias holds the last place in your line,
Lingering in quest, and scanning the fresh print
Of his late footsteps, to be certified
If he keep house or no. Right well thy sense
Hath led thee forth, like some keen hound of Sparta!
The man is even but now come home, his head
And slaughterous hands reeking with ardent toil.
Thou, then, no longer strain thy gaze within
Yon gateway, but declare what eager chase
Thou followest, that a god may give thee light.

ODYSSEUS:
Athena, 'tis thy voice! Dearest in heaven,
How well discerned and welcome to my soul
From that dim distance doth thine utterance fly
In tones as of Tyrrhenian trumpet clang!
Rightly hast thou divined mine errand here,
Beating this ground for Aias of the shield,
The lion-quarry whom I track to day.
For he hath wrought on us to night a deed
Past thought--if he be doer of this thing;
We drift in ignorant doubt,