章节正文
AJAX
The slayer stands so that his edge may cleave
Most surely (if there be leisure for such thought),
Being the gift of Hector, of all friends
Most unloved, and most hateful to my sight.
Then it is planted in Troy's hostile soil,
New-sharpened on the iron-biting whet.
And heedfully have I planted it, that so
With a swift death it prove to me most kind.
Thus have I made all ready. Next be thou
The first, O Zeus, to aid me, as is right.
It is no mighty boon that I shall crave.
Send some announcer of the evil news
To Teucer, that he first may lift me up,
When I have fallen upon this reeking sword,
Lest ere he come some enemy should espy me
And cast me forth to dogs and birds a prey.
This, O Zeus, I entreat thee, and likewise call
On Hermes, guide to the underworld, to lay me
Asleep without a struggle, at one swift bound,
When I have thrust my heart through with this sword.
Next I call on those maidens ever-living
And ever watchful of all human miseries,
The dread swift-striding Erinyes, that they mark
How by the Atreidae I have been destroyed:
And these vile men by a vile doom utterly
May they cut off, even as they see me here.
Come, O ye swift avenging Erinyes,
Spare not, touch with affliction the whole host.
And thou, whose chariot mounts up the steep sky,
Thou Sun, when on the land where I was born
Thou shalt look down, check thy gold-spangled rein,
And announce my disasters and my doom
To my aged sire and her who nurtured me.
She, woful woman, when she hears these tidings
Will wail out a loud dirge through all the town.
But I waste labour with this idle moan.
The act must now be done, and that with speed.
O Death, Death, come now and look upon me.-
No, 'tis there I shall meet and speak to thee.
But thee, bright daylight which I now behold,
And Helios in his chariot I accost
For this last time of all, and then no more.
O sunlight! O thou hallowed soil, my own
Salamis, stablished seat of my sire's hearth,
And famous Athens, with thy kindred race,
And you, ye springs and streams, and Trojan plains,
Farewell, all ye who have sustained my life.
This is the last word Ajax speaks to you.
All else in Hades to the dead will I say.
(He falls on his sword. His body lies partially concealed by the
underbrush. SEMI-CHORUS 1 enters.)
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
'Tis toil on toil, and toil again.
Where! where!
Where have not my footsteps been?
And still no place reveals the secret of my search.
But hark!
There again I hear a sound.
(SEMI-CHORUS 2 enters.)
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
'Tis we, the ship-companions of your voyage.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
Well how now?
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
We have searched the whole coast westward from the ship.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
You have found nought?
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
A deal of toil, but nothing more to see.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
Neither has he been found along the path
That leads from the eastern glances of the sun.
CHORUS (singing)
strophe
From whom, oh from whom? what hard son of the waves,
Plying his weary task without thought of sleep,
Or what Olympian nymph of hill or stream that flows
Down to the Bosporus' shore,
Might I have tidings of my lord
Wandering somewhere seen
Fierce of mood? Grievous it is
When I have toiled so long, and ranged far and wide
Thus to fail, thus to have sought in vain.
Still the afflicted hero nowhere may I find.
(TECMESSA enters and discovers the body.)
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
Whose cry was it that broke from yonder copse?
TECMESSA
Alas, woe is me!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
It is the hapless spear-won bride I see,
Tecmessa, steeped in that wail's agony.
TECMESSA
I am lost, destroyed, made desolate, my friends.
LEADER
What is it? Speak.
TECMESSA
Ajax, our master, newly slaughtered lies
Yonder, a hidden sword sheathed in his body.
CHORUS (chanting)
Woe for my lost hopes of home!
Woe's me, thou hast slain me, my king,
Me thy shipmate, hapless man!
Woful-souled woman too!
TECMESSA
Since thus it is with him, 'tis mine to wail.
LEADER
By whose hand has he wrought this luckless deed?
TECMESSA
By his own hand, 'tis evident. This sword
Whereon he fell, planted in earth, convicts him.
CHORUS (chanting)
Woe for my blind folly! Lone in thy blood thou liest, from
friends'
help afar.
And I the wholly witless, the all unwary,
Forbore to watch thee. Where, where
Lieth the fatally named, intractable Ajax?
TECMESSA
None must behold him. I will shroud him wholly
In this enfolding mantle; for no man
Who loved him could endure to see him thus
Through nostrils and through red gash spouting up
The darkened blood from his self-stricken wound.
Ah me, what shall I do? What friend shall lift thee?
Where is Teucer? Timely indeed would he now come,
To compose duly his slain brother's corpse.
O hapless Ajax, who wast once so great,
Now even thy foes might dare to mourn thy fall.
CHORUS (chanting)
antistrophe
'Twas fate's will, alas, 'twas fate then for thou
Stubborn of soul at length to work out a dark
Doom of ineffable miseries. Such the dire
Fury of passionate hate
I heard thee utter fierce of mood
Railing at Atreus' sons
Night by night, day by day.
Verily then it was the sequence of woes
First began, when as the prize of worth
Fatally was proclaimed the golden panoply.
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
A loyal grief pierces thy heart, I know.
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
Woman, I marvel not that thou shouldst wail
And wail again, reft of a friend so dear.
TECMESSA
'Tis thine to surmise, mine to feel, too surely.
CHORUS (chanting)
'Tis even so.
TECMESSA
Ah, my child, to what bondage are we come,
Seeing what cruel taskmasters will be ours.
CHORUS (chanting)
Ah me, at what dost thou hint?
What ruthless, unspeakable wrong
From the Atreidae fearest thou?
But may heaven avert that woe!
TECMESSA
Ne'er had it come to this save by heaven's will.
CHORUS (chanting)
Yes, too great to be borne this heaven-sent burden.
TECMESSA
Yet such the woe which the dread child of Zeus,
Pallas, has gendered for Odysseus' sake.
CHORUS (chanting)
Doubtless the much-enduring hero in his dark spy's soul exults
mockingly,
And laughs with mightylaughter at these agonies
Of a frenzied spirit. Shame! Shame!
Sharers in glee at the tale are the royal Atreidae.
TECMESSA
Well, let them mock and glory in his ruin.
Perchance, though while he lived they wished not for him,
They yet shall wail him dead, when the spear fails them.
Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good
That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
More to their grief he died than to their joy,
And to his own content. All his desire
He now has won, that death for which he longed.
Why then should they deride him? 'Tis the gods
Must answer for his death, not these men, no.
Then let Odysseus mock him with empty taunts.
Ajax is no more with them; but has gone,
Leaving to me despair and lamentation.
TEUCER (from without)
Alas, woe, woe!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Keep silence! Is it Teucer's voice I hear
Lifting a dirge over this tragic sight?
(TEUCER enters.)
TEUCER
O brother Ajax, to mine eyes most dear,
Can it be thou hast fared as rumour tells?
The slayer stands so that his edge may cleave
Most surely (if there be leisure for such thought),
Being the gift of Hector, of all friends
Most unloved, and most hateful to my sight.
Then it is planted in Troy's hostile soil,
New-sharpened on the iron-biting whet.
And heedfully have I planted it, that so
With a swift death it prove to me most kind.
Thus have I made all ready. Next be thou
The first, O Zeus, to aid me, as is right.
It is no mighty boon that I shall crave.
Send some announcer of the evil news
To Teucer, that he first may lift me up,
When I have fallen upon this reeking sword,
Lest ere he come some enemy should espy me
And cast me forth to dogs and birds a prey.
This, O Zeus, I entreat thee, and likewise call
On Hermes, guide to the underworld, to lay me
Asleep without a struggle, at one swift bound,
When I have thrust my heart through with this sword.
Next I call on those maidens ever-living
And ever watchful of all human miseries,
The dread swift-striding Erinyes, that they mark
How by the Atreidae I have been destroyed:
And these vile men by a vile doom utterly
May they cut off, even as they see me here.
Come, O ye swift avenging Erinyes,
Spare not, touch with affliction the whole host.
And thou, whose chariot mounts up the steep sky,
Thou Sun, when on the land where I was born
Thou shalt look down, check thy gold-spangled rein,
And announce my disasters and my doom
To my aged sire and her who nurtured me.
She, woful woman, when she hears these tidings
Will wail out a loud dirge through all the town.
But I waste labour with this idle moan.
The act must now be done, and that with speed.
O Death, Death, come now and look upon me.-
No, 'tis there I shall meet and speak to thee.
But thee, bright daylight which I now behold,
And Helios in his chariot I accost
For this last time of all, and then no more.
O sunlight! O thou hallowed soil, my own
Salamis, stablished seat of my sire's hearth,
And famous Athens, with thy kindred race,
And you, ye springs and streams, and Trojan plains,
Farewell, all ye who have sustained my life.
This is the last word Ajax speaks to you.
All else in Hades to the dead will I say.
(He falls on his sword. His body lies partially concealed by the
underbrush. SEMI-CHORUS 1 enters.)
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
'Tis toil on toil, and toil again.
Where! where!
Where have not my footsteps been?
And still no place reveals the secret of my search.
But hark!
There again I hear a sound.
(SEMI-CHORUS 2 enters.)
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
'Tis we, the ship-companions of your voyage.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
Well how now?
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
We have searched the whole coast westward from the ship.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
You have found nought?
SEMI-CHORUS 2 (chanting)
A deal of toil, but nothing more to see.
SEMI-CHORUS 1 (chanting)
Neither has he been found along the path
That leads from the eastern glances of the sun.
CHORUS (singing)
strophe
From whom, oh from whom? what hard son of the waves,
Plying his weary task without thought of sleep,
Or what Olympian nymph of hill or stream that flows
Down to the Bosporus' shore,
Might I have tidings of my lord
Wandering somewhere seen
Fierce of mood? Grievous it is
When I have toiled so long, and ranged far and wide
Thus to fail, thus to have sought in vain.
Still the afflicted hero nowhere may I find.
(TECMESSA enters and discovers the body.)
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
Whose cry was it that broke from yonder copse?
TECMESSA
Alas, woe is me!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
It is the hapless spear-won bride I see,
Tecmessa, steeped in that wail's agony.
TECMESSA
I am lost, destroyed, made desolate, my friends.
LEADER
What is it? Speak.
TECMESSA
Ajax, our master, newly slaughtered lies
Yonder, a hidden sword sheathed in his body.
CHORUS (chanting)
Woe for my lost hopes of home!
Woe's me, thou hast slain me, my king,
Me thy shipmate, hapless man!
Woful-souled woman too!
TECMESSA
Since thus it is with him, 'tis mine to wail.
LEADER
By whose hand has he wrought this luckless deed?
TECMESSA
By his own hand, 'tis evident. This sword
Whereon he fell, planted in earth, convicts him.
CHORUS (chanting)
Woe for my blind folly! Lone in thy blood thou liest, from
friends'
help afar.
And I the wholly witless, the all unwary,
Forbore to watch thee. Where, where
Lieth the fatally named, intractable Ajax?
TECMESSA
None must behold him. I will shroud him wholly
In this enfolding mantle; for no man
Who loved him could endure to see him thus
Through nostrils and through red gash spouting up
The darkened blood from his self-stricken wound.
Ah me, what shall I do? What friend shall lift thee?
Where is Teucer? Timely indeed would he now come,
To compose duly his slain brother's corpse.
O hapless Ajax, who wast once so great,
Now even thy foes might dare to mourn thy fall.
CHORUS (chanting)
antistrophe
'Twas fate's will, alas, 'twas fate then for thou
Stubborn of soul at length to work out a dark
Doom of ineffable miseries. Such the dire
Fury of passionate hate
I heard thee utter fierce of mood
Railing at Atreus' sons
Night by night, day by day.
Verily then it was the sequence of woes
First began, when as the prize of worth
Fatally was proclaimed the golden panoply.
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
A loyal grief pierces thy heart, I know.
TECMESSA
Alas, woe, woe!
CHORUS (chanting)
Woman, I marvel not that thou shouldst wail
And wail again, reft of a friend so dear.
TECMESSA
'Tis thine to surmise, mine to feel, too surely.
CHORUS (chanting)
'Tis even so.
TECMESSA
Ah, my child, to what bondage are we come,
Seeing what cruel taskmasters will be ours.
CHORUS (chanting)
Ah me, at what dost thou hint?
What ruthless, unspeakable wrong
From the Atreidae fearest thou?
But may heaven avert that woe!
TECMESSA
Ne'er had it come to this save by heaven's will.
CHORUS (chanting)
Yes, too great to be borne this heaven-sent burden.
TECMESSA
Yet such the woe which the dread child of Zeus,
Pallas, has gendered for Odysseus' sake.
CHORUS (chanting)
Doubtless the much-enduring hero in his dark spy's soul exults
mockingly,
And laughs with mightylaughter at these agonies
Of a frenzied spirit. Shame! Shame!
Sharers in glee at the tale are the royal Atreidae.
TECMESSA
Well, let them mock and glory in his ruin.
Perchance, though while he lived they wished not for him,
They yet shall wail him dead, when the spear fails them.
Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good
That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
More to their grief he died than to their joy,
And to his own content. All his desire
He now has won, that death for which he longed.
Why then should they deride him? 'Tis the gods
Must answer for his death, not these men, no.
Then let Odysseus mock him with empty taunts.
Ajax is no more with them; but has gone,
Leaving to me despair and lamentation.
TEUCER (from without)
Alas, woe, woe!
LEADER OF THE CHORUS
Keep silence! Is it Teucer's voice I hear
Lifting a dirge over this tragic sight?
(TEUCER enters.)
TEUCER
O brother Ajax, to mine eyes most dear,
Can it be thou hast fared as rumour tells?
- hostile [´hɔstail]
a.敌方的，敌意的 (初中英语单词) - likewise [´laikwaiz] ad.同样地；也，又 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- daylight [´deilait] n.日光；黎明 (初中英语单词)
- stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- wrought [rɔ:t] work 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- evident [´evidənt] a.明显的，明白的 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- endure [in´djuə] vt.忍耐，忍受；坚持 (初中英语单词)
- compose [kəm´pəuz] v.组成；创作；作曲 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- marvel [´mɑ:vəl] n.令人惊异的事；奇迹 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- despair [di´speə] vi.&n.绝望 (初中英语单词)
- leisure [´leʒə] n.空闲；悠闲；安定 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- chariot [´tʃæriət] n.古时双轮战车 (高中英语单词)
- athens [´æθinz] n.雅典 (高中英语单词)
- kindred [´kindrid] n.亲属关系；同源关系 (高中英语单词)
- westward [´westwəd] a.向西的 n.西方；西部 (高中英语单词)
- tidings [´taidiŋz] n.消息，音信 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- desolate [´desəleit] a.荒凉的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
- mantle [´mæntl] n.斗蓬 v.覆盖；笼罩 (高中英语单词)
- passionate [´pæʃənit] a.易动情的；易怒的 (高中英语单词)
- ignore [ig´nɔ:] vt.忽视，不理，不顾 (高中英语单词)
- tragic [´trædʒik] a.悲剧的；悲惨的 (高中英语单词)
- hateful [´heitfəl] a.可恨的，可憎的 (英语四级单词)
- entreat [in´tri:t] vt.恳求，恳请 (英语四级单词)
- watchful [´wɔtʃfəl] a.注意的；戒备的 (英语四级单词)
- hallowed [´hæləud] a.神圣的，崇高的 (英语四级单词)
- partially [´pɑ:ʃəli] ad.部分地；局部地 (英语四级单词)
- grievous [´gri:vəs] a.痛苦的；严重的 (英语四级单词)
- shroud [ʃraud] n.尸衣；覆盖物；罩 (英语四级单词)
- sequence [´si:kwəns] n.继续；顺序；程序 (英语四级单词)
- bondage [´bɔndidʒ] n.奴役；束缚 (英语四级单词)
- underworld [´ʌndəwə:ld] n.阴间；下层社会 (英语六级单词)
- affliction [ə´flikʃən] n.痛苦，苦恼；折磨 (英语六级单词)
- hapless [´hæpləs] a.不幸的；倒楣的 (英语六级单词)
- timely [´taimli] a.及时的；适合的 (英语六级单词)
- surmise [´sə:maiz] n.&a.推测(的)；猜疑(的) (英语六级单词)
- ruthless [´ru:θləs] a.无情的；残忍的 (英语六级单词)
- unspeakable [ʌn´spi:kəbl] a.不能以言语表达的 (英语六级单词)
- deride [di´raid] vt.嘲笑，愚弄 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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