Teucer (cont.)
As from a lioness forlorn her cub.
Go quick, bestir thyself. ’Tis the world’s way
To flout and triumph o’er the prostrate dead.
Exit Tecmessa .
Chorus
Yea, while he yet lived Ajax left to thee,
Teucer, this child, to tend him, as thou dost.
Teucer
O saddest sight of all I ever saw,
O bitterest of all paths I ever trod,
The path that led me hither, Ajax loved,
My best-loved Ajax! when I learnt thy fate,
B’en as I tracked in desperate haste thy steps;
For a swift rumour, like a voice from heaven,
Ran through the host that thou wert dead and gone.
I heard it and I moaned in spirit afar,
But now the sight strikes death into my soul.
O woe!
Come, lift the searcloth; let me see the worst.
O bleeding form, O agonising sight!
How brave, how rash, how cruel in thy death;
Thy death, what seed of misery for me!
Where can I turn, what race of men will house me,
The wretch who failed to help thee in thy woes?
How Telamon, thy sire and mine withal,
Will beam upon me (can’st not picture him?)
When I return without thee! Telamon
Who in his hours of fortune never smiles!
Will he refrain? Will he not curse and ban
The bastard of his spear-won concubine,
The wretch who like a coward and poltroon