For when thou speak’st thy words convey no sense;

I understand not a barbarian tongue.

I would ye twain might learn sobriety;

’Tis the best counsel I can give you both.

Out on man’s gratitude! how soon it fades,

Or proves a traitor when a friend is dead!

What memory, what tittle of regard

Hath he for thee, my Ajax, thou who oft

At peril of thy life didst toil for him?

Lost labour, cast away and all forgot!

Vain, windy orator, canst not recall

The day when ye were cooped within your lines,

Scattered, half routed and as good as lost,

How single-handed he stood forth and saved you,

Though at your ships the poop decks were ablaze,

And Hector o’er the fosse came bounding, prompt

To board them? Who averted then the rout?

The very man of whom thou sayest now,

“He did no deed I have not done myself.”

Was that no loyal service? Judge yourselves;

Or once again when he in single fight

Confronted Hector, under no constraint,

But by the lot he drew⁠—no skulking lot,

No lump of loam, but one that well he knew

Would first leap lightly from the crested helm?

Such deeds were his, and at his side was I,

This slave, of a barbarian mother born.

How canst thou prate thus idly? Look at home.

Hast thou forgotten that thine own sire’s sire