Ajax and Ulysses lay claim to the armour of Achilles, which is assigned to the latter by the Grecian chiefs.
The chiefs were set; the soldiers crown’d the field; To these the master of the sevenfold shield Upstarted fierce, and kindled with disdain. Eager to speak, unable to contain His boiling rage, he roll’d his eyes around The shore and Grecian galleys haul’d aground; Then, stretching out his hands, “Oh Jove,” he cried, “Must then our cause before the fleet be tried? And dares Ulysses for the prize contend, In sight of what he durst not once defend? But basely fled that memorable day, When I from Hector’s hands redeem’d the flaming prey; So much ’tis safer at the noisy bar With words to flourish, than engage in war. By different methods we maintain our right; Nor am I made to talk, nor he to fight: In bloody fields I labour to be great; His arms are a smooth tongue and soft deceit: Nor need I speak my deeds, for those you see; The sun and day are witnesses for me: Let him who fights unseen relate his own, And vouch the silent stars and conscious moon. Great is the prize demanded, I confess; But such an abject rival makes it less:
That gift, those honours, he but hoped to gain, Can leave no room for Ajax to be vain: Losing, he wins, because his name will be Ennobled by defeat, who durst contend with me. Were my known valour question’d, yet my blood Without that plea, would make my title good: My sire was Telamon, whose arms, employ’d With Hercules, these Trojan walls destroy’d; And who before, with Jason sent from Greece, In the first ship brought home the golden fleece. Great Telamon from Aeacus derives His birth: (the inquisitor of guilty lives In shades below; where Sisyphus, whose son This thief is thought, rolls up the restless heavy stone.) Just Aeacus, the king of gods above Begot: thus Ajax is the third from Jove: Nor should I seek advantage from my line, Unless, Achilles, it was mix’d with thine. As next of kin, Achilles’ arms I claim: This fellow would ingraft a foreign name Upon our stock; and the Sisyphian seed By fraud and theft asserts his father’s breed. Then must I lose these arms, because I came
To fight uncall’d, a voluntary name; Nor shunn’d the cause, but offer’d you my aid? While he long lurking was to war betray’d: Forced to the field he came, but in the rear, And feign’d distraction to conceal his fear, Till one more cunning caught him in the snare, (Ill for himself,) and dragg’d him into war. Now let a hero’s arms a coward vest, And he who shunn’d all honours gain the best; And let me stand excluded from my right, Robb’d of my kinsman’s arms, who first appear’d in fight. Better for us, at home had he remain’d, Had it been true the madness which he feign’d, Or so believed; the less had been our shame, The less his counsell’d crime, which brands the Grecian name Nor Philoctetes had been left enclosed In a bare isle, to wants and pains exposed, Where to the rocks, with solitary groans, His sufferings and our baseness he bemoans: And wishes (so may Heaven his wish fulfil!) The due reward to him who caused his ill: Now he, with us to Troy’s destruction sworn,
Who tired, and tardy with his wounded steed, Cried out for aid, and call’d him by his name; But cowardice has neither ears nor shame. Thus fled the good old man, bereft of aid, And, for as much as lay in him, betray’d. That this is not a fable forged by me, Like one of his, an Ulyssean lie, I vouch ev’n Diomed, who, though his friend, Cannot that act excuse, much less defend: He call’d him back aloud, and tax’d his fear; And sure enough he heard, but durst not hear.