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    Sophocles, Ajax (ed. Sir Richard Jebb)

    Tecmessa

    Editions and translations: Greek (ed. Sir Richard Jebb) | English (ed. Sir Richard Jebb)
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    Enter the Servant and Eurysaces.
    Ajax

    [545] Lift him; lift him up here. Doubtless he will not shrink to look on this newly-shed blood, if he is indeed my true-born son and heir to his father's manners. But he must at once be broken into his father's harsh ways and moulded to the likeness of my nature. [550] Ah, son, may you prove luckier than your father, but in all else like him. Then you would not prove base. Yet even now I may well envy you on this account, that you have no perception of these evils about us. Yes, life is sweetest when one lacks sense, [for lack of sensation is a painless evil] [555] that is, until one learns to know joy or pain. But when you come to that knowledge, then you must be sure to prove among your father's enemies of what mettle and of what lineage you are. Meanwhile feed on light breezes, and nurse your tender life for your mother's joy. [560] There is no Greek--I know it for certain--who will do violence to you with hard outrages, even when you are without me. So trusty is the guard, Teucer himself, whom I will leave at your gates. He will not falter in his care for you, although now he walks a far path, busied with the hunt of enemies.

    [565] O my warriors, my seafaring comrades! On you as on him, I lay this shared task of love: give my command to Teucer! Let him take this child to my home and set him before the face of Telamon, and of my mother, Eriboea, [570] so that he may become the comfort of their age into eternity [until they come to the deep hollows of the god below]. And order him that no commissioners of games, nor he who is my destroyer, should make my arms a prize for the Greeks. No, you take this for my sake, Son, my broad shield from which you have your name. [575] Hold it and wield it by the sturdy thong, this sevenfold, spear-proof shield! But the rest of my arms shall be my gravemates.

    To Tecmessa.

    Come, take the child right away, shut tight the doors and make no laments before the house. [580] God, what a weepy thing is woman. Quick, close the house! It is not for a skilful doctor to moan incantations over a wound that craves the knife.


    There are a total of 26 comments on and cross references to this page.

    Further comments from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax:
    line 545: aire deuro
    line 545: tarbêsei gar ou
    line 550: ô pai
    line 550: ta d' all' homoios
    line 555: heôs
    line 565: aspistêres
    line 565: charin
    line 575: polurraphou &#ch2026; porpakos
    line 575: polurraphou
    line 575: heptaboion

    Cross references from John Conington, Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid, Volume 2:
    12, 435, 436 [LIBER DUODECIMUS.]: Ô pai, genoio patros eutuchesteros, Ta d' all' homoios: kai genoi an ou kakos

    Cross references from Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges:
    1814 [OPTATIVE WITHOUT an]

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus:
    *

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone:
    * [1-99]: tarbêsei gar ou
    * [1155-1352]: heôs to chairein kai to lupeisthai mathêis

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Ajax:
    * [974-1184]

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Electra:
    * [516-1057]

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes:
    * [730-826]

    Cross references from Sir Richard Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Trachiniae:
    * [663-820]
    * [141-496]
    * [531-632]

    Cross references from Jeffrey A. Rydberg-Cox, Overview of Greek Syntax:
    opt [Optative]: ô pai, genoio patros eutuchesteros

    Cross references from Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900):
    6, 480 [Book 6 (Z)]

    Cross references from A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin):
    v2p866 [TRAGOE´DIA]

    Cross references from William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb:
    722 [Wishes Referring to the Future.]: Ô pai, genoio patros eutuchesteros
    620 [Temporal Particles signifying Until and Before.: heôs, ophra, eis ho or eisoke, este, achri, mechri, until.]: Heôs to chairein kai to lupeisthai mathêis
    295 [Section IV: ou mê with the Subjunctive and the Future Indicative.]: Outoi s' Achaiôn, oida, mê tis hubrisêi
    * [On the Origin of the Construction of ou mê with the Subjunctive and the Future Indicative.]: Outoi s' Achaiôn, oida, mê tis hubrisêi

    Cross references from Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek:
    18, 30, 392 [Aorist Tense:]: ô pai, genoio patros eutuchesteros

    Cross references from Allen Rogers Benner, Selections from Homer's Iliad:
    6, 476 [Book 6 (Z)]: ô pai, genoio patros eutuchesteros,ta d' all' homoios: kai genoi' an ou kakos

    Cross references from Charles D. Morris, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1:
    1, 137

    Preferred URL for linking to this page: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Soph.+Aj.+545

    The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

    This text is based on the following book(s):
    Sophocles. The Ajax of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893.
    OCLC: 25466584


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