The Chorus—themselves moved to tears—implore Ajax to listen to this touching appeal, and to forego his deadly purpose. But Ajax, if he is touched at all, is too proud to show it. If Tecmessa loves him, let her bring his child Eurysaces,—and Eurysaces is brought. Then Ajax, taking the child upon his knee, looks tenderly on him, as Hector looked on Astyanax,—so happily unconscious of his father's misery, and scarcely heeding the carnage with which the ground was strewed; and then addressing the child as though it could understand his words, he pictures it growing up in careless innocence, "as a young plant," sheltered from all rough winds under the guardianship of Teucer, rejoicing its widowed mother's heart, and perhaps hereafter (and the warrior's heart swells at the thought) avenging his father's wrongs. "my child," he says, almost in the words of Æneas to the young Ascanius,—
"Learn of your father to be great,
Of others to be fortunate."[1]
Eurysaces, he concludes, shall inherit the famous shield—from which he takes his name: all his other arms shall be buried in his own grave. Then, with a hint that "sore wounds need sharp remedies," he bids her take the child within and fasten the tent-doors. Again Tecmessa implores him to relent—"in the name of the gods." "The gods!" bitterly repeats Ajax—what duty or allegiance does he owe the gods, who so plainly hate him? and once more he angrily orders her to leave him to himself.
