the dead before he will even condescend to notice the taunt of the living.
"Alas! how swiftly doth man's gratitude
Turn traitor to the memory of the dead!
Lo, hath this prince not even one little word
Of thought for thee, O Ajax, who didst oft
In his behalf aforetime gage thy life?"[1]
Then he turns indignantly to the great king—"What, does he not remember? It was Ajax who had saved the ships from destruction, when wrapped in flames. It was Ajax who had confronted Hector himself—and the 'son of the bondmaid' had then stood by his brother's side." Then he retorts the charge of mean descent on Agamemnon—sprung from the "godless Atreus," and from a mother who played her husband false. He will die himself sooner than desert the dead—and it would be more glorious, he adds, to die for his gallant foster-brother than for Helen, the faithless wife.
At this point Ulysses enters, and acts as peacemaker between the angry disputants. His shrewd sense had argued that nothing could be gained by outraging the body of the dead warrior; and he appeals to Agamemnon not to press his hatred beyond the grave—basing his appeal upon common humanity and reason—
"Unto me
This man of all the host was greatest foe,
Since I prevailed to gain Achilles' arms;
- ↑ "But yesterday the name of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence."
—Julius Cæsar, act iii. sc. 2.
