despised this "beef-witted lord"[1] for being as stolid as he was arrogant. On the death of Achilles, it was decided that the celestial armour forged by Vulcan for the hero at the prayer of Thetis should be given to the bravest warrior in the host. Only two chieftains presumed to lay claim to it on the score of their personal valour, Ajax and Ulysses. But whatever Ajax might have been in the battle-field, in council or debate he was far inferior to his rival; and the other princes, after listening to the claims urged by the two candidates, influenced partly by personal feeling, partly by the eloquence of Ulysses himself, and partly by the inspiration of Minerva, adjudged the armour to the "king of rocky Ithaca."
Ajax left the council and retired to his tent, in bitter wrath at what he considered the unjust decision of the judges; and it is on the following morning that the play opens.
The scene represents the historic plain of Troy. The sea sparkles in the distance, and the shore is fringed by a line of boats—one larger than the others in the centre of the foreground. There is only one person on the stage—a chieftain narrowly scanning, as it seems, footprints on the ground. Suddenly there is a flash of light high up in the background of the scene, and the audience see a majestic form in radiant
