Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Jebb 1917).djvu/225

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1129—1150]
AJAX.
213

Teu. The gods have saved thee: then dishonour not the gods.

Me. What, would I disparage the laws of Heaven?1130

Teu. If thou art here to forbid the burying of the dead.

Me. Yea, of my country's foes: for it is not meet.

Teu. Did Ajax e'er confront thee as public foe?

Me. There was hate betwixt us; thou, too, knewest this.

Teu. Yea, 'twas found that thou hadst suborned votes, to rob him.

Me. At the hands of the judges, not at mine, he had that fall.

Teu. Thou couldst put a fair face on many a furtive villainy.

Me. That saying tends to pain—I know, for whom.

Teu. Not greater pain, methinks, than we shall inflict.

Me. Hear my last word—that man must not be buried.1140

Teu. And hear my answer—he shall be buried forthwith.

Me. Once did I see a man bold of tongue, who had urged sailors to a voyage in time of storm, in whom thou wouldst have found no voice when the stress of the tempest was upon him, but, hidden beneath his cloak, he would suffer the crew to trample on him at will. And so with thee and thy fierce speech—perchance a great tempest, though its breath come from a little cloud, shall quench thy blustering.

Teu. Yea, and I have seen a man full of folly,1150 who