in every field. A large-ribbed ox is yet kept straight on the road by a small whip. And this remedy, methinks, will visit thee ere long, if thou fail to gain some measure of wisdom; thou who, when the man lives no more, but is now a shade, art so boldly insolent, and givest such licence to thy tongue. Sober thyself, I say;—recall thy birth;—bring hither some one else,—a freeborn1260 man,—who shall plead thy cause for thee before us. When thou speakest, I can take the sense no more; I understand not thy barbarian speech.
Ch. Would that ye both could learn the wisdom of a temperate mind! No better counsel could I give you twain.
Teu. Ah, gratitude to the dead—in what quick sort it falls away from men and is found a traitor, if this man hath no longer the slightest tribute of remembrance for thee, Ajax,—he for whom thou didst toil so often, putting thine own life to the peril of the spear!1270 No—'tis all forgotten,—all flung aside!
Man who but now hast spoken many words and vain, hast thou no more memory of the time when ye were shut within your lines,—when ye were as lost in the turning back of your battle,—and he came alone and saved you,—when the flames were already wrapping the decks at your ships' stern, and Hector was bounding high over the trench towards the vessels? Who averted that? Were these deeds not his, who, thou sayest,1280 nowhere set foot where thou wast not?
Would ye allow that he did his duty there? Or when, another time, all alone, he confronted Hector in single fight,—not at any man's bidding, but by right of