In nature not faint-hearted. It is shame
For any man to wish for length of life,
Who, wrapt in troubles, knows no change for good.
For what delight brings day still following day,
Or bringing on, or putting off our death?
I would not rate that man as worth regard
Whose fervour glows on vain and empty hopes:
But either noble life or noble death
Becomes the gently born. My say is said.480
Chor. And none will say, Ο Aias, that thou speak'st
As one who talks by rote, but from thine heart:
Yet cease, we pray thee; leave such thoughts as these,
And let thy friends control thy soul's resolve.
Tec. My master Aias, greater ill is none
To mortals given than lot of servitude;
And I was sprung from free-born father, strong,
If any was in Phrygia, in his wealth:
And now I am a slave, for so it pleased
The Gods and thy right hand; and therefore, since490
I share thy bed, I care for thee and thine.
And now I pray, by Zeus who guards our hearth,
And by the couch where thou hast slept with me,
Deem it not right, in bondage leaving me,
That I should hear hard words from those thy foes;
For should'st thou die, and dying leave me lone,
Be sure that I upon that self-same day,
Dragged by the Argives with a harsh constraint,
With this thy son must eat a bond-slave's bread;
And some one of my masters bitter words500
Will speak with scorn,—"Behold the concubine
Of Aias who excelled the host in might!
What bondage now she bears, in place of lot
That all did envy!" This will some one say,
And Fate pursue me, while for thee and thine
