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  4. Ajax
  • A Monologue from the play "Ajax" by Sophocles
0 (0 votes)
CharacterTecmessa
GenderFemale
Age Range(s)Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50)
Type of monologue / Character isPersuasive, Depressed, Lamenting, Complaining, Frustrated
TypeDramatic
PeriodAncient Greek
GenreTragedy, Drama
DescriptionTecmessa tries to persuade Ajax not to leave her

Summary

Towards the end of the Trojan war between Troy and the Greeks, Achilles is killed by a Trojan arrow guided by Apollo. Ajax, considered one of the greatest Greek warriors after Achilles, expects to receive Achille's armor as a prize. The Greek commanders, however, decide to give the armor to Odysseus. Ajax loses his mind over this decision and decides to slay Odysseus and the Greek leaders. Athena, the goddess of war, intervenes and makes Ajax temporarily insane. Ajax mistakes sheep for his intended victims and slays them. Later, he realizes what he has done and feels profound shame. His concubine Tecmessa and his friends try to relieve his grief. He leaves and tells them he is going to bury the sword of Hector, a dead Trojan hero, but instead commits suicide by throwing himself onto the sword.

In this monologue Tecmessa tries to convince her husband Ajax not to leave. If he died, she argues, then her future will be miserable.

Written by Administrator

Excerpt
TECMESSA
O my lord Ajax, of all human ills
Greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny.
Of a free father was I born the child,
One rich and great as any Phrygian else.
Now am I a slave; for so the gods, or rather
Thy warrior's hand, would have it. Therefore since
I am thy bedfellow, I wish thee well,
And I entreat thee by domestic Zeus,
And by the embraces that have made me thine,
Doom me not to the cruel taunts of those
Who hate thee, left a bond-slave in strange hands.
For shouldst thou perish and forsake me in death,
That very day assuredly I to
Shall be seized by the Argives, with thy son
To endure henceforth the portion of a slave.
Then one of my new masters with barbed words
Shall wound me scoffing: "See the concubine
Of Ajax, who was mightiest of the host,
What servile tasks are hers who lived so daintily!"
Thus will men speak, embittering my hard lot,
But words of shame for thee and for thy race.
Nay, piety forbid thee to forsake
Thy father in his drear old age-thy mother
With her sad weight of years, who many a time
Prays to the gods that thou come home alive.
And pity, O king, thy son, who without thee
To foster his youth, must live the orphaned ward
Of loveless guardians. Think how great a sorrow
Dying thou wilt bequeath to him and me.
For I have nothing left to look to more
Save thee. By thy spear was my country ravaged;
And by another stroke did fate lay low
My mother and my sire to dwell with Hades.
Without thee then what fatherland were mine?
What wealth? On thee alone rests all my hope.
O take thought for me too. Do we not owe
Remembrance, where we have met with any joy?
For kindness begets kindness evermore
But he who from whose mind fades the memory
Of benefits, noble is he no more.

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