MEN.  Because he, whom we trusted to have brought
To lend us loyal help with heart and hand,
Proved in the trial a worse than Phrygian foe;
Who lay in wait for all the host by night,
And sallied forth in arms to shed our blood;
That, had not one in Heaven foiled this attempt,
Our lot had been to lie as he doth here
Dead and undone for ever, while he lived
And flourished.  Heaven hath turned this turbulence
To fall instead upon the harmless flock. 
Wherefore no strength of man shall once avail
To encase his body with a seemly tomb,
But outcast on the wide and watery sand,
He’ll feed the birds that batten on the shore. 
Nor let thy towering spirit therefore rise
In threatening wrath.  Wilt thou or not, our hand
Shall rule him dead, howe’er he braved us living,
And that by force; for never would he yield,
Even while he lived, to words from me.  And yet
It shows base metal when the subject-wight
Deigns not to hearken to the chief in power. 
Since without settled awe, neither in states
Can laws have rightful sway, nor can a host
Be governed with due wisdom, if no fear
Or wholesome shame be there to shield its safety. 
And though a man wax great in thews and bulk,
Let him be warned:  a trifling harm may ruin him. 
Whoever knows respect and honour both
Stands free from risk of dark vicissitude. 
But whereso pride and licence have their fling,
Be sure that state will one day lose her course
And founder in the abysm.  Let fear have place
Still where it ought, say I, nor let men think
To do their pleasure and not bide the pain. 
That wheel comes surely round.  Once Aias flamed
With insolent fierceness.  Now I mount in pride,
And loudly bid thee bury him not, lest burying
Thy brother thou be burrowing thine own grave.

CH.  Menelaues, make not thy philosophy
A platform whence to insult the valiant dead.

TEU.  I nevermore will marvel, sirs, when one
Of humblest parentage is prone to sin,
Since those reputed men of noble strain
Stoop to such phrase of prating frowardness. 
Come, tell it o’er again,—­said you ye brought
My brother bound to aid you with his power? 
Sailed he not forth of his own sovereign will? 
Where is thy voucher of command o’er him? 
Where of thy right o’er those that followed him? 
Sparta, not we, shall buckle to thy sway. 
’Twas written nowhere in the bond of rule
That thou shouldst check him rather than he thee. 
Thou sailedst under orders, not in charge
Of all, much less of Aias.  Then pursue
Thy limited direction, and chastise,
In haughty phrase, the men who fear thy nod. 
But I will bury Aias, whether thou
Or the other general give consent or no. 
’Tis not for me to tremble at your word. 
Not to reclaim thy wife, like those poor souls
Thou flll’st with labour, issued this man forth,
But caring for his oath, and not for thee,
Or any other nobody.  Then come
With heralds all arow, and bring the man
Called king of men with thee!  For thy sole noise
I budge not, wert thou twenty times thy name.