CH.  The sufferer should not bear a bitter tongue. 
Hard words, how just soe’er, will leave their sting.

MEN.  Our bowman carries no small pride, I see.

TEU.  No mere mechanic’s menial craft is mine.

MEN.  How wouldst thou vaunt it hadst thou but a shield!

TEU.  Unarmed I fear not thee in panoply.

MEN.  Redoubted is the wrath lives on thy tongue.

TEU.  Whose cause is just hath licence to be proud.

MEN.  Just, that my murderer have a peaceful end?

TEU.  Thy murderer?  Strange, to have been slain and live!

MEN.  Yea, through Heaven’s mercy.  By his will, I am dead.

TEU.  If Heaven have saved thee, give the Gods their due.

MEN.  Am I the man to spurn at Heaven’s command?

TEU.  Thou dost, to come and frustrate burial.

MEN.  Honour forbids to yield my foe a tomb.

TEU.  And Aias was thy foeman?  Where and when?

MEN.  Hate lived between us; that thou know’st full well.

TEU.  For thy proved knavery, coining votes i’ the court

MEN.  The judges voted.  He ne’er lost through me.

TEU.  Guilt hiding guile wears often fairest front.

MEN.  I know whom pain shall harass for that word.

TEU.  Not without giving equal pain, ’tis clear.

MEN.  No more, but this.  No burial for this man!

TEU.  Yea, this much more.  He shall have instant burial.

MEN.  I have seen ere now a man of doughty tongue
Urge sailors in foul weather to unmoor,
Who, caught in the sea-misery by and by,
Lay voiceless, muffled in his cloak, and suffered
Who would of the sailors over trample him
Even so methinks thy truculent mouth ere long
Shall quench its outcry, when this little cloud
Breaks forth on thee with the full tempest’s might.

TEU.  I too have seen a man whose windy pride
Poured forth loud insults o’er a neighbour’s fall,
Till one whose cause and temper showed like mine
Spake to him in my hearing this plain word: 
’Man, do the dead no wrong; but, if thou dost,
Be sure thou shalt have sorrow.’  Thus he warned
The infatuate one:  ay, one whom I behold,
For all may read my riddle—­thou art he.

MEN.  I will be gone.  ’Twere shame to me, if known,
To chide when I have power to crush by force.

TEU.  Off with you, then!  ’Twere triple shame in me
To list the vain talk of a blustering fool. [Exit MENELAUS

LEADER OF CHORUS. 
      High the quarrel rears his head! 
        Haste thee, Teucer, trebly haste,
      Grave-room for the valiant dead
        Furnish with what speed thou mayst,
      Hollowed deep within the ground,
      Where beneath his mouldering mound
      Aias aye shall be renowned.

Re-enter TECMESSA with EURYSAKES.