Ajax
Notebook
Sophocles's Ajax (c. 445 BC) dramatizes the downfall of the great Homeric warrior after the arms of the dead Achilles are awarded to Odysseus rather than to him. Maddened by Athena, Ajax slaughters the army's cattle believing them his enemies; recovering his sanity to face the shame of his act, he takes his own life, and the play's second half turns on the bitter dispute over whether his body may be buried. The translation is Lewis Campbell's.
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