ATHENA.
ODYSSEUS.
AIAS, _the son of Telamon._
CHORUS _of Salaminian Mariners._
TECMESSA.
_A Messenger._
TEUCER, _half brother of Aias._
MENELAUS.
AGAMEMNON.
EURYSAKÈS, _the child of Aias and Tecmessa, appears, but does not
speak._
SCENE. Before the encampment of Aias on the shore of the Troad.
Afterwards a lonely place beyond Rhoeteum.
Time, towards the end of the Trojan War.
_'A wounded spirit who can bear?'_
After the death of Achilles, the armour made for him by Hephaestus was
to be given to the worthiest of the surviving Greeks. Although Aias
was the most valiant, the judges made the award to Odysseus, because
he was the wisest.
Aias in his rage attempts to kill the generals; but Athena sends
madness upon him, and he makes a raid upon the flocks and herds of the
army, imagining the bulls and rams to be the Argive chiefs. On
awakening from his delusion, he finds that he has fallen irrecoverably
from honour and from the favour of the Greeks. He also imagines that
the anger of Athena is unappeasable. Under this impression he eludes
the loving eyes of his captive-bride Tecmessa, and of his Salaminian
comrades, and falls on his sword. ('The soul and body rive not more in
parting Than greatness going off.')
But it is revealed through the prophet Calchas, that the wrath of
Athena will last only for a day; and on the return of Teucer, Aias
receives an honoured funeral, the tyrannical reclamations of the two
sons of Atreus being overcome by the firm fidelity of Teucer and the
magnanimity of Odysseus, who has been inspired for this purpose by
Athena.