Page images
PDF
EPUB

Written in Miss Triplet's Album.

You ask, fair maiden, for one line, but I must give

you three,

For a couplet at the least, for the rhyme's sake, there must be,

And a Triplet for your name's sake therefore take

[blocks in formation]

Iranslation.

SPEECH OF AJAX, FROM THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF OVID.

THE chiefs were seated, and the soldiers round,
Ranged in due order, filled the extended ground;
When Ajax, master of the sevenfold shield,
In wrath arose, and from the tented field
Turned his stern eye to the Sigeian strand,
And the tall ships fast anchored to the land :
"And is it here, ye Gods," aloud he cried,
"Before this fleet that this great cause is tried?
And is it here that I Ulysses see,

Daring to stand competitor to me?

Not thus he dared, when Hector's raging hand
Waved here, on high, the desolating brand,

Whose flames I quenched and saved this threatened

strand.

"Full well Ulysses knows 'tis safer far

To wage

of empty words, the bloodless war, Than face a foe in arms;- -nor have I art

For such vain strife, nor hath he hand or heart
For bold exploits: while well-fought fields proclaim
My worth, a smooth, false tongue is all his fame.
Nor need I to the Greeks my deeds display-
Deeds done before their eyes in face of day;
His, let Ulysses tell, and bring to light
A prowess never shining but by night.

"The baseness of my rival casts a stain
E'en on the glorious prize I seek to gain,
For poor his triumph, whatsoe'er the prize,
Who stoops like me, and with Ulysses vies.
The contest now, however it ensue,
Gives him an honor greater than his due,
And proud enough for him the boast will be,

When vanquished, that he dared contend with me.

"If my own worth suffice not for my claim,
A noble ancestry will lend their fame :
My father, Telamon, who Troy o'erthrew
Under great Hercules-whom Colchos knew,
With Jason the renowned. His sire was he
Who binds the shades below, by his decree,
Where Sisyphus in vain laments his fate,
Beneath the rude rock's ever rolling weight:
Eacus, the mighty Jove's high favors prove
His son; and Ajax is the third from Jove.
Nor should this high descent, in this great cause
Avail me, Greeks! but that Achilles draws
From the same source divine, a kindred name-
Brethren in blood, a brother's arms I claim.

"And shall a base-born stranger dare to place His hated name among a hero's race? Or shall I stand excluded from my right

Who foremost came, unsummoned, to the fight?

And to a cowardly dissembler yield,

Dragged by device reluctant to the field?
Pretending madness to conceal his fear,

Till one, more artful, made his fraud appear?
Shall he, whom skulking then, no arms could please,
Now ask for arms, and dare to ask for these?—
These, which are doubly mine by right of birth,
And won by valor, as the prize of worth?

"Ah! had his madness real been, or feigned
With more successful art! Had he remained
Safe in his cowardice, nor joined the host
Of Greece and glory on the Trojan coast!
Then never had his counselled deeds of shame
Tarnished the lustre of his country's name,
And Lemnos' shores had never witnessed then
Thy sorrows, Philoctetes! and our sin,

Where now the lonely rocks and forests hear
The sad and ceaseless cries of thy despair,

« PreviousContinue »