Ajax, 4

Menelaus arrives and decrees that the body should not be buried-- Ajax should be treated as an enemy with all the penalty that entails for his plan to murder the Greek leaders.  Further, his greater crime is insubordination against his superiors.  A city cannot thrive unless the citizens submit to authority and recognize their betters; an army cannot survive unless the soldiery submit absolutely to their commanders.  It was Ajax's great fault that he never did this.

Teucer angrily rebuts.  Ajax did not join the war as a soldier under Menelaus; Ajax was not even a subject under the region of Menelaus's kingdom.  Ajax always acted as a free man-- and his greatness in battle was a testament to this self-regard.  Rising anger as Menelaus and Teucer shout back-and-forth, each pleading his case:  Menelaus saying there must be penalty for his crime, Teucer retorting that no crime was actually committed-- except perhaps denying Ajax the prize that was deservedly his.  Menelaus slinks away looking for backup.

Teucer hastily begins the burial process, with the help of of Tecmessa and Eurysaces.  Instructs Eurysaces to cling to the body-- no intruder would dare separate the two of them.  Agamemnon arrives to tell of Teucer, with a much firmer and angrier tone than Menelaus.  He rightly claims authority as Ajax's general in battle-- so Teucer's previous arguments have less weight.  He also hurls personal insults about Ajax's questionable lineage (through his captive mother), putting him in his place as a subordinate to the great leaders around him.  But Teucer comes back even more directly and forthrightly than before-- reminding Agamemnon of Ajax's brave defense of the ships, of his eagerness to face off against Hector alone, and of Agamemnon's own questionable lineage through his father Atreus's evil actions.  It's ugly.

Odysseus arrives, and quickly (and calmly) says Ajax ought to be buried-- even offering to assist in the burial.  His reasons are many-- he recognizes Ajax's previous greatness, he recognizes the slight he experienced, he knows he has own enemies who could try to impose the same insult after his own death, and Agamemnon (like a politician looking to save face) can claim a spirit of generosity back among the men he leads.  Agamemnon, not happy about it, concedes.  Ultimately, Teucer takes on the burial himself, for he knows that Ajax and Odysseus were true enemies; Odysseus acquiesces and leaves.  The body is carried off.

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Teucer is awesome.  Two amazing speeches.  First, an exchange with Menelaus (1143-1158):

Menelaus: I observed a man once of fast and saucy speech
Who had pressed sailors to make a voyage in a storm;
When the weather got really rough, you couldn't hear
Him piping anywhere: he hid himself in his cloak,
And anybody aboard could step on him at will.
And very possibly you and your reckless speech--
If a big whistling storm should suddenly come
Out of a little cloud-- your clamorous uproar
Might be quenched in a  very similar fashion.

Teucer: And I once saw a man inflated with foolishness,
Who insulted the misfortunes of his neighbors.
And another man, closely resembling me,
Quite like me in temperament, gave him a straight look
And said to him, "Man, don't outrage the dead.
You certainly shall regret it if you do."
That was the advice he gave that worthless man.
I see him now, and he is, it seems to me,
You, and nobody else.  Am I speaking in riddles?

Then, he tells off Agamemnon in the most devastating way possible (1266-1314)

Alas!  How fugitive is the gratitude
Men owe the dead, how soon shown to deceive!
This man has no trifling remembrance,
Ajax, of you, though oftentimes for him
You risked your life and bore the stress of war.
All that is gone now, easily tossed away.
You, who just now spoke that long, foolish speech,
Can't you remember any more at all
How you were penned once close behind your picket,
And all but ruined in the rout of war
With flames licking the ships' quarter-decks
Already, and Hector high in the air, leaping
Over the fosse to board, but Ajax came,
Alone, to save you?  Who fended off that ruin?
Wasn't it he, the very man you now
Declare fought nowhere but where you fought too?
What do you say?  Did he deal fairly then?
And when that other time he closed alone
In single fight with Hector, not conscripted,
But chosen when each champion put his lot
Into the crested helmet-- Ajax then
Put in no shirking lot among the rest,
No clod of moist earth, no! but one to skip
Lightly, first and victorious, from the helm.
It was he that did those things, and I stood by him:
The slave, yes! the barbarian mother's son!
Wretched man, why do you light upon that taunt?
Aren't you aware that your own grandfather,
Old Pelops, was a barbarous Phrygian?  Or
That Atreus, yes, your actual father, set
Before his brother a most unholy dish
Of his own sons' flesh?  And you yourself
Had a Cretan for your mother, in whose bed
An interloping foreigner was discovered,
And she consigned, and by her parent's order,
To drown among the fishes of the deep.
These are your origins.  Can you censure mine?
Telamon was my father, and he won
My mother as his valorous prize of war.
She was a princess by her birth, the child
Of King Laomedon, and Heracles
Distinguished her to be my father's gift.
Two royal races gave me to the world.
How shall I shame my kin if I defend them
In their adversity, when you with shameless words
Would fling them out unburied?  Listen to this:
If you should venture to cast Ajax out,
You must cast out the three of us as well,
Together in one heap with him.  I make my choice
To stand in public and to die for him,
Rather than for your wife-- or was it your brother's wife?
So!  Think of your own case, and no merely mine;
For if you vex me, you may wish you had been
a coward, rather than too bold with me.

Love the references to the stuff I've already read.  It's working!