Ajax - the tragedy

AJAX – SOPHOCLES

Ajax (Aias, ca 450/477 B.C) . Is a tragedy about humiliation and death of Ajax, a Greek hero of the Trojan War . Following the death of Achilles, Odysseus and Ajax compete for the dead hero’s armor. Overcome by a madness induced by Athena, he comes upon a herd of cattle and, thinking that the beasts are Greek chieftains, slaughters them.

As the play opens, Athena mercilessly shows the mad Ajax to his enemy Odysseus. Ajax boasts of his glorious victories over the ‘Greeks’ that he has just slain; Odysseus turns away in pity and horror. When Ajax becomes lucid again, he weighs the consequences of his foolish action: that the Greeks plan to arrest him and bring him to trial. The full dimension of his plight is revealed when his retinue, a chorus of Salaminian sailors, begs him to defend his right to Achilles’ armor and when his concubine Tecmessa pleads with him not to take his own life in shame and defiance. After bequeathing his shield and other arms to his infant son Eurysaces and enjoining him to become a brave man , Ajax departs to die. But he reappears, seemingly penitent, saying that he must go alone to the seashore to cleanse his wounds. There after invoking the Furies to pursue his enemies in the Greek camp, he falls on his sword and dies. Teucer, Ajax’ brother, arrives and asks permission to bury him. He is opposed by Menelaus and Agamemnon, but permission is finally granted on the advice of Odysseus, who has learned generosity from his enemy’ fate.  

Ajax is a poignantly human play. The hero a great personality, self-conscious of its greatness, is contemptuous of the higher forces. His arrogance leads to hybris.

He is after the absolute, he wishes to compete with the ultimate, superhuman authorities, defying their power. This renders him a tragic person, destined to be destroyed. The mediocrities of life (Menelaus, Agamemnon) settled in their titles and unsuspicious of other, deeper sides of human life cooperate with Odysseus to eliminate Ajax.
After Ajax’ s fall , however Odysseus dissociates himself ,proving in this way his moral stature ,essentially different from the stature of the two brothers .

The second part of the play – containing the sole suicide ‘on stage’ of the ancient Greek theatre – is a hymn to dead Ajax’s virtues. The hero’s human side , now a dim reflexion   of his past greatness , is portrayed by his relationships with his parents ,his son , his brother Teukrus , and also (something not commended upon so far) with his concubine Tekmessa . Tekmessa’s love for Ajax impregnates the whole play, whereas Ajax’s love for her can also be sensed, veiledly expressed.

The performance aims indirectly at bringing out, the metaphysical, the political and the erotic background of this great play, which is unjustly very little known.