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"The ghosts [psukhai] of other dead men stood near me and told me each his own melancholy tale; but the psukhê of Ajax son of Telamon alone held aloof - still angry with me for having won the cause in our dispute about the armor of Achilles. Thetis had offered it as a prize, but the Trojan prisoners and Athena were the judges. Would that I had never gained the day in such a contest [athlos], for it cost the life of Ajax, who was foremost of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus, alike in stature and prowess.

"When I saw him I tried to pacify him and said, ‘Ajax, will you not forget and forgive even in death, but must the judgment about that hateful armor still rankle with you? It cost us Argives dear enough to lose such a tower of strength as you were to us. We mourned you as much as we mourned Achilles son of Peleus himself, nor can the blame [aitios] be laid on anything but on the spite which Zeus bore against the Danaans, for it was this that made him counsel your destruction - come here, therefore, bring your proud spirit into subjection, and hear what I can tell you.’

"He would not answer, but turned away to Erebus and to the other ghosts [psukhai]; nevertheless, I should have made him talk to me in spite of his being so angry, or I should have gone talking to him, only that there were still others among the dead whom I desired to see.

"Then I saw Minos son of Zeus with his golden scepter in his hand sitting in judgment on the dead, and the ghosts were gathered sitting and standing round him in the spacious house of Hades, to learn his sentences [dikai] upon them.

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  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • W. Walter Merry, James Riddell, D. B. Monro, Commentary on the Odyssey (1886), 2.388
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