"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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