Prologos
Ajax
In all else, Athena, I bid you take your pleasure, but he will pay this penalty and no other.
Athena
Well, then, since it delights you to do so, put your arm to use; spare no portion of your plan.
Ajax
I go to my work. And I give you this commission: be always for me the close-standing ally that you have been for me today!
Athena
Do you see, Odysseus, how great is the strength of the gods? Whom could you have found more prudent than this man,
or better able to do what the situation demanded?
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Odysseus
I know of no one, but in his misery I pity him all the same, even though he hates me, because he is yoked beneath a ruinous delusion—I think of my own lot no less than his.
For I see that all we who live are nothing more than phantoms or fleeting shadow.
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Athena
Therefore since you witness his fate, see that you yourself never utter an arrogant word against the gods, nor assume any swelling pride, if in the scales of fate you are weightier
than another in strength of hand or in depth of ample wealth. For a day can press down all human things, and a day can raise them up. But the gods embrace men of sense and abhor the evil.
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