id, "We are pleading,[1] O Jupiter, our cause before
the ships, and Ulysses vies with me! But he did not hesitate to yield to
the flames of Hector, which I withstood, {and} which I drove from this
fleet. It is safer, therefore, for him to contend with artful words than
with his {right} hand. But neither does my talent lie in speaking, nor
his[2] in acting; and as great ability as I have in fierce warfare, so
much has he in talking. Nor do I think, O Pelasgians, that my deeds need
be related to you; for you have been eye-witnesses of them. Let Ulysses
recount his, which he has performed without any witness, {and} of which
night alone[3] is conscious. I own that the prize that is sought is
great; but the rival of Ajax lessens its value. It is no proud thing,
great though it may be, to possess any thing which Ulysses has hoped
for. Already has he obtained the reward of this contest, in which, when
he shall have been worsted, he will be said to have contended with me.
And I, if my prowess were to be questioned, should prevail by the
nobleness of my birth, being the son of Telamon, who took the city[4] of
Troy under the valiant Hercules, and entered the Colchian shores in the
Pagasaean ship. AEacus was his father, who there gives laws to the silent
{shades}, where the heavy stone urges {downward} Sisyphus,[5] the son of
AEolus.

"The supreme Jupiter owns AEacus, and confesses that he is his offspring.
Thus Ajax is the third[6] from Jupiter. And yet, O Greeks, let not this
line of descent avail me in this cause, if it be not common to me with
the great Achilles. He was my cousin;[7] I ask for what belonged to my
cousin? Why does one descended from the blood of Sisyphus, and very like
him in thefts and fraud, intrude the name of a strange family among the
descendants of AEacus? Are the arms to be denied me, because I took up
arms before {him}, and through the means of no informer?[8] and shall
one seem preferable who was the last to take them up, and who, by
feigning madness, declined war, until the son of Nauplius,[9] more
cunning than he, but more unhappy for himself, discovered the
contrivance[10] of his cowardly mind, and dragged him forth to the arms
which he had avoided. Now let him take the best arms who would have
taken none. Let me be dishonoured, and stripped of the gifts that
belonged to my cousin, who presented myself in the front of danger. And
I could wish that that madness had been either real or believed {so to