Ajax' Ailment

Abstract

Disease, and talk of disease, provide some of the most potent expressions of Sophokles' symbolic imagination. The plague in Oidipous Tyrannos; the blindness of the ‘seer’ Teiresias in the same play; the later blindness of Oidipous in both the Oidipous plays; the fatal sickness of Herakles in the Trachiniai; the incurable wound of Philoktetes — all these sicknesses are used by the playwright to express some important truths about the characters who suffer from them and about these characters' relationships to the world around them. We may add to this catalogue the madness of the title character of the Ajax, for it is often called a nosos in the play, and it serves as one of the play's leading symbols. This paper will examine how that symbol works and what it means. In particular, it will argue that Ajax' delusion that cattle were Greek leaders corresponds to a more general delusion about the nature of the world; and that his recovery from the former delusion early in the play anticipates his recovery from the latter one, which is shown in the much-discussed third monologue (646-692). Sophokles uses the story of Ajax' madness and recovery to underline and develop a larger, more philosophical, story.