Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
2.3.8.
“Agamemnon, son of Atreus, though we wish
To bury Ajax, you say no: why? ‘I am the king.’
As commoner, I’ll say no more. ‘My prohibition
Is also just: and if anyone thinks otherwise
I permit him to say freely what he thinks.’ Greatest
Of kings, may the gods let you take Troy and sail home.
Am I allowed then to trade in question and answer?
‘Ask away.’ Why does great Ajax lie rotting, a hero
Who often rescued the Greeks, glorious, second
To Achilles alone? Is it right Priam and his people
Exult, since burial’s denied one who denied it their sons?
‘Insane, he slaughtered a thousand sheep, shouting that he
Was killing myself, Ulysses, and Menelaus.’
And when at Aulis you, shamelessly, set your daughter
Before the altar, instead of a calf, sprinkling her head
With salted meal, were you sane? What harm did he do
Slaughtering the flock with his sword? He spared his wife
And child: he’d plenty of abuse for the Atridae,
Yet he showed no violence to Teucer or Ulysses.
‘But to free my ships stuck fast on a lee shore,
I placated the gods, in my wisdom, with blood.’
Yes, your own, you madman. ‘Mine, but not in madness.’
A man who holds wrong views, confused by the turmoil
Of evil’s considered disturbed, and whether he
Errs from anger or foolishness makes no difference.
When Ajax killed innocent lambs he was judged insane:
When you in your wisdom do wrong for empty glory,
Is your mind sound, or your swollen heart free of fault?
If a man liked to carry a sweet lamb round in a litter,
Providing it clothes, maids, gold, like a daughter,
Calling it Baby or Goldilocks, planning to marry it
To a fine husband, the praetor would issue an order
Taking control, passing his care to his saner relations.
What, then? If a man offers his daughter mute as a lamb,
Is his mind sound? You’d say not. So where there’s perverse
Stupidity, there’s the height of madness: criminals
Are madmen too: he whom glittering fame entrances
Hears the thunder of blood-loving Bellona round his head.”