Ajax (play)

Ajax or Aias

The original title of the play in the ancient Greek is Αἴας. Ajax is the romanized version, and Aias is the English transliteration from the original Greek. Proper nouns in Ancient Greek have conventionally been romanized before entering the English language, but it has been common for translations since the end of the 20th century to use direct English transliterations of the original Greek.

The text of the play suggests the original pronunciation of Ajax's name. In lines 430–432, Ajax (or Aias) himself says that it has an onomatopoeic resemblance to a wailing cry of lament: "aiai!" Translators have treated this passage in different ways:

Aiai! My name is a lament!
Who would have thought it would fit
so well with my misfortunes!
Now truly I can cry out – aiai! –
two and three times in my agony.

Aiee, Ajax! My name says what I feel;
who'd have believed that pain and I'd be one;
Aiee, Ajax! I say it twice,
and then again, aiee, for what is happening.

Critical reception and analysis

Ajax, as he appears in this play, in the Iliad, and other myths, is a heroic figure, a "rugged giant", with strength, courage and the ability to think quickly well beyond the normal standards of mankind. He was considered a legendary character to the people of ancient Athens. Numerous Homeric myths describe him coming to the rescue of his fellow man in dire moments.

Hugh Lloyd-Jones points out that many authorities consider Ajax an early play, but he suggests that if the text excludes material that he has bracketed, then it would seem to be a "mature masterpiece, probably not much earlier than Oedipus Tyrannus". Lloyd-Jones considers various lines that have been taken by critics interpreting the play, and finds that some consider that the Greek gods are being portrayed by Sophocles as just, and that when Ajax suffers it is a learning experience for the character and the audience. Other interpretations of the play, according to Lloyd-Jones, instead consider that Ajax is being portrayed heroically in defiance of the unjust and capricious gods. Lloyd-Jones notes that Ajax's murderous intention in this play is not softened by the playwright, and the difficult aspects of his character are fully depicted, but in spite of that Sophocles shows profound sympathy for the greatness of Ajax, and appreciation for the bravery in Ajax's realization that suicide is the only choice – if he is to maintain his conception of honor and his sense of self.

In another interpretation, Robert Bagg and James Scully point out that the play is composed in two distinct parts; the first part is steeped in the old world, a world of kings and heroes, and the second part resembles more the democratic world of Sophocles' Greece, and is marked by an imperfect debate of contending ideas. Bagg and Scully consider that the play, with its two parts, may be seen as an important epoch-spanning work that raises complex questions, including: How does 5th-century Greece advance from the old world into the new? Especially considering that Greece, in its stories and thoughts, clings to and reveres the old world? And while clinging to the past, Greece considers that its new, democratic order is important and vital. As Bagg and Scully contend, Ajax, with his brute force, has been a great warrior-hero of the old world, but the Trojan war itself has changed and become a quagmire; what's needed now is a warrior who is intelligent – someone like Odysseus. Ultimately, according to Bagg and Scully's interpretation, Ajax must still be respected, and the end of the play demonstrates respect and human decency with the promise of a proper burial.

John Moore interprets the play as primarily a character study of Ajax, who, when he first appears, covered in the blood of the animals that he in his madness has killed, presents an image of total degradation; the true action of the play, according to Moore, is how this image is transformed from degradation, as Ajax recovers his heroic power and humanity. The play, according to Moore, personifies in Ajax an affirmation of what is heroic in life. Translators Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish called the work a "masterpiece", arguing that "Sophocles turned the almost comic myth of a bad loser into a tragedy of disappointment, folly, and divine partiality."

Bernard Knox considers Ajax's speech on "time" to be "so majestic, remote and mysterious, and at the same time so passionate, dramatic and complex" that if this were the only writing we had of Sophocles, he would still be considered "one of the world's greatest poets." The speech begins:

Long rolling waves of time
bring all things to light
and plunge them down again
in utter darkness.

In a study of the phenomenon of suicide bombers, one author, Arata Takeda, says that though in the end it does not quite work out that way, Ajax's death resembles that kind of strategy, when Ajax calls on the Erinyes, the "avenging deities of the underworld", to destroy his foes.

Performance history

The American director Peter Sellars staged an adaption of the play, also called Ajax, written by Robert Auletta at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 1986. The setting was relocated to the United States in the near future, having recently won a war in Latin America, which had, however, gone very badly. Howie Seago played Ajax, Ralph Marrero played Menelaus, Aleta Mitchell played Athene, and Ben Halley Jr. was the leader of the chorus. The set design was by George Tsypin and the costumes by Dunya Ramicova.

Ajax was produced at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge in 2011, in modern dress, with a setting that appeared to be a war zone somewhere in the Middle East. It was translated by Charles Connaghan, and directed by Sarah Benson.

In May 2016, Jeff S. Dailey directed the play for a limited Off Broadway run at the John Cullum Theatre in midtown Manhattan. It set the play Sophocles' original location of Troy and featured Matthew Hansen in the title role.

A new performance translation of Ajax, by Maura Giles-Watson, was commissioned and staged by the Old Globe/University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program in February 2017. The new production was designed and directed by Ray Chambers.

JACK Theater in Brooklyn, New York, presented moments after Aias, a new version of the play written and directed by Andrew Watkins in July 2026. The adaptation was workshopped at the Brooklyn Center for Research in 2024.

Adaptations

Timberlake Wertenbaker's play Our Ajax, which was first performed in November 2013 at the Southwark Playhouse, London, was inspired by Sophocles' tragedy. It has a contemporary military setting, with references to modern warfare including the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wertenbaker made use of interviews with current and former servicemen and women in developing the play.

English translations

• Thomas Francklin, 1759.
• Theodore Alois Buckley, 1849.
• Edward Hayes Plumptre, 1878. (full text available at Wikisource)
• Lewis Campbell, 1883 (full text, with audio, available at Wikisource)
• Francis Storr, 1913.
• Richard Claverhouse Jebb, [1896] 1917. (full text available at Wikisource)
• R. C. Trevelyan, 1919. (full text available at Wikisource)
• E. F. Watling, 1953.
• John Moore, 1957.
• Robert Auletta, 1986.
• Robert Cannon, 1990.
• Hugh Lloyd-Jones, 1994.
• Frederick Raphael and Kenneth McLeish, 1998.
• Michael Evans, 1999.
• Herbert Golder and Richard Pevear, 1999.
• David Raeburn, 2008.
• John Tipton, 2008.
• George Theodoridis, 2009 – prose: full text.
• Ian C. Johnston, 2009 – verse: full text.
• James Scully, 2011.
• Charles Connaghan, 2011.
• Oliver Taplin, 2015.
• Lewis Campbell, 2015. (reprint of the 1883 edition)
• Maura Giles-Watson, 2017 (new performance translation) full text downloadable
• Margie Freeman, 2022: full text downloadable