keeping his foes at bay, and then slowly retreating, covered by his shield of bull's hide, "huge as a tower." But he had waxed insolent in the pride of his strength, and more than once (as we are told in the play) his arrogant and impious words had provoked the anger of the gods. When he first left Salamis, his father, perhaps foreseeing the trouble which his haughty spirit was doomed to bring upon him, had given him prudent advice:—
"Seek, my son, in fight,
To conquer, but still conquer through the gods."
But Ajax, like the old Norseman, "put his trust neither in idols nor demons, but in his own battle-axe," and his reply was,—
"Father, with heavenly aid a coward's hand
May grasp the prize of conquest; I confide
To win such trophies e'en without the gods."—(D.)
Again, in the heat of battle, when Minerva herself had urged him to turn his arms where she led the way, he had defiantly rejected her gracious offer of assistance:—
"O Queen! to other Argives lend thine aid;
No hostile might shall break where Ajax stands."—(D.)
It would seem as if his sullen and haughty temper had estranged the friendship of men as well as the favour of the gods. He was certainly unpopular among his brothers in arms. To Agamemnon he was "most hateful;" Menelaus bore him no love; and the Ulysses of Homer, like the Ulysses of Shakspeare,
