After nine grinding years of war, the once-mighty soldier abruptly comes unglued. Denied an honor he thinks he’s due, he goes to kill the officers he holds responsible, but after his night of rage finds he has slaughtered barnyard animals, not generals.
Shamed beyond endurance, he plans suicide. “A great man must live in honor or die an honorable death,” he tells his wife. “That is all I have to say.”
The soldier is Ajax, fighter of the Trojan War, his downfall portrayed in a Greek tragedy written more than two millennia ago.
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