Notes

Ajax of Salamis

And Aias led from Salamis twelve ships, and stationed them where the battalions of the Athenians stood.

Battle of Salamis

66. They that were appointed to serve in Xerxes’ fleet, when they had viewed the hurt done to the Laconians and crossed over from Trachis to Histiaea, after three days’ waiting sailed through the Euripus, and in three more days they arrived at Phalerum. To my thinking, the forces both of land and sea were no fewer in number when they brake into Athens than when they came to Sepias and Thermopylae; for against those that were lost in the storm, and at Thermopylae, and in the sea-fights off Artemisium, I set these, who at that time were not yet in the king’s following—namely, the Melians, the Dorians, the Locrians, and the whole force of Boeotia (save only the Thespians and Plataeans), yea, and the men of Carystus and Andros and Tenos and the rest of the islands, save the five states of which I have before made mention. For the farther the Persian pressed on into Hellas the more were the peoples that followed in his train.…

Comment Pantagruel monta sus mer, pour visiter l’Oracle de la dive Bacbuc

On moys de Iuin, au iour des festes Vestales: celluy propre on quel Brutus conquesta Hespaigne, & subiugua les Hespaignolz, on quel aussi Crassus l’avaricieux feut vaincu & deffaict par les Parthes, Pantagruel prenent congé du bon Gargantua son père, icelluy bien priant (comme en l’Eglise primitive estoit louable coustume entre les saincts Christians) pour le prospère naviguaige de son filz, & toute sa compaignie, monta sus mer au port de Thalasse, accompaigné de Panurge, frère Ian des entommeures, Epistemon, Gymnaste, Eusthenes, Rhizotome, Carpalim, & aultres siens serviteurs & domesticques anciens: ensemble de Xenomanes le grand voyageur & traverseur des voyes perilleuses, lequel certains iours par avant estoit arrivé au mandement de Panurge. Icelluy pour certaines & bonnes causes avoit à Gargantua laissé & signé en sa grande & universelle Hydrographie la routte qu’ilz tiendroient visitans l’oracle de la dive Bouteille Bacbuc.
Le nombre des navires feut tel que vous ay exposé on tiers livre, en conserve de Trirèmes, Ramberges, Gallions, & Liburnicques nombre pareil: bien equippées, bien calfatées, bien munies, avecques abondance de Pantagruelion. L’assemblée de tous officiers, truchemens, pilotz, capitaines, nauchiers, fadrins, hespailliers, & matelotz feut en la Thalamège. Ainsi estoit nommée la grande & maistresse nauf de Pantagruel: ayant en pouppe pour enseigne à moytié d’argent bien liz & polly: l’aultre moytié estoit d’or esmaillé de couleur incarnat. En quoy facile estoit iuger, que blanc & clairet estoient les couleurs des nobles voyagiers: & qu’ilz alloient pour avoir le mot de la Bouteille.

Ajax of Salamis

Homer Il. ii. 557

nombre de celles

Rabelais donne au mon navire, comme beaucoup d’auteurs du XVIe siècle, le genre féminin, qui était celui de navis, en latin. (P.)

Ajax

A son of Telamon, king of Salamis, by Periboea or Eriboea (Apollod. iii. 12. § 7; Paus. i. 42. § 4; Pind. Isth. vi. 65; Diod. iv. 72), and a grandson of Aeacus. Homer calls him Ajax the Telamonian, Ajax the Great, or simply Ajax (Il. ii. 768, ix. 169, xiv. 410; comp. Pind. Isth. vi. 38), whereas the other Ajax, the son of Oïleus, is always distinguished from the former by some epithet. According to Homer Ajax joined the expedition of the Greeks against Troy, with his Salaminians, in twelve ships (Il. ii. 557; comp. Strab. ix. p. 394), and was next to Achilles the most distinguished and the bravest among the Greeks. (ii 768, xvii. 279, &c.) He is described as tall of stature, and his head and broad shoulders as rising above those of all the Greeks (iii 226, &c.); in beauty he was inferior to none but Achilles. (Od. xi. 550, xxiv. 17; comp. Paus. i. 35. § 3.) When Hector challenged the bravest of the Greeks to single combat, Ajax came forward among several others. The people prayed that he might fight, and when the lot fell to Ajax (Il. vii. 179, &c.), and he approached, Hector himself began to tremble. (215.) He wounded Hector and dashed him to the ground by a huge stone. The combatants were separated, and upon parting they exchanged arms with one another as a token of mutual esteem. (305, &c.) Ajax was also one of the ambassadors whom Agamemnon sent to conciliate Achilles. (ix. 169.) He fought several times besides with Hector, as in the battle near the ships of the Greeks (xiv. 409, &c. xv. 415, xvi. 114), and in protecting the body of Patroclus. (xvii. 128, 732.) In the games at the funeral pile of Patroclus, Ajax fought with Odysseus, but without gaining any decided advantage over him (xxiii. 720, &c.), and in like manner with Diomedes. In the contest about the armour of Achilles, he was conquered by Odysseus, and this, says Homer, became the cause of his death. (Od. xi. 541, &c.) Odysseus afterwards met his spirit in Hades, and endeavoured to appease it, but in vain.