Philoctetes (1271-1330)

You spoke just like this, when you were seeking to steal my bow—a professed friend, with my destruction in his treacherous heart.

I assure you, I am not so now. I merely wish to know whether you have resolved to stay here and endure, or to sail with us.

Stop, not another word! Whatever you may say will be said in vain.

You are so resolved?

More firmly, believe me, than words can say.

Well, I could have wished that you had listened to my words, but if nothing that I say will help,then I am finished.

Yes, all your pleas will be in vain. You will never gain my mind’s good will, since first you fraudulently seized my means of life and robbed me of it, and then you have come here to admonish me, you most hateful descendant of so noble a father!

Ruin seize you all, the Atreids first, and next the son of Laertes, and you!

Speak no more curses, and instead receive these weapons from my hand.

What did you say? Am I being tricked a second time?

No, I swear it by the pure majesty of Zeus most high!

O welcome words—if your words are true!

The deed will soon make it plain. Come, stretch out your right hand and be master of your bow! As he hands the bow and arrows to Philoctetes, Odysseus suddenly appears.

But I forbid it, as the gods are my witnesses, in the name of the Atreids and the entire army!

Son, whose voice was that? Do I hear Odysseus?

Be sure of it, and you see him at your side, who will carry you to the plains of Troy by force, whether or not the son of Achilles is willing.

But it will bring you no joy, if this arrow fly straight. Odysseus flees from the stage.

Wait—by the gods, no! Do not let it fly!

Let go of me, in the name of the gods, dear boy!

I will not.

Alas! Why did you take from me the chance to kill my hated enemy with my bow?

It would have been honorable neither for me, nor for you.

Well, you may be sure of one thing, at least: the army’s chiefs, the lying heralds of the Greeks, though bold with words, are cowards in the fight.

Good; the bow is yours, and you have no cause for anger or complaint against me.

Agreed. You have revealed the true stock, my son, from which you spring. You are no child of Sisyphus, but of Achilles, whose fame was the fairest when he was among the living, as it is now with the dead.

I delight at your praise of my father,

and of myself. But hear what I desire to gain from you. It is true that men are compelled to bear the fortunes given by the gods; but when they cling to self-inflicted miseries, as you do,

no one can justly excuse or pity them. You have become savage: you welcome no counsellor, and if someone admonishes you, even if he speaks in all good will, you detest him and consider him an enemy who wishes you ill. All the same I will speak to you, calling Zeus who guards oaths to witness.

And you remember these words and write them in your heart: you suffer this plague’s affliction in accordance with god-sent fate, because you came near to Chryse’s guardian, the serpent who secretly watches over her home and guards her roofless sanctuary. Know also that you will never gain relief from this grave sickness,

as long as the sun still rises in the east and sets in the west, until of your own free will you come to the plains of Troy, find there the sons of Asclepius, our comrades, be relieved of this infection, and, with this bow’s