Philoctetes (900-965)

It cannot be that offense at my sickness has persuaded you not to take me aboard your ship?

All is offense when a man has abandoned his true nature and does what does not suit him.

But you, at least, are not departing from your begetter’s

example either in word or deed, when you help a man who is noble.

I shall be found to have no honor—this is the thought that long torments me.

Not because of your present deeds, at least. But because of your words, I worry.

O Zeus, what shall I do? Must I be twice found base—by disloyal silence, as well as by shameful speech?

Unless I am lacking in judgment, he means to betray me, leave me behind and sail away!

Leave you? No, not I. Rather, to your pain, I will bring you along. That is my torment.

What do you mean, son? I do not understand.

I will conceal nothing. You must sail to Troy, back to the Achaeans and the forces of the Atreids.

Ah, no! What have you said?

Do not wail in grief, before you understand!

Understand what? What do you intend to do to me?

Save you, first, from this misery, and then,

together with you, go and plunder Troy’s plains.

And this is your true intent?

A harsh necessity governs these events, so do not be angered at hearing of them.

I am destroyed—ah, misery!—betrayed! What have you done to me, stranger? Return my bow at once!

No, it is not possible. My duty and my interest alike constrain me to obey those in power.

You destroying fire, you utter monster, you hateful masterpiece of astounding wickedness! What treachery you have done to me! How thoroughly you have deceived me! And are you, you wretch, unashamed to look at me,

the suppliant who turned to you for mercy? In taking my bow, you have robbed me of my life. Return it, I beg you, return it, I pray you, son! By the gods of your fathers, do not rob me of my life! Ah, me! He speaks to me no more.

He looks away, as if he will never give it up! O you inlets and headlands, you wild creatures of the hills who have shared my life, and you jagged cliffs, to you—for you alone hear me—to you my accustomed companions,

I bewail the treacherous treatment I have received from the son of Achilles. Although he swore to take me to my home, it is to Troy that he takes me. Although he gave me his right hand in pledge of his word, he has taken my bow, the sacred bow, once belonging to Zeus’s son Heracles, and he keeps it, and wants to show it to the Argives as his own.

By force he drags me away, as if he had captured a strong man, and does not see that he is cutting down a corpse, the shadow of smoke, a mere phantom. In my strength he could not have taken me—no!—nor even in my present condition, save by deceit. But now, because of my rotten fate, I have been tricked. What should I do?

Wait, give it back! Now, at least, recover your true self! What do you say? Silence! I am nothing! Double-gated cave, back, back again I return to you, but now stripped and lacking the means to live. Yes, in that chamber I will wither away alone,

bringing down with that bow no winged bird, no beast that roams the hills. Rather I myself shall die in misery, and supply a feast for those who fed me, becoming the prey of those on whom I preyed. Ah, in requital for blood my own blood will flow,

shed at the hands of a man who seemed all unknowing of evil! May destruction seize you!—but no, not yet, not before I learn whether you will change your mind. But if not, may you die a cruel death!

What shall we do? It rests with you, my king, whether we now sail, or move forward to answer his pleas.

A startling pity for him has come upon me—and not now for the first time, but long ago.