Philoctetes
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Come now, son, you must understand what sort of island this is. No mariner approaches it by choice, since there is no anchorage or port where he can find a gainful market or a kindly host. This is not a place to which prudent men voyage. But suppose that some one has put in against his will, for such things may often
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happen in the long course of a man’s life. These visitors, then, when they come, son, have compassionate words for me, and, perhaps moved by pity, they give me a little food or some clothing.
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But there is one thing that no one will do, whenever I mention it: take me home in safety. No, this is already the tenth year that I am wasted by misery from hunger and suffering, by feeding this gluttonous plague. This is what the Atreids and the forceful Odysseus have done to me, boy.
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May the gods on Olympus someday give them agonies as strong in requital for mine!
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Chorus
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I believe that I, too, pity you, son of Poeas, as much as your former visitors.
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Neoptolemus
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And I myself attest your accusations,
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for I know their truth through my own experience with the wickedness of the Atreids and the force of Odysseus.
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Philoctetes
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What, do you also have a grievance against the accursed sons of Atreus, a cause for anger at some mistreatment?
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Neoptolemus
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If only I might one day be allowed to fulfill my heart’s rage by the deeds of my hand,
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so that Mycenae might learn, and Sparta, that Scyros also is a mother of brave men!
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Philoctetes
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Well said, son! Now what is the reason that you have come complaining against them with this fierce wrath?
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Neoptolemus
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I will tell you—and yet it is hard to tell—
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the outrage that I suffered from them upon my arrival there. For when fate decreed that Achilles should die—
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Philoctetes
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Ah, me! Tell me no more, until I first know this—is the son of Peleus dead?
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Neoptolemus
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Dead—not by a mortal hand, but by a god’s.
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He was brought down, as men say, by the arrow of Phoebus.
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Philoctetes
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Well, noble alike are the slayer and the slain. But I am at a loss to know, son, whether I should first inquire into the wrong done you, or mourn the dead.
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Neoptolemus
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Your own sorrows, I think, are enough
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for you, unhappy man, without mourning for those of your neighbor.
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Philoctetes
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You speak the truth. Therefore tell me again what happened to you, and how they wronged you.
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Neoptolemus
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They came for me in a ship elaborately ornamented, shining Odysseus, and he who fostered my father,
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and said—whether truly or falsely, I do not know—that since my father had perished, fate now forbade that anyone but I should take the towers of Troy. Saying that this, my friend, was how things stood, they caused me no long delay before I set sail in haste,
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chiefly because of my yearning for the dead, that I might look upon him before burial, since I had never seen him. Then, besides, theirs was a fine promise, if by accompanying them I might sack the towers of Troy. It was now the second day of my voyage
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when, sped by breeze and oar, I approached bitter Sigeum. When I landed, straightaway the entire army thronged around me with greetings, vowing that they saw their lost Achilles once more alive. He, though, lay ready for burial, and I, unhappy,
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when I had wept for him, went before long to the Atreids, to friends, as it was reasonable to suppose,—and claimed my father’s arms and all else that had been his. O, their reply was bold and shameless! Seed of Achilles, you may take all else that was your father’s. But of those arms another man now is lord, the son of Laertes.
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The tears came quick to my eyes as I sprang up in passionate anger and said in my bitterness, Madman! Have you dared give my arms to another man in my place, without asking me? But Odysseus—for he chanced to be at hand—said, Yes, boy, they awarded them as was just, since it was I who saved the arms and their master by my presence at the crucial moment. Then immediately, in my fury, I began to lash at him with every kind of insult
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and left not one unsaid, if he was indeed to rob me of my arms. At this point, stung by the abuse, though not given to anger, he answered,—You have not gone to where we have; instead you have been absent from where you were needed. And since your tongue is so arrogant, you will never sail back to Scyros with those arms in your possession. In that way rebuked, in that way insulted, I sail for home, deprived of what is my own by that worst offspring of a wicked line, Odysseus.
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And yet I do not blame him as much as I do those in power. For a city hangs wholly on its leaders, and so does an army, but when men shatter law and order, it is the lessons of their teachers that corrupt them. My tale is told in full. May he who hates the Atreids
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be as dear to the gods as he is to me!
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Chorus
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Goddess of the hills, Earth all-nourishing, mother of Zeus himself, you through whose realm the great Pactolus
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rolls golden sands! There, there also, dread Mother, I called upon your name, when all the insults of the Atreids landed upon this man, when they handed over his father’s armor, that sublime marvel,
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to the son of Laertes. Hear it, blessed queen, who rides on bull-slaughtering lions!
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Philoctetes
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It seems that you have come to me, friends, well commended by a grief that matches my own.
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Your story is in harmony with mine, so that I can recognize the work of the Atreids and of Odysseus. For well I know that he would put his tongue to any base tale and to any mischief-making, if thereby he could hope to accomplish something criminal in the end.
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No, that is not at all a wonder to me, but rather that the elder Ajax, if he was there, could bear to see this.
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Neoptolemus
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Ah, friend, he was no longer alive—I would never have been plundered like that while he lived.
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Philoctetes
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What do you say? Is he, too, dead and gone?
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Neoptolemus
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Think of him as of one who sees the sun’s light no more.
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Philoctetes
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Oh, no! But the son of Tydeus, and Sisyphus’ offspring that was bought by Laertes—they will not die, since they do not deserve to live!
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Neoptolemus
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No, indeed, be sure of it. On the contrary, they prosper now
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—yes, and greatly—in the Argive army.
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Philoctetes
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And what of my brave old friend, Nestor of Pylos—is he not alive? He often checked the crimes of those two, if not others, by his sage counsels.
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Neoptolemus
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He has his own troubles now, since Antilochus,
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the son that was at his side, left him for Hades.
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Philoctetes
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Ah, me! These two, again, whom you have named, are men of whose death I had least wished to hear. Gods! What are we to look for, when these men have died, but Odysseus here again lives, when
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in their place he should have been announced as dead?
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Neoptolemus
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The man is a clever wrestler. But even clever schemes, Philoctetes, are often blocked.
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Philoctetes
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Now, by the gods, tell me—where was Patroclus when you needed him, he whom your father loved beyond all others?
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Neoptolemus
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He, too, was dead. And in a brief maxim I would teach you this: War takes no evil man by choice, but always the good men.
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Philoctetes
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I will attest to that, and with that very truth in mind, I will ask you how fares a man of little worth, but sharp of tongue and clever.
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Neoptolemus
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Surely the man of whom you ask is no one but Odysseus?
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Philoctetes
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I did not mean him; there was one Thersites, who could never be content to speak once and briefly, even though no one wanted him to speak at all. Do you know if he is alive?
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Neoptolemus
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I never saw him, but I heard that he is still alive.
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Philoctetes
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He would be—no evil thing has ever been known to perish. No, the gods take excellent care of their kind. They find a strange joy in turning back from Hades all things criminal
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and crooked, while they are always dispatching the just and the good from life. How am I to regard these doings? How can I praise them, when in the very act of praising the ways of the gods, I find that the gods are evil?
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Neoptolemus
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I, at least, son of Oetean Poeas, will be on my guard hereafter against Ilium
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and the Atreids, and look on them only from afar. And where the worse man is stronger than the good, where nobility goes to ruin and the vile man dominates—among such men I will never make my friends. No, rocky Scyros shall suffice for me
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from now on to make me delight in my home. Now to my ship! And you, son of Poeas, farewell—as best you can, farewell! May the gods free you of your disease, just as you wish! But we must be going, so that we
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may set sail whenever the god permits our voyage.
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Philoctetes
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Are you setting out already, son?
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Philoctetes
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Now by your father and by your mother, son, by all that you cherish at home—
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I solemnly supplicate you, do not leave me alone like this, helpless amid these miseries in which I live, so harsh as you see, and so numerous as I have said! Consider me a small side-task. Great is
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your disgust, well I know, at such a cargo. Yet bear with it all the same—to noble minds baseness is hateful, and a good deed is glorious. If you forsake this task, you will have a stain on your honor; but if you perform it, boy, you will win the prize of highest honor—if I return alive to Oeta’s soil.
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Come, the trouble will not last one full day. Endure it, take me and throw me where you will—in the hold, the prow, the stern, wherever I will least annoy my shipmates. Say yes, by the great god of suppliants, son;
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be persuaded! I supplicate you at your knees, I am an infirm wretch, and lame! Do not leave me desolate like this, far from the paths of mankind! No, bring me safely to your own home, or to Euboea, Chalcodon’s seat;
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and from there it will be no long journey for me to Oeta and the Trachinian heights, and fair-flowing Spercheius, so that you may show me to my beloved father, though long I have feared that he may have departed me. For often
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did I summon him by means of those who came here, sending imploring prayers that he would himself send a ship and get me safely home. But either he is dead, or else, as I think is likely, my messengers thought my concerns of little account and hurried on their homeward voyage.
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Now, however, since in you I have found one who can be both an escort and a messenger, save me and show me mercy, keeping in mind that all human destiny is full of the fear and the danger that prosperity may be followed by its opposite. He who stands clear of trouble must beware of dangers,
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and when a man lives at ease, then it is that he must look most closely to his livelihood, lest it secretly suffer ruin.
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Chorus
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Have pity, my king! He has told of a struggle with sufferings manifold and oppressive—may the like befall no friend of mine!
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And if, my king, you hate the hateful Atreids, then, turning their wrongdoing to this man’s gain,
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I would take him in your swift, well-rigged ship to the home for which he longs, and so escape the god’s just wrath.
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Neoptolemus
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Though now as a casual spectator you are compliant,
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beware lest later, when filled with his disease by its constant company, you prove no longer constant to these sentiments.
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Chorus
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That will not happen. You will never have just cause to rebuke me for that!
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Neoptolemus
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Well, then, it would shame me if the stranger were to find
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me less ready than you are to toil for his good. Come, if it pleases you, let us sail. Let the man set out at once; our ship, for her part, will carry him, and will not refuse. Only may the gods give us safe passage from this land, and from here to whatever destination we choose!
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Philoctetes
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O day of joy unsurpassed! Most delightful man, and you good sailors! If only I could show you in deeds what a true friend you have made in me! Let us be going, my son, when we two have made a solemn farewell to my homeless home inside, so that you may also learn
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by what means I sustained my life, and how stout of heart I was born. For I believe that the mere sight would have deterred any other man but me from enduring these sufferings. But I have been slowly schooled by necessity to endure misery. Neoptolemus is about to follow Philoctetes into the cave.
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Chorus
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Wait, let us listen to the two men who are coming!
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One is a crewman of your ship, the other a stranger. Go in after you hear their report.
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Merchant
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Son of Achilles, I asked my companion here, when he was guarding your ship with two others, to tell me where you might be found,
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since I have chanced upon you unexpectedly by the good fortune of coming to anchor off this very coast. With no great company I am homeward bound on my trader’s voyage from Ilium to Peparethus with its cluster-laden vines, but when I heard that the sailors
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were all of your crew, I resolved not to continue my voyage in silence, without first giving you my news and getting the due reward. You know nothing, I suspect, of your own affairs: the new designs the Greeks
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have regarding you, and not only designs, but deeds in progress and no longer postponed.
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Neoptolemus
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The service you have done me by your forethought, sir, unless I am unworthy, will remain in my grateful thoughts. But tell me just what the designs are that you mentioned, so that I may understand
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what is the strange plan of the Greeks that you know.
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Merchant
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Pursuers are on the way in search of you with a fleet. They are the aged Phoenix and the sons of Theseus.
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Neoptolemus
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To bring me back by force, or through persuasion?
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Merchant
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I do not know; but I have come to tell you what I did hear.
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Neoptolemus
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Are Phoenix and his comrades really so eager to do this favor for the Atreids?
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Merchant
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Be sure that it is being done, and without delay.
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Neoptolemus
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Then why was Odysseus not ready to sail on this mission, and bring the message himself? Or did some fear hold him back?
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Merchant
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Oh, he and the son of Tydeus were readying for pursuit of another man, just as I was leaving port.
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Neoptolemus
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Who is this other after whom Odysseus himself was sailing?
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Merchant
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There was a man. . . . But tell me first who that is over there. And whatever you say, do speak quietly.
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Neoptolemus
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There, sir, before your eyes is the renowned Philoctetes.
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Merchant
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Then do not question me further, but get yourself out of here as quickly as possible and sail away.
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Philoctetes
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What is he saying, boy? Why does the sailor traffic with you about me in these dark whispers?
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Neoptolemus
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His meaning yet eludes me. But, whatever he will say, he must say openly—to you, me and my men here.