Sophocles, Philoctetes
Robert Torrance, Ed.

Odysseus
1005 What can you do about it?

Philoctetes
Throw myself
down on those rocks and dash my brains upon them!

Odysseus
Two of you, seize him: this must not take place.
Two Chorus members seize Philoctetes and bind his hands.

Philoctetes
My hands, oh how you suffer now without
1010your bowstring, bound together by this man!
But you, whose thoughts are foul and servile, you
stole on me, hunted me, and took this boy
whom I had never seen to be your shield -
My equal, but too good for you! - who only
1015tried to perform what you had ordered, though
clearly he is remorseful now for what
he did in error and for what I suffered.
But your base soul, peeping from hidden comers,
trained him against his nature and his will
1020to be a shrewd contriver of evil deeds;
and now, O wretch, you bind me and intend
to take me from this shore where once you left me,
a friendless, lonely, homeless, living corpse.
Oh!
1025May you be cursed, as I have often prayed!
Yet no . . . the gods grant nothing sweet to me,
and you will live in happiness while I
drag on my wretched life with further pains,
laughed at by you and by your twin commanders,
1030the sons of Atreus, whom you serve so well.
And yet when we first sailed for Troy, you were
deceived and forced, while I, who suffer now,
came willingly, with seven ships, until
you cast me off - or they, if you prefer!
1035Why will you take me? what can you intend?
I am a worthless nothing, long since dead!
Why do I seem, god-hated man, no longer
crippled and putrid to you? How will you
sacrifice if I sail with you? for that
1040was your excuse for leaving me before.
May you be damned! - you will be damned for all
the wrongs I suffered, if the gods are just.
I know they are, for you would not have sailed
on such a trip after a man like me